New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993. dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - A memoir of five perfect summers spent at a camp in the Green Mountains of southern Vermont. SIGNED on the title page. 321 pp. ISBN: 0-679-418946.

Santa Fe, NM: Sherman Asher Publishing, (1999). SIGNED first edition - The story of the poet's boyhood in California, where he arrived from his native Costa Rica in 1939 at age twelve. Cover praise from Marjorie Agosin, among others who called it a "lyrical memoir shaped by an exquisite language and a wise heart." IINSCRIBED on the half title page - "To --- the delights of meeting" and dated in 2000. 140 pp. ISBN: 1-890932078.

New York: Norton, (2003). First edition - Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist recounts his 1950s and '60s childhood in the Midwestern steel town of Lorian, Ohio. The only boy of four children, he grew up in a blue-collar family with a father who "hated his lot in life with every particle of his moody, dissatisfied soul." To escape from home life, he buried himself in books - and describes many of them here. Photographs. Includes Dirda's book list. 330 pp.

Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977. dj. Hardcover first edition - A memoir focusing on the first twenty-two years of her life, as the privileged daughter of the famous actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and granddaughter of George du Maurier, the author and artist, and ending as she is falling in love with both Cornwall - the site of her most well-known novel,'Rebecca' - and with her future husband. Illustrated with photographs. Author's note, index. ix, 204 pp. ISBN: 0-385130163.

New York: Persea Books, (1978). An account of her childhood years in England, as a German-Jewish refugee, and especially of the time spent at an unusual school in the ancient town of Cirencester, where she and her brother and mother were among the evacuees from London. 140 pp. ISBN: 0-892551372.

San Francisco: Chronicle Books, (2007.) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - An account of growing up (up to age 13) as the daughter of a wandering hippie mother and an absent father, in Northern California in the 1970's, and in New Mexico. Praise from Peter Coyote (who makes a brief appearance in this as a teacher at a free school) who calls this 'an insightful and riveting book about a hippie child gone bad.' SIGNED on the title page. 240 pp. ISBN: 9780811859455.

New York: Harper Collins, (1994) dj. Hardcover first edition - The first book in this Nobel laureate's autobiography - covers her childhood in Africa and ends with her arrival in London in 1949, with the manuscript for her first book - 'The Grass Is Singing' - in her luggage. Frontispiece portrait and 16 pages of photographs. 419 pp. ISBN: 0-060171502.

New York: Harper Collins, (1994) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - The first book in this Nobel laureate's autobiography - covers her childhood in Africa and ends with her arrival in London in 1949, with the manuscript for her first book - 'The Grass Is Singing' - in her luggage. Frontispiece portrait and 16 pages of photographs. SIGNED by Lessing on the half title page. 419 pp. ISBN: 0-060171502.

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, (1987.) dj. Hardcover first edition - Author's candid and intimate memoir which focuses on eight formative years of her life, from age 13 to 21, from high school through college. Illustrated with 16 pages of photographs. Includes biographical glossary of some of the figures mentioned in the book, 278 pp. ISBN: 0-151421935.

New York: Harper & Row, (1981.) dj. Hardcover first edition - Award winning novelist's account of his childhood and youth. When his mother died when he was just 6, he was raised by his father Will - first in rural Nebraska and then in Chicago. Frontispiece. 200 pp. ISBN: 0-06-014856x.

New York: Harper & Row, (1981.) dj. Hardcover first edition - Award winning novelist's account of his childhood and youth. When his mother died when he was just 6, he was raised by his father Will - first in rural Nebraska and then in Chicago. Frontispiece. 200 pp. ISBN: 0-06-014856x.

New York: Harper & Row, (1981.) dj. Hardcover first edition - Award winning novelist's account of his childhood and youth. When his mother died when he was just 6, he was raised by his father Will - first in rural Nebraska and then in Chicago. Frontispiece. 200 pp. ISBN: 0-06-014856x.

New York: Dial Press, (2010) dj. Hardcover first edition - A funny and touching memoir of a crummy - and crumby - childhood in the 1960s and 70s. Each chapter includes a recipe. 350 pp. ISBN: 978-0385342988.

New York: W. W. Norton & Company. (1989) dj. Hardcover first edition - The autobiography of poet and journalist for the BBC Philip O' Connor, focusing on his difficult and uncommon childhood. Includes both introductions by Stephen Spender, for the first edition in 1958 and to the new edition in 1988 in the UK. 229 pp. ISBN: 0-393-027635.

Philadelphia: Lippincott, (1976.) dj. Hardcover - 'My Years Before Stillmeadow.' Reminiscences of her life before she moved to Stillmeadow, her family, her childhood in the mining country of Mexico and the southwest, her education, including college at Wellesley during World War I, her marriage to music instructor Frank Taber, and her life as a writer in New York City during World War II, and much more. Illustrated with sketches by Pamela Johnson. 224 pp. ISBN: 0-397011334.

London: Hutchinson, (1965) dj. Hardcover first edition - Autobiography by the daughter of Florenz Ziegfeld and Billie Burke - in which she describes her childhood, which included such things a pet baby elephant, as "abnormally happy." Photographs. 209 pp. Dust jacket design by Paul Bacon.