New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. dj. Hardcover first edition - Taking Johnson's advice to heart that it is 'time to be in earnest' when one reaches 77, this is the first autobiographical work by this noted mystery writer, a memoir in the form of a diary of one year. Photographs, index. 269 pp. ISBN: 0-375-41066x.

New York: Norton, 1994. Hardcover first edition - A beautiful collection of photographs and drawings of Joyce and his family. Introduction by Anthony Burgess.

New York: St Martin's, (1998.) dj. Hardcover first edition - The first full biography of this influential father, about whom James Joyce said "Hundreds of pages and scores of characters came from him." The London Sunday Times called this "An exuberant account of the man who set the whole remarkable Joyce saga rolling; [this] book leads us inexorably, truthfully, into a darker, more depraved world than anything most of us have associated with Joyce to date." Illustrated with photographs and reproductions from periodicals of the era. Bibliography, source notes, index. Map endpapers. 494 pp. ISBN: 0-312-185995.

New York: St Martin's, (1999.) dj. Hardcover first edition - The third volume in the autobiography of M M Kaye, the author of 'The Far Pavilions.' This book begins when Kaye's father takes a new post in China and she is once again forced to leave India. A vividly written and wise look back on a long woman coming into her own in the years before the devastation wrought by the second World War. Illustrated with photographs. Glossary. 368 pp. ISBN: 0-312-265816.

New York: The Viking Press, (1999.) dj. Hardcover first edition - The second (and final) volume of his selected letters, these letters written between 1957, the year 'On the Road' was published, and the day before his death in 1969 at age forty-seven, tells Kerouac's life story through his candid correspondence with friends, confidants, and editors; among them Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Philip Whalen, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joyce Johnson, Gary Snyder and Malcolm Cowley. Edited and with an introduction and commentary by Ann Charters. Notes, index. xvii, 514 pp. ISBN: 0-670-861901.

New York: St Martin's, 1978. dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - Includes interviews with many other Beat writers - Burroughs, Carolyn Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso, Lenore Kandel, and many more - and also comments by others who knew Kerouac as a child or as a fellow worker. Photographs, index, 339 pgs. This copy is SIGNED by Gifford on the title page, and uncommon thus.

Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, (2007.) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - A mix of memoir and reportage, this moves from Krasny's coming of age during the 1960s in the San Francisco area, with their blend of the civil rights movement and political activism, to his career as a struggling novelist, as an educator and, almost by accident, as a radio host. Each chapter highlights interviews with four authors, from Joyce Carol Oates, to Rusell Banks, David Mamet, Edward P. Jones, Alice Walker, Paul Auster, Studs Terkel, and Umberto Eco, to name only a few. SIGNED on the title page and dated in the year of publication. Photographs. 317 pp. ISBN: 0-804756716.

New York: Grossman Publishers -The Viking Press, 1976. dj. Hardcover first edition - "An Inquiry Into the Lives of Nine Masters of Suspense" - an exploration of the events that shaped the minds and inspired the classic works of mystery and crime by nine writers: Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K. Chesterton, John Buchan, Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, Georges Simenon, Raymond Chandler and Alfred Hitchcock. Bibliography. 272 pp. ISBN: 0-670255815.

Woodstock NY: Overlook Press, (1999.) dj. Hardcover first edition - "Primo Levi is represented in this world almost entirely by his writings, and his public self--shy, intelligent, diffident--in some respects disguised the man within. This first biography delves deeply into the life and mind of the controversial writer" a chemist by training, a partisan during World War II, a philosopher, and most importantly a survivor of the concentration camps and a Holocaust witness. Translated from the French by Steve Cox. List of Primo Levi's works. Photographs, notes, glossary of concentration camp terms, bibliography, and index. x, 452 pp. ISBN: 0-87951-8065.

New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992. dj. Includes chapters on such diverse writers as the imagist poets, HD, Amy Lowell and Moore; regional women writers like Cather and Glasgow, and the women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Bilbiography, index, notes.

New York: St Martin's, (1988.) dj. Hardcover first edition - A biography which focuses on the last years of London's life: 1903 he left his wife and two young daughters for Charmian Kittredge, a woman five years his senior but a spirited woman who was in many ways his soul-mate: she took part in his adventures, acted as his editor and transcriber and contributed to his accomplishments. After his death at age forty in 1916 Charmian (1871-1955) spent the rest of her lifetime devoted to keeping his reputation alive. This book draws heavily on Charmian's diaries and personal photographs. Notes, bibliography, index. xiii, 362 pp plus a 16 page insert of black and white photographs. ISBN: 0-312-021607.

New York: Dodd, Mead, (1975) dj. Hardcover first edition - Biography of this important American woman poet, a self-liberated woman who ignored the strictures of her Boston Brahmin family. Illustrated with photographs. Selected bibliography, index. x. 372 pp. ISBN: 0-396070221.

New York: Mysterious Press, (1994) dj. Hardcover first edition - The story of America's first best-selling suspense novelist and playwright, from her years as a student nurse, as a World War I correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post, her life as the wife as a doctor to a socialite with an oppulent lifestyle that even her income had trouble supporting. She went to Washington to champion the rights of the Blackfeet Indians, and she was one of the first to write candidly about her experiences with breast cancer. Photographs, bibliography. xii, 335 pp. ISBN: 0-892964448.

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1967. dj. Hardcover first edition - A protrait of Andre Malraux as a young man, written by his companion and ex-wife - included is an account of their expedition to Cambodia, where he was arrested for the theft of state property. 372 pgs.

New York: Picador, (1998.) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - An account of the Maynard family, but especially the story of her controversial relationship with J. D. Salinger (when she was just 18 and he was 35 years her senior) and its influence on her writing and on the rest of her life. Frontispiece, photographic endpapers. SIGNED on the title page with a caricature drawing of herself. 347 pp. ISBN: 0-312-195567.

New York: Picador, (1998.) dj. Hardcover - SIGNED on the title page. An account of the Maynard family, but especially the story of her relationship with J. D. Salinger and its influence on her writing and on the rest of her life. Frontispiece, photographic endpapers. 347 pp. ISBN: 0-312-195567.

New York: Picador, (1998.) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - An account of the Maynard family, but especially the story of her relationship with J. D. Salinger and its influence on her writing and on the rest of her life. Frontispiece, photographic endpapers. SIGNED on the title page with a caricature drawing of herself. 347 pp. ISBN: 0-312-195567.

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: Mysterious Press, (1991) dj. Hardcover first edition - "A biography of America's greatest noir writer" based on an in-depth analysis of his writings. Illustrated with photographs. Includes appendices with list his novels, other published writings and give a brief synopsis of his unpublished/unfinished work. Index. 340 pp. ISBN: 0-892963921.

Austin, TX: State House Press, 1992. dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - A fascinating journal of a writer at work, a complete history of the novel "Mexico" which Michener had half-written and set aside over 30 years ago. Illustrated with photographs of Mexico and Spain by Michener, and including a chapter on "Texas Girls" which was cut from the final manuscript. SIGNED by Michener on the half title page. ISBN: 0-938349-937.

New York: Random House, 1993. dj. Hardcover first edition - Part biography, part memoir, part critical study, part exploration of sexual politics in our time, this is the story of the friendship between a young writer and her mentor. In 1974, while 'Fear of Flying' was still a relatively obscure first novel, Erica Jong received an enthusiastic fan letter from Henry Miller, then an old man of eighty-three. This began a friendship that would last until Miller's death in 1980. Includes letters between Miller and Jong and an annotated bibliography of his works. 337 pp. ISBN: 0-394584988.

New York: Arcade Publishing, (1995.) dj. Hardcover first edition - Translated from the French by Timothy Bent. Based on unpublished letters and recollections of conversations, this is an intimate account of a writer's self discovery as observed by his friend, the famed photograper Brassai. Illustrated with sixteen black and white photographs by Brassai. Translator's note, map, bibliography. ix, 224 pp. ISBN: 1559702877.

New York: Oxford University Press, (1991). Hardcover first edition - Biography of the author of "Gone With the Wind" - one which explores how her Southern upbringing, in which she was imbued from childhood with tales of the Civil War, affected the novel. Overall a sympathetic and perceptive look at a woman who in many ways defied the cultural expectations of her time. Photographs. Notes, index. xix, 533 pp. ISBN: 0-195052765.

New York: Bloomsbury, (2015). SIGNED first edition - A portrait of Vladimir Nabokov told through the lens of the years he spent in America - where he and Vera arrived in 1943, fleeing the Nazis. Roper discusses Nabokov's friendship with Edmund Wilson, his time at Cornell, but focuses on the journeys - 200,000 miles of them - which he took in the West, with his wife, Vera, and son Dmitri, in search of butterflies - on the two-lane highways and the roadside motels that he brings to life in Lolita. SIGNED on the title page. Photographs/ Bibliography, notes. 333 pp.

New York: Bloomsbury, (2015). SIGNED first edition - A portrait of Vladimir Nabokov told through the lens of the years he spent in America - where he and Vera arrived in 1943, fleeing the Nazis. Roper discusses Nabokov's friendship with Edmund Wilson, his time at Cornell, but focuses on the journeys - 200,000 miles of them - which he took in the West, with his wife, Vera, and son Dmitri, in search of butterflies - on the two-lane highways and the roadside motels that he brings to life in Lolita. SIGNED on the title page. Photographs/ Bibliography, notes. 333 pp.

New York: Putnam, (1995) dj. Hardcover first edition - The most comprehensive biography to date of this very complicated woman. Bair is the first scholar to be granted access to Nin's original diaries - all 250,000 pages of them - and to have the full cooperation of Rupert Pole, her surviving husband and of Nin's family and friends. She takes pains to treat Nin with the objectivity and critical analysis a write deserves. Illustrated with photographs. Extensive notes, index. A massive book at 656 pages. ISBN: 0-399139885.