Search Results: Authors starting with O from ReadInk

Dublin: The Sign of the Three Candles, Ltd.. Good. 1952 (c.1939). Third impression. Softcover. [moderate external age-toning and light edgewear, tiny tear in paper spine covering at top front hinge, external cracks and wrinkles in spine but binding intact, one-time owner's name and address in brown felt-tip ink at top of front endpaper]. (woodcut illustrations) A collection of 102 songs (music and words), "all well worth singing," many with wonderful titles like "There's Whiskey in the Jar," "The Women Are Worse Than the Men," and "The Foot and Mouth Disease." Quite a few are "now first published, and nearly all of them are adorned with woodcuts taken from old Dublin broadsheet ballads," and the book also contains "a few notes appended for the guidance of those who delight in delving for further fragments of forgotten lore." (The publication statement for the edition (marked as "Third Impression" on the rear… Read More

Garden City NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.. Very Good in Good dj. 1930. First Edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [ex-lending library book (label on front pastedown, large neatly-applied stamp on ffep), small unrelated bookstore stamp at bottom corner of front pastedown, very slight fraying to cloth at one bottom corner, otherwise just lightly worn; jacket has minor paper loss at several corners, a few small tears and associated creasing, internal tape repair to a rather jagged tear at bottom of rear panel (fairly neatly done, with minimal paper loss)]. "A brilliant and modern view of American married life as [the author] has seen it in smart suburbia." The plot centers around Joan, "a passionate, brilliant, dissatisfied woman with relative indifference to the idea of virtue and an insatiable desire to get something more from life than flavorless security," who leaves her husband and children to run off to Europe with an artist, only to discover that… Read More

Boalsburg PA: BearManor Media. Near Fine. 2006. First Edition. Softcover. [basically as-new, with just very slight handling wear]. Trade PB (B&W photographs, facsimiles) Biography of the actress who was hugely popular (and among Hollywood's highest paid performers) during the early and mid-1930s, but is little-remembered today. The book makes extensive use of her diaries, preserved at Wesleyan University, which were "her personal venue for letting off emotional steam," and reveal her to have been a woman who "pursued romantic love, as well as sexual relationships, with gusto and no apologies." .

Shelburne (Ontario)/Sauk City WI: The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box. Near Fine in Fine dj. 1998. First Edition. Hardcover. [both the book and jacket are in as-new condition, the book blemished only by the presence of the previous owner's initials plus date & place of purchase, in ink along the edge of the rear pastedown (concealed beneath the jacket flap)]. A Sherlock Holmes mystery, set in 1895. When a Cardinal, a personal confidant of Pope Leo XIII, mysteriously disappears while attending a monks' retreat at St. Boniface Abbey. Holmes and Watson are brought into the case by Inspector Lestrade, and Holmes is hired by the Pope himself to find the missing Cardinal. "This bizarre and shocking mystery caused Pope Leo XIII to confiscate Watson's manuscript and bury it in the Vatican vaults. Only now, a century later, can this gruesome story be revealed." .

New York: Random House. Good. 1936. First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [moderately shelfworn book, slight fraying to cloth at top of spine, bottom corners lightly bumped, gilt spine lettering dulled but still readable]. (B&W photo frontispiece) Odets's play about "the decay of the middle class" (per Harold Clurman, in his introduction). First presented by the Group Theatre in December 1935; the original cast included Morris Carnovsky, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Luther Adler, Elia Kazan, and Vincent Sherman. Odets came to Hollywood in early 1936, hoping to make some easy movie money to help finance this production; he may not have gotten on the train quickly enough, though, as the play closed in February 1936. .

New York: Random House. Near Fine in Very Good dj. (c.1939). First Edition. Hardcover. [nice clean book, with minimal shelfwear; jacket browned at spine, tiny tear and associated tiny crease at top of front panel, modest chip (paper loss) at top of spine]. (B&W photographs) Odets play, originally produced by the Group Theatre in 1938, about a dentist who's carrying on with his young assistant, while his business and his marriage are in a shambles. "Rocket" was less overtly political than his earlier work, and less successful than his previous play, "Golden Boy." ("Rocket" ran just 131 performances on Broadway, about half as long as "Golden Boy," which by then was already headed for the silver screen, just as Odets himself had decamped for Hollywood.) .

New York: Random House. Very Good+ in Good dj. (c.1949). 2nd printing. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [nice clean book, with moderate shelfwear to bottom edge and top of spine; jacket edgeworn, with some chipping along the top edge, 1-1/2" closed tear at top of front panel]. One might gather from this play -- "a savage indictment of Hollywood doings, authentic as well as venomous," in the words of critic Howard Barnes -- that Odets's time in the cinema capital, trying but only fitfully succeeding at being a screenwriter, might have left him just a teensy bit embittered. One would be correct. John Garfield (who would soon have his own reasons for being embittered by Hollywood) starred in the Broadway production in 1949, directed by Lee Strasberg; by the time the film version was made in 1955, Garfield was dead and the role went to Jack Palance, who gave a scenery-chewing performance under the direction of Robert Aldrich, never the most subtle of filmmakers. .

New York: The Viking Press. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. 1951. Book Club Edition. Hardcover. [a bit of wear to bottom edges of covers, page edges a little age-toned, one diagonally-creased upper page corner; jacket shows some wear along top and bottom edges, light spotting/rubbing to front panel]. Drama about a has-been alcoholic actor whose life and career are redeemed by the faith and loyalty of his wife and his stage director. Basis for the 1954 film of the same name starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and William Holden; it's also been revived several times (both on Broadway and off-Broadway), and adapted twice for TV. (The lead in the original 1950/51 Broadway production was Paul Kelly (no relation to Grace) -- a fact that, astonishingly, goes completely unmentioned in Kelly's Wikipedia writeup. Why "astonishingly"? Look up Kelly's biography and you'll see what I mean. Short version: he once killed a guy while drunk, for which he served a couple of years… Read More

New York: Grosset & Dunlap. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. (c.1938). Reprint. Hardcover. [a solid, clean book, slightly bumped at top front corner, spine cloth a little mottled, vintage bookseller's label on rear pastedown (The Village Book Shop, Carmel, Calif.); jacket is edgeworn, with a 2-inch closed tear at top of front panel, slight fading to spine]. Novel about a young newspaperman who gets the goods on a bunch of crooked politicians, but is kidnapped and framed on a hit-and-run manslaughter charge and sent to the state pen before he can give crucial testimony in court. Turned into a hard-hitting 1938 film by Warner Bros. with Jimmy Cagney and George Raft in the leads. (This edition was apparently printed from the first edition plates; although the binding and dust jacket state G&D, the internals include the original Bobbs-Merrill front matter, including the "First Edition" statement.) .

New York: Sheridan House. Good in Fair dj. (c.1940). First Edition. Hardcover. [moderate shelfwear, cloth slightly worn through at a couple of corners, spine turned, soiling and age-toning to edge of text block; jacket heavily worn and soiled, split almost the entire length of front hinge, several scrape-tears to rear panel, dampstain along bottom edge of rear panel, etc.]. INSCRIBED -- "Best wishes to my / friend and banker / George Hellen" -- and SIGNED by the author on the ffep. Mystery novel set in Minneapolis, with the protagonist, "a canny, tough and ready newspaperman, a fighting Irishman, who has just enough softy in him to make him goofy about a lady in distress." (Not concidentally, Minneapolis was the hometown of author Odlum, where he had once been a newspaper editor.) This dude, Johnny O'Sullivan, is what's known as a "combination man," meaning that "he gets both the story and the pictures [photographs] on a dirty assignment where… Read More

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Good. 1941. First Edition. Hardcover. 0809308886 . (no dust jacket) [bottom edges shelfworn to the point of some exposure of boards, spine somewhat turned; also has newly-mounted new pastedown and ffep, the latter fashioned so as to fold over the original ffep (still present), which bears labels from two literary agencies (Maxim Lieber, New York; and Phil Berg/Bert Allenberg Inc., Beverly Hills)]. The author's second (and last) novel, about a Cajun family in the Louisiana Delta country that salvages an outsized doorstep from the river, then sets about trying to procure a house of sufficient grandeur to match it, despite (or perhaps in defiance) of their own serious impoverishment. Reprinted in the "Lost American Fiction" series in 1979, with a new Afterword by Eudora Welty. .

New York/London: G.P. Putnam's Sons/The Knickerbocker Press. Good in Fair dj. 1931. First American Edition. Hardcover. [book's covers are stained along the bottom edge of the front cover and in the middle of the rear cover, apparently from the jacket having been wet at one point and partially adhered to the book, otherwise the book is is only moderately shelfworn; the jacket shows quite a bit of internal staining (mostly the rear panel and spine), with some bleed-through on the spine, but considerable rubbing elsewhere, a few small nicks and tiny chips, etc.]. "A pulsating, deeply exciting novel of the Irish Rebellion," by an author who had himself been an important participant. A socialist and labor organizer, O'Donnell had been a commander in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), following which he was a leader of the IRA faction that opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty that established the Irish Free State, and soon found himself… Read More

Garden City NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., for the Crime Club. Very Good-. 1941. First Edition. Hardcover. (in a REPRODUCTION dust jacket) [a sound copy, with some splotchy fading near the top of both the frotn and rear covers, also slight fading of the spine cloth; one-time owner's initials plus date & place of purchase in ink along edge of rear pastedown (concealed beneath the rear jacket flap)]. Murder mystery set at a glamorous hotel on the fictional "Coral Island," in which the amateur-sleuth protagonist is a "glamor boy musician and frustrated lawyer"; the suggestive-to-modern-eyes title notwithstanding, however, there is no actual gay content to the book. Of this author's eight mystery novels (all but one published between 1939 and 1949), this was the only one that didn't feature her signature character, an amateur-sleuthing New Jersey milkman named Matt Winters. PLEASE NOTE that the dust jacket on this book is a REPRODUCTION of the original. .

Garden City NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc. for The Crime Club. Very Good in Very Good- dj. 1949. First Edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [shelfwear to bottom edge, spine slightly turned, one-time owner's initials plus date & place of purchase in ink along edge of rear pastedown (concealed beneath rear jacket flap); the jacket has a ragged closed tear at the upper front hinge, a small piece torn away from the lower right corner of the front panel, edgewear and creasing along the top edge of the front panel, and a little array of scrape marks at the bottom of the rear panel]. One of the author's numerous "Matt Winters" mysteries, in which the New Jersey milkman-cum-amateur sleuth saves a young woman from a suicide attempt, then gets involved with her well-to-do family and its domineering matriarch. .

Los Angeles: Evergreen / Bernard of Hollywood Publishing. Near Fine. (c.1999, 1950). First Edition Thus. Softcover. [tiny bump to bottom right corner of front cover, otherwise virtually as-new]. Trade PB (B&W photographs) A new, trilingual edition (text in English, French and German) of a "how-to" book on pin-up photography by the guy who virtually invented the technique, originally published by him under his own imprint in 1950, under the title "Pin-Ups: A Step Beyond." (The rear cover photo depicts a relaxed and bemused Robert Mitchum perusing a copy of the original publication.) Bruno Bernard (1912-1987) was a German-born emigre who only took up photography shortly after arriving in Los Angeles (fleeing Nazi Germany) in 1937. Although he had no formal training in photography, he gained a reputation during the 1940s for his "posed candid" style of photographing beautiful actresses (including a young Marilyin Monroe), and eventually started billing… Read More

New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. Very Good+. (c.1948). First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [modest shelfwear, a good solid copy]. The author's second book, a mystery/suspense novel about a doctor who returns to New York after an absence of some years, and soon finds himself kidnapped and driven to a New Jersey resort, as part of some criminal enterprise which it takes him a while to figure out. .

Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. Near Fine in Near Fine dj. (c.1973). First Edition. Hardcover. [nice tight copy, just a touch of soiling to top of text block; jacket spine very slightly faded, no other discernible wear]. (B&W photographs) INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the front endpaper: "For ______: / Hope we can get / together for an interview - / Best / Ron Offen." Described in the jacket blurb as "the first [biography] ever attempted of Marlon Brando, this book was issued just after THE GODFATHER had brought the actor back to the top of the movie-star heap, but before the release of LAST TANGO IN PARIS (which is discussed only briefly in the text, with the author opining that it "promises to be another interesting effort"). Signed by Author .

Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. Fine in Near Fine dj. (c.1972). First Edition. Hardcover. [nice tight clean copy with no discernible wear; jacket shows just a tiny bit of rubbing to the lower extremities and the top of the spine]. (B&W photographs) INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the front endpaper: "For ______: / Listen you dirty / rat, where the / hell is your / ape-suit. / Best - / Ron." This first book-length biography of the tough-guy actor (who was also an accomplished song-and-dance man), who had retired from the screen a decade earlier, beat Cagney's own memoir to the bookstalls by about four years. Signed by Author .

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Very Good+ in Good dj. 1927. American Edition Second Printing. Hardcover. NOISBN . [good solid book, a little soiling to rear board; jacket slightly chipped at top corners and both ends of spine, moderate soiling, striking front panel illustration unblemished] The title character is "a strong man, morally debased by idleness and drink, existing on the fringe of the underworld in Dublin. He falls in love with a girl who strays from the streets into his life, and this love for a weak woman fixes its talons in his heart and eventually destroys them both." Another Irish laughfest by the author of "The Informer." Reproduces the striking jacket portrait of Gilhooley from the first U.K. edition (Jonathan Cape, 1926), by John Austen -- although printed in such a way as to partially obliterate his signature. .

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Very Good. (c.1928). First American Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [spine turned, fading to spine cloth, spine lettering dulled/rubbed, a little array of indentations at the left edge of the front cover; bookplate of Hollywood writer-producer Carey Wilson on front pastedown, vintage bookseller's label (Unity Pegues, Hollywood, California) on rear pastedown]. Novel about a young Irishman who escapes from a British internment camp following the Irish Civil War and makes his way to the United States, from where he plots a political assassination, eventually returning to Dublin in disguise to carry out his mission. The novel had its inspiration in the assassination of the Irish Free State government minister Kevin O'Higgins, which was carried out by the IRA in 1927 as revenge for the minister's role in the executions of dozens of IRA prisoners during the civil war. .