Best of
Autobiography

1966

An Island to Oneself: The Story of Six Years on a Desert Island


Tom Neale - 1966
    For years while storekeeping in the South Pacific, he planned, read and talked until the great day when he was landed on his little kingdom, aware of (but undismayed by) the fact that he would have to struggle with the full strength of body and mind to survive. Neale's gripping account of his years spent alone on Suvarov is an unforgettable tale of peril, beauty, and solitude.

The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934


Anaïs Nin - 1966
    Edited and with a Preface by Gunther Stuhlmann

Choice of Weapons


Gordon Parks - 1966
    The noted author/photographer recounts his life and the bitter struggle he has faced, since he was sixteen-years-old, against poverty and racial prejudice.

Give Me This Mountain


Helen Roseveare - 1966
    Helen Roseveare, well-known missionary doctor and author. She worked in the north-eastern province of the Belgian Congo with the Heart of Africa Mission in the 1950's and 60's. Physical dangers and her personal ambition in the Congo often almost sank her, but her faith and hard work brought her through. Her story is one of bright mountains, conquered after experiencing the dark valleys and learning to give the glory to God.

Born Free: The Full Story


Joy Adamson - 1966
    But as Elsa had been born free, Joy made the heartbreaking decision that she must be returned to the wild when she was old enough to fend for herself. Since the first publication of Born Free and its sequels Living Free and Forever Free, generations of readers have been enchanted, inspired and moved by these books’ uplifting charm and the remarkable interaction between Joy and Elsa. Millions have also come to know and love Born Free through the immortal film starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers. But here is the chance to rediscover the original story in this 50th anniversary edition, in the words of the woman who reared Elsa and walked with the lions.

Speak, Memory


Vladimir Nabokov - 1966
    A newer edition may be found here.From one of the 20th century's great writers comes one of the finest autobiographies of our time. Speak, Memory, first published in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised in 1966, is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov’s life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including Lolita, Pnin, Despair, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, and The Luhzin Defense.One of the 20th century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.

Go Up For Glory


Bill Russell - 1966
    

Autobiography, Volume 1: 1907-1937, Journey East, Journey West


Mircea Eliade - 1966
    They present a fascinating account of the early development of a Renaissance talent, expressed in everything from daily and periodical journalism, realistic and fantastic fiction, and general nonfiction works to distinguished contributions to the history of religions. Autobiography follows an apparently amazingly candid report of this remarkable man's progression from a mischievous street urchin and literary prodigy, through his various love affairs, a decisive and traumatic Indian sojourn, and active, brilliant participation in pre-World War II Romanian cultural life."—Seymour Cain, Religious Studies Review

Two in the Bush


Gerald Durrell - 1966
    A powerful conservation piece, Durrell and his first wife Jacquie track down a whole host of endangered species, providing an insight into these rare creatures while stressing the need to protect both them and their habitat.

Two Under the Indian Sun


Jon Godden - 1966
    They had spent a year in London being "brought up" by austere aunts, but now the zeppelins were expected, and so they were summoned back to their home in East Bengal. Jon was only seven and a half and Rumer six."Two Under the Indian Sun", a unique collaboration, is a remembrance of the five years that followed, in the village of Narayangunj--where their father worked as a steamship agent--on a bustling river that feeds the great Brahmaputra. It is an evocation of a few years that will always be timeless for these two, and it is as true an account as memory can accomplish. India, for them, was sun-baked dust between their toes, colored robes in the market place, the chanting of coolies, the deep hoot of steamers on the river, and the smells of thorn trees, mustard, and coconut oil: smells redolent of the sun.India was also people, people of every kind, each different from the other and bringing a trail of other differences, of place, custom, religion, even of skin. It was not an ordinary life for young girls, and later they agreed that it might have been better had they been raised in the simplicity of their Quaker forbears. "Better," Jon was to say, "but not nearly as interesting."Above all, those five years were "a time when everything was clear: each thing was itself: joy was joy, hope was hope, fear and sorrow were fear and sorrow." Jon and Rumer have written of that time with a single voice, perhaps because during those years the two sisters grew so close that "between them was a passing of thought, of feeling, of knowing without any need for words."[From the front inside jacket.]

The Attempted Rescue


Robert Aickman - 1966
    500 copies. Contents: Foreword by Jeremy DysonProem/ The Misty Giants/ I Loom/ I am Born and Immediately Fall Ill/ My Father’s History and Disposition/ My Father’s Life as a Displaced Person/ I Begin to Read the Classics/ I First Realize Myself/ I Assume a Mask/ Mixed Friends/ Relatives are All Alike/ Relatives as Divinities. I. Their Domain/ Relatives as Divinities. II. Their Mores/ Splendours and Miseries of Childhood/ My Struggles at Schools. I. The Dames and the Prep/ My First Projects for a Better World/ My Struggles at Schools. II. The Big House/ The Illnesses and the Flights (I)/ My Second Projects for a Better World/ The Illnesses and the Flights (II)/ I Suffer from Loneliness/ The Great Flower of Light/ The Poet and the King/ Deaths of the Divine Relatives/ A Distant Star/ I Love and Lose/ Tableau.This is the provocative and very literary autobiography of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers of ghost stories. The Attempted Rescue was first published by Gollancz, 1966.

Random Commentary


Dorothy Whipple - 1966
    It was compiled by her in 1965, in Blackburn, to which she had returned a few years before, after her husband’s death, and was published in early 1966, a few months before she died. So in some respects this is a tribute to a novelist’s life but because she chose the extracts (from 1925-45) herself it is, naturally – this is after all Dorothy Whipple – modest and self-deprecating but always extremely honest.

God Planted Five Seeds


Jean Dye Johnson - 1966
    These men were Cecil Dye, Bob Dye, Dave Bacon, George Hosback, and Eldon Hunter.God Planted Five Seeds was written by Jean Dye Johnson, widow of one of the five martyrs. It tells the story of how a permanent, friendly contact was established with that Ayore tribe and how the widows learned the truth concerning the death of the five men.

Wapiti Wilderness


Margaret E. Murie - 1966
    Through these years their home was almost a nature-conservation shrine to thousands of Americans interested in the out-of-doors, in animals, in nature in general. Wapiti Wilderness, begun by Mrs. Murie as a sequel to her Two in the Far North, which told of the Muries' life and expeditions in Alaska, became a book written by both the Muries.In alternate chapters, Olaus tells of his work as a field biologist for the old U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey and recounts stories of his studies of the elk and the other great animals of the West. And Mrs. Murie, from her side, describes their life together, on the trail, in the various camps, and nature adventures in that wilderness in all seasons. The book is replete with stories of Jackson Hole people, "pioneer poets," and the wild creatures that made their way into the Murie household. Olaus Murie's evocative pen-and-ink drawings illuminate each chapter, and four pages of photographs help complete the picture of what life was like in the wapiti wilderness.

Dublin Burning: The Easter Rising From Behind the Barricades


W.J. Brennan-Whitmore - 1966
    

My Life in Football


Bobby Charlton - 1966
    These photographs, many of which have rarely been seen, are accompanied by extended captions to bring them to life. Every shot tells a wonderful story and offers an insight into the character of the man, providing a remarkable visual commentary of a phenomenal sporting life.