Best of
Biography

1961

Fate Is the Hunter


Ernest K. Gann - 1961
    Gann’s classic pilot's memoir is an up-close and thrilling account of the treacherous early days of commercial aviation. “Few writers have ever drawn readers so intimately into the shielded sanctum of the cockpit, and it is hear that Mr. Gann is truly the artist” (The New York Times Book Review).“A splendid and many-faceted personal memoir that is not only one man’s story but the story, in essence, of all men who fly” (Chicago Tribune). In his inimitable style, Gann brings you right into the cockpit, recounting both the triumphs and terrors of pilots who flew when flying was anything but routine.

Wings on My Sleeve: The World's Greatest Test Pilot tells his story


Eric M. Brown - 1961
    They released him, not realising he was a pilot in the RAF volunteer reserve: and the rest is history. Eric Brown joined the Fleet Air Arm and went on to be the greatest test pilot in history, flying more different aircraft types than anyone else. During his lifetime he made a record-breaking 2,407 aircraft carrier landings and survived eleven plane crashes. One of Britain's few German-speaking airmen, he went to Germany in 1945 to test the Nazi jets, interviewing (among others) Hermann Goering and Hanna Reitsch. He flew the suicidally dangerous Me 163 rocket plane, and tested the first British jets. WINGS ON MY SLEEVE is 'Winkle' Brown's incredible story.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections


C.G. Jung - 1961
    G. Jung undertook the telling of his life story. At regular intervals he had conversations with his colleague and friend Aniela Jaffé, and collaborated with her in the preparation of the text based on these talks. On occasion, he was moved to write entire chapters of the book in his own hand, and he continued to work on the final stages of the manuscript until shortly before his death on June 6, 1961.

The First Filipino


León María Guerrero - 1961
    It has been awarded the First Prize in the Rizal Biography Contest under the auspices of the Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission in 1961.

A Girl and Five Brave Horses


Sonora Carver - 1961
    Dr. W.F. Carver, who ran the show, had previously started "The Wild West" shows with his friends, Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok. (The movie Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken is loosely based on her life.)

Harpo Speaks!


Harpo Marx - 1961
    Despite only a year and a half of schooling, Harpo, or perhaps his collaborator, is the best writer of the Marx Brother. Highly recommended." -Library Journal "A funny, affectionate and unpretentious autobiography done with a sharply professional assist from Rowland Barber." -New York Times Book Review

Beyond Our Selves


Catherine Marshall - 1961
    Along the way, Marshall offers guidance on topics such as forgiveness, suffering, miracles, unanswered prayer, and healing. The result is a poignant revelation of her authentic search for a meaningful life, a practical faith, and a closer relationship with God.With more than two million copies in print, the continuing vitality of Beyond Our Selves stems from its basic practicality as a book that shines insight on subjects concerning every believer. In fact, Beyond Our Selves is inspiring millions of people around the world in search of meaning for their lives-challenging them to stretch their beliefs, deepen their faith, and revitalize their purpose.

The Children of Sánchez


Oscar Lewis - 1961
    Weaving together their extraordinary personal narratives, Oscar Lewis creates a sympathetic but ultimately tragic portrait that is at once harrowing and humane, mystifying and moving.An invaluable document, full of verve and pathos, The Children of Sánchez reads like the best of fiction, with the added impact that it is all, undeniably, true.

Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America


Theodora Kroeber - 1961
    For more than forty years, Theodora Kroeber's biography has captivated readers. Now recent advances in technology make it possible to return to print the 1976 deluxe edition, filled with plates and historic photographs that enhance Ishi's story and bring it to life.Ishi stumbled into the twentieth century on the morning of August 29, 1911, when, desperate with hunger and terrified of the white murderers of his family, he was found in the corral of a slaughter house near Oroville, California. Finally identified as a Yahi by an anthropologist, Ishi was brought to San Francisco by Professor T. T. Waterman and lived there the rest of his life under the care and protection of Alfred Kroeber and the staff of the University of California's Museum of Anthropology.Karl Kroeber adds an informative tribute to the text, describing how the book came to be written and how Theodora Kroeber's approach to the project was a product of both her era and her special personal insight and empathy.

The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler


William L. Shirer - 1961
    Shirer was a correspondent for six years in Nazi Germany-and had a front-row seat for Hitler's rise to power. His most definitive work on the subject, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, is a riveting account defined by first-person experience interviewing Hitler, watching his impassioned speeches, and living in a country transformed by war and dictatorship.William Shirer was originally commissioned to write The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler for a young adult audience. This account loses none of the immediacy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich-capturing Hitler's rise from obscurity, the horror of Nazi Germany's mass killings, and the paranoia and insanity that marked Hitler's downfall. This book is by no means simplified-and is sure to appeal to adults as well as young people with an interest in World War II history.

Mission to the Headhunters: How God's Forgiveness Transformed Tribal Enemies


Frank Drown - 1961
    The first missionaries in the Ecuadorian Rainforest Frank & Marie were committed to bringing about life changes in these tribes by seeking to communicate forgiveness of sin and new life which could be found in Christ. Frank and Marie Drown prepared the way for Jim Elliott, Nate Saint and their colleagues. Frank was the person who discovered their bodies.

Joseph the Silent


Michel Gasnier - 1961
    Joseph, yet his life is full of spiritual treasures. Michel Gasnier O.P., here shows you where to find them and how they can enrich your own relationship with God. In this series of brief meditations he explores St. Joseph's work as a carpenter, his marriage, his character, the flight into Egypt, his return to Nazareth, Simeon's prophecy, and more. He gives you an enlightening portrait of this man who remains one of the Church's most extraordinary saints and intercessors.

My Hundred Children


Lena Kuchler-Silberman - 1961
    The courageous story of a woman who led a group of Jewish children from Poland to Israel at the time of the Second World War.

Rembrandt


Gladys Schmitt - 1961
    His life, unlike that of most creative artists, was closely intertwined with his work; and the conflicts of family, class, marriage, children and society that run through his turbulent career have become basic themes for Western man over the past three hundred years.

A Memoir of Mary Ann


Flannery O'Connor - 1961
    Recounts the surprisingly rich years a lively, wise child spent as a cancer patient in a home run by Dominican nuns.

Nurses Who Led the Way


Adèle de Leeuw - 1961
    Stories of brave women who were the first nurses.

The Life and Times of James Connolly


Charles Desmond Greaves - 1961
    Connolly's work and ideas left their mark not only in Ireland but on American and British labour movements. As a young man he was one of the pioneers of the modern labour movement in Edinburgh, the city of his birth. The scene then shifted to Dublin, where Connolly founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party, whose programme declared: The national and economic freedom of the Irish people must be sought in...the establishment of an Irish Socialist Republic. Then came a period of seven years in the USA where he worked with Daniel De Leon's Socialist Labor Party. In 1910 Connolly returned to Ireland and played a leading part in the working-class struggles in Belfast, and in the Great Dublin lock-out-the highest point reached by the class struggle in Europe in the period leading up to the 1914 war. On the outbreak of war with Germany, Connolly declared: We have no foreign enemy except the Government of England...We serve neither King nor Kaiser, but Ireland.Thus he set out on the path which led to the Easter Rising of 1916. C. Desmond Greaves's The Life and Times of James Connolly, first published in 1961, is a major contribution to the history of Irelands fight for freedom and is widely recognised as the definitive biography of the greatest of all Irish Labour leaders.

My Life in Court


Louis Nizer - 1961
    Westbrook Pegler --Divorce: The 'war of the Roses' and others --Talent: The case of the plagiarized song 'Rum and coca-cola' --Honor: Issue of Nazism in America --Life and limb: Two cases of negligence: I. Death in birth; II. The worth of a man --Proxy battle: The struggle over Lowe's.

Corona De Sombra


Rodolfo Usigli - 1961
    In this first and most popular of Usigli's "antihistorical trilogy," the author portrays the brief, disastrous reign of Maximilian I as emperor of Mexico, framed by scenes depicting his wife Carlota in her old age, after she had survived her husband by several decades in spite of having descended into madness.

Self Portrait


Man Ray - 1961
    In this brilliant memoir, Man Ray paints a vivid picture of his own life, his friends -- including Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, and Ernest Hemingway -- and the many women in his life -- such as Kiki Montparnesse and photographer Lee Miller. Originally published in 1963, Self Portrait is a classic artist's memoir.

Diary and Life


Andrew A. Bonar - 1961
    But it is first and foremost the record of God's work in the life of one who represented all that was finest in her evangelical life.

I Married the Klondike


Laura Beatrice Berton - 1961
    She fell in love with the North--and with a northerner--and made Dawson City her home for the next 25 years. I Married the Klondike is her classic and enduring memoir. When she first arrived by steamboat in Dawson City, Berton expected to find a rough mining town full of grizzled miners, scarlet-clad Mounties and dance-hall girls. And while these and other memorable characters did abound, she quickly discovered why the town was nicknamed the "Paris of the North." Although the gold rush was over, the townsfolk still clung to the lavishness of the city's golden era and the young teacher soon found herself hosting tea parties once a month, attending formal dinners, dancing the minuet at fancy balls and going on elaborate sleighing parties. In the background a famous poet wrote ballads on his cabin wall, an archbishop lost on the tundra ate his boots to survive and men living on dreams of riches grew old panning the creeks for gold.While thousands of people left the Klondike each October on the "last boat out" and Dawson City slowly decayed around her, the author remained true to her northern home. Humorous, poignant and filled with stories of both drudgery and decadence, I Married the Klondike is an unforgettable book by a brave and intelligent woman. "I have read many books on the Yukon, but this is different. It is the gallant personality of the author which shines on every page, and makes her chronicle a saga of the High North."--Robert Service, poet "The Cremation of Sam McGee"

Van Gogh: A Self-Portrait: Letters Revealing His Life As a Painter


Vincent van Gogh - 1961
    H. Auden's careful selection of Van Gogh letters creates an impression of the artist as a man consumed not just with the torturous experiences of his brief and painful life but with the drive, ambition, and creative urgency of a man who lived to express himself through painting. Reprinted here for a new generation of readers, this classic is the result of Auden's desire to give voice to a fellow artist's drive to understand his craft.

Snowman


Rutherford G. Montgomery - 1961
    After seeing the references to Elizabeth Lett's new book, "The Eighty Dollar Horse...," I went to my bookshelf and pulled this one off. I have had it for years and it is not one which will be culled. Other reviewers of the Letts book remarked how the story is as much about Harry as Snowman; this is true. This book and story grabbed my horse-hungry heart years ago and has never left it.

The Golden Mile


Herb Elliott - 1961
    In Rome on 6th September, 1960, Herb Elliott won an Olympic Gold Medal and one again proved himself unbeatable, the fastest and the greatest middle-distance runner in the world. For Elliott, as he tells here in his fascinating autobiography, it was the moment for which he had been preparing for years. The day he had marked down as his day, since as a promising eighteen-year-old he had watched the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. What does it take to bring a man to a peak of such physical power that he can repeatedly run a mile in under four minutes? From this story we find out. Elliott has been called an automaton; it is said that he sacrifices everything for speed – but as he explains, to him running is a challenge, demanding mastery of the body and the mind as well as the running of races. If he is going to run at all, he is going to run to win; he sees no point in running for any other reason. And the remarkable training programme through which he takes himself is enough to prove any unathletic and incredulous reader that he means just this. ‘Find your goal and work for it’, says Percy Cerutty, the coach to whom, as he is the first to admit, Elliott owes so much. His most famous pupil has followed his advice – to the highest point any amateur sportsman can aim for. Elliott believes also in the enormous importance of sport, not only for the individual’s sake, but for its power in bringing people of every nation together in competition. An athlete may train as an individual although he runs for his country; even more, like a scientist, he tries to create new standards for the human race. This then is the story of a modern athlete, a sportsman living under the extraordinary and rigorous conditions of the twentieth century sport. Today he has to be tough, resolute, ambitious, ruthless. Herb Elliott is all these things and has got to the top; from there he surveys his sporting opponents, and in this book he judges them and their performances, as well as his own achievements. A scarce and highly prized title.Photography. B/W

The Buffalo Head


R.M. Patterson - 1961
    Patterson’s home territory in the 1930s and ’40s. The Buffalo Head ranch was located in the foothills of the majestic Canadian Rockies. With the mountains as a backdrop, this dude ranch hosted visitors from around the world. Patterson bought it from its founder, a wild Italian named George Pocaterra, and explored the steep valleys and high mountain passes. Patterson’s tales of the ranch in The Buffalo Head culminate with a fantastic story of meeting a growling grizzly while crossing the Continental Divide in an October snowstorm.

Saint Jerome and the Lion


Rumer Godden - 1961
    

My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House


Lillian Rogers Parks - 1961
    In 1909, he mother was hired by President Taft, who was the first president ever to allow a Black person to enter the White House. She worked in the White House until 1939. Her daughter was hired by President Hoover in 1929 and she worked there until the final days of the Eisenhower Administration in 1959. This book should be required reading for every serious student of American history. The authors were eye witnesses to some of the great events of history and offer different prospectives from that found elsewhere. For example, we learn that when Calvin Coolidge announced in 1927 that he did not intend to run for re-election, he was playing hard-to-get. He believed that the people would insist that he accept a third term of office. He expected to be drafted. He actually wanted a third term in office. Coolidge was disappointed when Herbert Hoover was nominated as he disagreed with Hoover's ideas and policies. We learn that in the last year and a half of the presidency of President Woodrow Wilson, he had to be wheeled around the White House in a wheel chair and was often engaged in "sickbed rambling." When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office as president, he was an invalid, confined to a wheelchair. Few Americans knew this and elaborate means were devised to make it appear that Roosevelt was robust and healthy. Whenever he was to speak, railings were created beside where he was to be standing. This was done so that it would appear that FDR was walking, taking a few steps up to the speaker's podium, when in reality the handrails were holding him up and he was dragging his feet a short distance to create the illusion that he was walking. Also, Roosevelt was dependent on his mother, Sara Delano, who had all the money and controlled his finances.

The Photo Album of St. Therese of Lisieux


François de Sainte-Marie - 1961
    Therese have come to light. They were taken for the most part by her sister Celine, (Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face) within the walls of the Carmel of Lisieux. Reproduced directly from the plates developed in the late 19th century, the photos appear in the exact size and condition of the originals found in the Lisieux archives. In addition, there are numerous enlargements of various sections of the photographs. Chronologically arranged, these pictures give a visual idea of Therese Martin's appearance from early childhood to the day of her death.

The Late Lord Byron (Neversink)


Doris Langley Moore - 1961
    S. Merwin, is now back in print after decades.Of the hundreds of books on Byron and his work, not one has been devoted to the immediate aftermath of his life; and yet it is these first twenty posthumous years that yield the most unexpected and exciting discoveries about the character of the poet and the behavior of those who once surrounded him—wife, sister, friends, enemies.   With the burning of his memoirs almost as soon as news of his death reach England in May 1824, there began the sequence of impassioned controversies that have followed one another like the links in a chain ever since. What sort of man was the begetter of these dramas? Unflagging in energy and acumen, Doris Langley Moore sifts the various witnesses, their motives and credentials, and not only reveals how much questionable evidence has been accepted but develops a corrected picture that appeals and persuades.   Drawing upon a very large amount of unpublished material, from the Lovelace Papers, Murray manuscripts, and Hobhouse archives, she reaches the conclusion that, as to his chroniclers, a great man has too often fallen among thieves. The story she tells needs no special knowledge of Byron. It is written for everyone who enjoys literary detective work and human drama.

Make A Joyful Sound: The Romance of Mabel Hubbard and Alexander Graham Bell


Helen Elmira Waite - 1961
    

The Jefferson Image in the American Mind


Merrill D. Peterson - 1961
    In it Merrill D. Peterson charts Thomas Jefferson's influence upon American thought and imagination since his death in 1826. Peterson's focus is "not primarily with the truth or falsity of the image either as a whole or in its parts, but rather with its illuminations of the evolving culture and its shaping power. It is posterity's configuration of Jefferson. Even more, however, it is a sensitive reflector, through several generations, of America's troubled search of the image of itself."In a new Introduction Peterson discusses the publication of his book and remarks in the directions of new scholarship. He also draws attention to the continuing interest in Jefferson as shown by recent historical fiction, motion pictures and documentaries, by the remaning of the Libarary of Congress main building and the National Gallery of Art's exhibition, The Eye of Thomas Jefferson, by President William Jefferson Clinton's preinagural pilgrimage to Monticello, and by the Sotheby's auction of a Jefferson letter that commanded the highest auction price ever paid for such a manuscript.

Diary and Autobiography of John Adams: Volumes 1-4, Diary (1755-1804) and Autobiography (Through 1780)


John Adams - 1961
    The Diary, partially published in the 1850's, has proved a quarry of information on the rise of Revolutionary resistance in New England, the debates in the early Continental Congresses, and the diplomacy and financing of the American Revolution; but it has remained unfamiliar to the wider public. It is an American classic, Mr. Zolta n Haraszti said recently, about which Americans know next to nothing. Actually the Diary's historical value may well prove secondary to its literary and human interest. Now that it is presented in full, we have for the first time a proper basis for comprehending John Adams--an extraordinary human being, a master of robust, idiomatic language, a diarist in the great tradition. From none of the other founders of the Republic do we have anything like a record at once so copious and so intimate. The Autobiography, intended for John Adams' family but never finished, consists of three large sections. The first records his boyhood, his legal and political career, and the movement that culminated in American independence. The second and third parts deal with his diplomatic experiences, and serve among other things as a retrospective commentary on the Diary: they are studded with sketches of Adams' associates which are as scintillating as they are prejudiced. Parts and in some cases all of these sketches were omitted from Charles Francis Adams' nineteenth-century edition. In 1779 John Adams wrote, I am but an ordinary Man. The Times alone havedestined me to Fame--and even these have not been able to give me, much. Then he added, Yet some great Events, some cutting Expressions, some mean Hypocrisies, have at Times, thrown this Assemblage of Sloth, Sleep, and littleness into Rage a little like a Lion. Both the ordinary Man and the Lion live on in these volumes.

After Fifteen Years


Leon Jaworski - 1961
    His enduring fame came from leading the prosecution of the Watergate case, United States v Nixon, and heading the large Texas based law firm Fulbright and Jaworski. Jaworski wrote a number of autobiographical books, in this, his first volume of memoirs, he reflects on his wartime career during which he served in the United States Army judge advocate general's department . He was made chief of the trial section of the war crimes branch in the late stages of the war in Europe. In this office he directed investigations of several hundred cases concerning German crimes against persons living and fighting in the American zone of occupation. He also personally tried two cases—the first having to do with the murder of American aviators shot down over Germany in 1944 and the second involving the doctors and staff of a German sanatorium where Polish and Russian prisoners were put to death. Jaworski had risen to the rank of colonel by the time he returned to civilian life in October 1945.

Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism


Martin Malia - 1961
    PrefaceIntroductionFamily & ChildhoodSchiller & OgarevUnivesity & 'Circle"Schelling & IdealismSaint-Simon & SocialismArrest & ExileLove & ReligionThe Quest for RealityRealism in Philosophy: HegelRealism in Love: SandThe Slavophiles & NationalismSocialist & Liberal WesternersThe Crucial Year-1847The Revolution of 1848Russian SocialismThe Gentry RevolutionBibliographyNotesIndex

Rabbi Yoselman of Rosheim


Marcus Lehmann - 1961
    This revised and newly designed edition will enhance the enjoyment of contemporary readers as they delve into this exciting and lively story.

Saint Dominic and His Times


Marie-Humbert Vicaire - 1961
    The latest research into the history of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the author's own extensive and minutely detailed investigations of all the clues available in ancient documents, combine to put the man Dominic within the full setting of the times in which he lived, and so illuminate him vividly as a person. The author's extraordinary grasp of both the general outline and the detail of the European historical background ensures that the book is as valuable for its picture of Dominic's times as for its portrait of the man himself.

Karakoram: Ascent of Gasherbrum IV


Fosco Maraini - 1961
    

The James Family: A Group Biography, Together With Selections from the Writings of Henry James, Senior, William, Henry and Alice James


F.O. Matthiessen - 1961
    

Brownlow North: His Life and Work


Kenneth Moody-Stuart - 1961
    

The First Bohemian: The Life of Henry Murger


Robert Baldick - 1961
    It is a hundred years since the death of Henry Murger, but, although several romanced accounts have appeared since then, this is the first fully documented of the man who created the legend of Bohemia.

The Minack Chronicles Revisited


John Nash - 1961
    With the 50th Anniversary of the first book in the series of books known as The Minack Chronicles, the book has been reprinted under a new title 'The Minack Chronicles Revisited'.Written by John Nash and funded by The Friends of Minack Society it will be launched at the Gala Event of the Society on 18th March 2011 at The Queens Hotel in Penzance.Its a very special book and tells the story of Derek and Jeannie Tangye and how they came to live at Dorminack, their friends and life there.

My Father, Charlie Chaplin


Charles Chaplin Jr. - 1961
    

The Man Who Sold The Eiffel Tower


James Francis Johnson - 1961
    

Harold St. John


Patricia St. John - 1961
    John. Harold's daughter, Patricia St. John, did the Christian world an enormous favor when she put together this fascinating portrait of her father. Somehow her portrayal manages to be exciting, inspiring, challenging, amusing and edifying all at the same time. It makes compelling reading from start to finish--hard to put down once you've picked it up. Harold was one of the most gifted Bible teachers of his day, and the story of his life and influence is as relevant now as ever. His life was hid with Christ in God, and out of his inward parts there flowed a river of joy and peace and blessedness that enriched everyone it touched.

Joseph Warren: Physician, Politician, Patriot


John H. Cary - 1961
    PrefaceNew England BoyhoodDoctor of Colonial BostonPolitics & TaxesA Pen for PropagandaAppeal to ForceVoice of the MinorityTea & TreasonResolves & CongressesCrucible of WarLaurel on His BrowBibliographyIndex

False Witness


Melvin Miller Rader - 1961
    University of Washington professor Melvin Rader was a victim of the Canwell Committee's rush to judgment, but he fought back. False Witness tells of his struggle to clear his name. It is a testament of personal courage in the face of mass hysteria and a cautionary example of how basic freedoms can rapidly erode when the powers of the state are allowed to serve a rigid ideological agenda.