HERE'S AN AMAZING BACKSTORY FOR READERS:F. SCOTT AND HOLLYWOOD WRITER SHEILAH GRAHAM

 

The backstory for this quotation offers an entrée into a world that ought to prove a delight to any book lover.

 

It never appeared in any of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels. Instead, it’s part of Beloved Infidel: The Education of a Woman (1957), a memoir by famed Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham. In the book, she recounts her three-and-a-half year romance with the novelist when he lived in Hollywood and was trying to write for MGM.

 

Their attraction was immediate. At some point in the relationship, Sheilah revealed her impoverished and undereducated past, including time in an East End of London orphanage. Scott undertook to broaden her education.

 

Sheilah also writes about that episode of her life in College of One (1967). These are but two of eight autobiographical works in which she tells the story of her journey to becoming a top syndicated Hollywood writer, more widely distributed than her two closest rivals, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper. Sheilah dominated Hollywood reporting for decades.

 

But there’s more. Sheilah’s daughter, grew up to be Wendy W. Fairey, who earned a doctorate at Columbia University and taught English literature and creative writing for years at Brooklyn College. She wrote One of the Family (1992) about growing in Hollywood and her discovery that she was the child of her mother and British philosopher A.J. Ayer. She also wrote Full House (2002), a collection of related stories.

And that doesn’t even touch on the relationship of Scott and his wife Zelda, who was institutionalized while Scott was in Hollywood. 

 

A lot to work with there. 

 

We hope you’ll come and explore the possibilities at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. It’s happening on Saturday and Sunday, March 1-2, 2025 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg.

 

Tickets are available at Eventbrite.com. Just search of the 2025 book fair. You also can visit our website at floridaantiquarianbookfair.com

 

#rarebooks #collectiblebooks #ephemera #ephemeraforsale #leatherboundbooks #leatherbound #antiquemapsandprints #floridabookfair #floridaantiquarianbookfair #rarebookcafe #bookloversparadise.

OMAR KHAYYAM AND HIS AMAZING RUBAIYAT, AND THE TRANSLATION FROM PERSIAN TO ENGLISH

Omar Khayyam was another one of those fellows who was just brilliant in so many different subjects. The other day we were discussing the 17th century French philosopher Rene Decartes. Brilliant in math, science, and philosophy.

So now we consider Omar Khayyam, the 13th century Persian thinker and writer. He, too, was brilliant in so many different subjects. He contributed the knowledge base of certain parts of algebra and geometry and the development of the solar calendar based on his observations as an astronomer.

And still, somehow, he found time to express himself beautifully as a poet. Some scholars think that Omar wrote poetry as an amusement and a respite from his work as an astronomer and mathematician. His poetry shows up in various accounts in Persian history.

Of course, credit for the book The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam rightly goes to 19th century English poet Edward FitzGerald, who translated Omar’s work into English. FitzGerald published numerous editions of the Rubaiyat, and made significant changes in some of them. Furthermore, much of the poetry is simply a very loose translation of what Omar originally wrote.

Case in point, the quotation in the image is from the fifth edition, which was publish posthumously. It is probably the most familiar. However, the verse in the first edition is somewhat different, though offering the same sentiment.

You could get quite caught up in learning the history of this iconic volume. Suffice it to suggest that there probably will be copies of the Rubaiyat at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.

There will be booksellers of a wide variety of subjects. So, if your interest lies in poetry, history, or most any other subject, you probably won’t want to miss the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. It’s happening on Saturday and Sunday, March 1-2, 2025 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg.

Tickets are available at Eventbrite.com. Just search of the 2025 book fair. You also can visit our website at floridaantiquarianbookfair.com

#rarebooks #collectiblebooks #ephemera #ephemeraforsale #leatherboundbooks #leatherbound #antiquemapsandprints #floridabookfair #floridaantiquarianbookfair #rarebookcafe #bookloversparadise.

WHAT BUGS YOU ABOUT KAFKA? NOTHING, WE HOPE

To say that Franz Kafka’s writing is bizarre is to miss the point. It was bizarre, yes, but with an astounding precision and detail as to raise it to high literary achievement. Critics consider him to be a major figure in 20th century literature.

His novella, The Metamorphosis, was first published in 1915, first as a story in a literary magazine and then as a book. It deals with a traveling salesman who wakes up to find himself transformed into an insect, and his efforts to consider the consequences of his situation and to cope with it. 

 

The absurd and surrealistic difficulties facing Kafka's protagonists have been interpreted as commentary on bureaucratic and socio-economic oppression facing people in the modern world. 

 

Franz Kafka died in 1924 at age 40. He never knew the fame his work would eventually achieve. Had it not been for his lifelong friend, Max Brod, who became a journalist, author, and composer, much of Kafka’s work might never have been published. Kafka told his friend he wanted his work destroyed. Brod ignored him and had his work published after his death.

 

Kafka wrote in German, and his work wasn’t published in English until 1930. Scottish novelists and translators Edwin and Willa Muir were responsible for early translations of Kafka’s major works, including The Metamorphosis, The Castle, and The Trial. Over the decades, Kafka’s work has been retranslated and republished many times.

 

And he continues to intrigue readers and scholars in the 21st century. To say that there’s more to Franz Kafka than meets the eye may be an understatement. We’re intrigued by his quotation about books. Suffice to say there undoubtedly will be some Kafka and so much more available at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.

 

We hope we’ll see you at the book fair on Saturday and Sunday, March 1-2, 2025 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg.

 

Tickets are available at Eventbrite.com. Just search for the 2025 book fair. You also can visit our website at floridaantiquarianbookfair.com.

 

#rarebooks #collectiblebooks #ephemera #ephemeraforsale #leatherboundbooks #leatherbound #antiquemapsandprints #floridabookfair #floridaantiquarianbookfair #rarebookcafe #bookloversparadise.

PULP FICTION, FANTASY, AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Her name was Joyce Dugan, and at four o'clock on this February afternoon she had no remote thought that within the hour before closing time she was about to commit an act that would instigate a chain of murders.”

So begins a pulp novel by Fredric Brown, a prolific science fiction and mystery writer who sold his first stories to American pulp magazines in 1936. His first mystery novel, The Fabulous Clipjoint (1947) was the beginning of a series of seven detective novels, featuring teenager Ed Hunter and his uncle Ambrose, who is a carnival sideshow operator.

Oh, and by the way, the quotation at the beginning is the first line of a 1954 novel His Name Was Death. The title comes from the biblical book of Revelations.

Fredric Brown wrote hundreds of novels and magazine stories, including mysteries, science fiction and fantasy.

Many other popular writers began in pulp novels and magazines. After all, it’s a genre that began in the late 1890s. Some writers who come to mind are Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man and The Maltese Falcon), Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan of the Apes), Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, The Lady in the Lake, The Long Goodbye) and James M. Cain (Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and The Postman Always Rings Twice).

If this intrigues you at all, we think the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair might just be an event you won’t want to miss. It’s happening on Saturday and Sunday, March 1-2, 2025 at The Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg.

There will be antiquarian booksellers galore, including some who are undoubtedly knowledgeable about pulp fiction.

Tickets are available at Eventbrite.com. Just search of the 2025 book fair. You also can visit our website at Florida antiquarianbookfair.com

#rarebooks #collectiblebooks #ephemera #ephemeraforsale #leatherboundbooks #leatherbound #antiquemapsandprints #floridabookfair #floridaantiquarianbookfair #rarebookcafe #bookloversparadise.