Anne Morrow Lindbergh: A Gift for Life

Traces the life of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, daughter of a U.S. senator, wife of Charles Lindbergh, a pioneer aviator in her own right, and a successful author, and describes her personal triumphs and tragedies

Herrmann, Dorothy

Biographies & Memoirs

Penguin??Books

Helen Keller: A Life

Dorothy Herrmann's powerful biography of Helen Keller tells the whole story of the controversial and turbulent relationship between Helen and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. Herrmann also chronicles Helen's doomed love affair, her struggles to earn a living, her triumphs at Radcliffe College, and her work as an advocate for the disabled. Helen Keller has been venerated as a saint or damned as a fraud, but Herrmann shows her to have been a beautiful, intelligent, high-strung, and passionate woman whose life was transformed not only by her disabilities but also by the remarkable people on whose help and friendship she relied. "Fascinating. . . . Stripping away decades of well-meaning sentimentality, Herrmann presents a pair of strong-willed women, who struggled to build their own lives while never forgetting their dependence on each other."—Ron Charles, Christian Science Monitor "We meet an entirely unexpected Helen Keller—a woman with deep if concealed ambivalence toward her self-sacrificing teacher; a political radical; and a woman longing for romantic love and the fulfilled sexual life of a woman."—Joan Mellen, Philadelphia Inquirer "Herrmann's portrait of Keller is both fully embodied and unflinchingly candid."—Mary Loeffelholz, Boston Sunday Globe "This well-proportioned biography of the deaf and blind girl who became a great American crusader rescues its subject from the shackles of sainthood without destroying her as an American hero."—Dennis Drabelle, Cleveland Plain Dealer "Herrmann's engrossing biography helps us see beyond the public's fascination with how Keller dealt with her disabilities to discover the woman Keller strived to be."—Nancy Seidman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Perhaps the most intimate biography [of Helen Keller]. [Herrmann] gives her back her sexuality [and] imbues her with a true humanity. . . . Helen Keller: A Life has some of the texture and the dramatic arc of a good novel."—Dinitia Smith, New York Times

Humor & Entertainment

University of Chicago Press

This is a biography of S.J.Perelman, an American wit and sardonic humourist who won international acclaim as a writer for the "New Yorker" and as a contributor to the Marx brothers' "Animal Crackers" and "Horse Feathers" and to the classic "Around the World in Eighty Days" for which he was awarded an Oscar and as a radio and television personality. The man is also described as an extremely complex, often troubled individual. From his poverty-stricken childhood to his days at Brown University, from his constant struggles with his work to his consuming relations with Nathaniel West (his wife's sister), this portrait is filled with unpublished anecdotes illuminating a personality at once elusive, sad tormented and uproariously funny. The author also wrote "With Malice Toward All".

S J Perelman a Life

Humanity Press/prometheus Bk

A biography of the author of A Gift from the Sea discusses Lindbergh's childhood, her marriage to Lucky Lindy, the kidnapping and murder of their son, their self-imposed exile, and the controversy over her husband's political isolationism.

Ticknor & Fields

With Malice Toward All: The Quips, Lives and Loves of Some Celebrated 20th-Century American Wits

Humor

PUTNAM

Captures the life and times of Sid Perelman, the witty misanthrope who achieved fame as a "New Yorker" humorist and Hollywood screenwriter

S. J. Perlman a Life

Putnam Adult

S.J. Perelman: A Life

Fireside

Helen Keller couldn't hear, couldn't see, and, at first, couldn't speak. Three decades after her death in 1968, she has become a symbol of the indomitable human spirit, and she remains a legendary figure. With her zest for life and learning--and her strength and courage--she was able to transcend her severe disabilities. In a society fearful of limitation and mortality, she is an enduring icon, a woman who, by her inspiring example, made disability seem less horrifying. William Gibson's play The Miracle Worker, which portrayed Helen Keller's childhood relationship with her teacher Annie Sullivan, was so compelling that most people are only familiar with this early part of Helen's life. But the real Helen Keller did grow up, and her adult life was more problematic than her inspiring childhood. The existence she shared with the complicated, half-blind Annie Sullivan was turbulent--with its intrigues, doomed marriages and love affairs, and battles against physical and mental infirmity, as well as the constant struggles to earn a living. Dorothy Herrmann's biography of Helen Keller takes us through Helen's long, eventful life, a life that would have crushed a woman less stoic and adaptable--and less protected. She was either venerated as a saint or damned as a fraud. And one of the most persistent controversies surrounding her had to do with her relationship to the fiercely devoted Annie, through whom she largely expressed herself. Dorothy Herrmann explores these questions: Was Annie Sullivan a "miracle worker" or a domineering, emotionally troubled woman who shrewdly realized that making a deaf-blind girl of average intelligence appear extraordinary was her ticket to fame and fortune? Was she merely an instrument through which Helen's "brilliance" could manifest itself? Or was Annie herself the genius, the exceptionally gifted and sensitive one? Herrmann describes the nature of Helen's strange, sensorily deprived world. (Was it a black and silent tomb?) And she shows how Helen was so cheerful about her disabilities, often appearing in public as the soul of radiance and altruism. (Was it Helen's real self that emerged at age seven, when she was transformed by language from a savage, animal-like creature into a human being? Or was it a false persona manufactured by the driven Annie Sullivan?) Dorothy Herrmann tells why, despite her romantic involvements, Helen was never permitted to marry. She shows us the woman who, to communicate with the outside world, relied totally on those who knew the manual finger language. For almost her entire life, these people, some of whom were jealous or dogmatic, were the key to Helen's world. Reading Dorothy Herrmann's engrossing book, we come to know the real Helen Keller, a complex and enigmatic person--beautiful, intelligent, high-strung, and passionate--a woman who might have lived the life of a spoiled, willful, and highly sexed Southern belle had her disabilities not forced her into a radically different existence.

Community & Culture

KNOPF

Helen Keller a Life

Random House~trade

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Herrmann, Dorothy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Herrmann, Dorothy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Herrmann, Dorothy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh: A Gift for Life

Helen Keller: A Life

S J Perelman a Life

Anne Morrow Lindbergh: A Gift for Life

With Malice Toward All: The Quips, Lives and Loves of Some Celebrated 20th-Century American Wits

S. J. Perlman a Life

S.J. Perelman: A Life

Helen Keller: A Life

Helen Keller a Life