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YOU MIGHT AS WELL LIVE: The Life & Times of Dorothy Parker – John Keats

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You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker by John Keats. From the third printing by Simon and Schuster with 1970 copyright.

1 in stock

Description

From the Dust Jacket
Once upon a time — just after World War One, to be precise — the world was bright and new, and Dorothy Parker was one of the brightest and newest people in it. For a while, she was rich, famous and powerful. She had two husbands, four lovers, a mansion in Beverly Hills, a country estate in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and a series of apartments in New York. She was a central figure at the celebrated Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel. Her two books of poems were best sellers, and her collections of short stories were warmly hailed by the critics. Two plays were written about her and she was portrayed as a character in a third. Newspaper columnists quoted her regularly, and practically every bright remark of the day was attributed to her (upon learning that Calvin Coolidge had died, she asked, “How could they tell?”; and theater people treasured her review that noted that one of Katharine Hepburn’s performances “ran the whole gamut of emotions, from A to B”). Because she said and wrote so many funny lines, it was widely presumed that Dorothy Parker’s life was a ceaselessly merry one. She did have a great deal of fun wherever she was — and that was usually at the center of the cultural and intellectual excitement of the day: in New York amid the new breed of literary sophisticates; in Paris and Spain with Hemingway, Fitzgerald and other expatriates; in Hollywood in its prewar heyday. But Dorothy Parker was also an artist tormented by her own merciless sensibilities, viewing mankind with a wry, hard suspicion. You Might As Well Live (whose title comes from a poem she wrote about the methods of suicide) is a wonderfully readable biography, as much about a style of life and art as about the person who did so much to express it. John Keats manages to depict his remarkable subject — the most talked-about woman of her time — with warmth, sympathy and an understanding of the cruel price she paid for her complex creative gifts.

Publishing Information
You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker by John Keats. From the third printing by Simon and Schuster with 1970 copyright. This measures about 9-3/8″ x 6-1/8″ and has 319 pages with a nice section of glossy b/w photos of Dorothy, F. Scott Fitzgerald (with wife and daughter), Robert Benchley, Hemingway, Corey Ford, Frank Sullivan, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Frank Crowninsheild, FPA, Donald Ogden Stewart, Charles MacArthur with Helen Hayes, Harpo Marx, Heywood Broun, Harold Ross, Alexander Woollcott, and MORE!

Condition
Enlarge the photo above. Former library book with the usual markings. The dust jacket has been protected inside a plastic sleeve. The boards and pages are in good to very good condition with a bit of storage around the edge. There is some glue staining on the fly leaves of the dust jacket and the pasted endpapers (not sticky). No personal names or markings noted. From clean, smoke-free home.

Shipping
Generally sent the same day payment arrives. Unless you request otherwise, I will wrap the book in plastic wrap to help protect it from the elements, create a custom-made cardboard box to ship it in, and send via Media Mail with Delivery Confirmation tracking. See the shipping page for the cost to send a two-pound Media Mail package. Insurance is an additional cost as described. I am delighted to combine postage and insurance costs if you purchase more than one item. The second item may travel for free or just a few cents more — so it’s worth taking a look at my other items before you complete your order.

Not sure?
If you’d like more information or photos, please feel free to contact me.

Check out my other biography/memoir books — and ask for a combined-postage discount!