Biographies of famous and interesting people as well as collections of letters, diaries and memoirs.
All these fortunabooks.com prices are in New Zealand dollars, and there is a minimum order required of NZD$20 excluding postage.G browned spine, inscriptions to fep dated 1903 & 1905, Frontis of the author removed, some ink notation in text. Light water stain to endpapers.
$15 C/B [BIO 16]
Smith Elder & Co 1902 first edition cloth, 12mo, viii 137pp + adverts. Includes some facsimiles of the notebook pages.
VG+ VG name to fep, faint tape stain to endpapers.
$15 D/D [BIO 6]
Charles Scribners 1969 cloth, 697pp + plates. Large heavy book. Edition= A-3,69[C]
A biography of Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Consort of England 1819-1861.
ISBN 0434061158
British monarchy, nineteenth century, 19th, German
VG cloth hardback in VG dust jacket under plastic sleeve.
$15 C/C
Heinemann 1977 first edition, xvii 430pp.
[#5035 ]
Autobiographical memoirs by the famous Australasian stage magician, who also wrote a book on how to beat insomnia.
stage magician, magic, entertainment, Australia
VG- hardback in VG- dust jacket.
Dust jacket has a few minor edge tears and small red marker stripe at top right corner.
First two pages of book clipped at top corner and with red marker stripe showing to corner of first page and corner of title page.
$15 C/B
Angus and Robertson 1957 First Edition, 206pp
[#5151 ]
A book of letters from, Harold Musson, who wrote almost daily to his wife from the trenches of France during The Great War.
Harold had chosen to leave his home in Argentina to take part in the war.
The letters and diaries reveal much more than his daily news and views to his wife, and with the help of modern technology Sheila discovered more about Harold, his circumstances and his friends, including Flurry, a New Zealander who also chose to serve in the British Army.
In the book Sheila "writes back to him", to tell him of his family and his friends, whilst preserving his letters as a historic document.
ISBN9780473407728
ww1, wwi,
VG softback
$35 B/C
The Copy Press, Nelson, 2017, 379pp.
[#4231 ]
The Story of Teresa Grigolini, an Italian Missionary Sister in the Sudan, 1876-98.
Sister Teresa Grigolini was captured by the Islamist Mahdists in 1882, and with others of her community became a slave, constantly abused and threatened with death.
Some of them died in these appalling conditions, but no threat could persuade them to give up their faith as was demanded constantly of them.
The personal and tragic life events of Teresa Grigolini occur at the time of the rise of the Mahdists against the long and oppressive rule of the Sudan by Egypt, supported by English colonial interests, the 1885 fall of Khartoum, and eventually the Battle of Omdurman in 1898, and the re-taking of Khartoum and the Sudan by Kitchener's Anglo-Egyptian army.
In 1898 the remaining few of the missionary captives were freed after sixteen years in captivity, but life for Sister Teresa had changed forever.
Her story has been pieced together from her own and other letters, documents which enchant, edify, shock and sadden, but ultimately leave the reader with spirits raised for the love, strength and commitment of a remarkable woman.
ISBN 9781877399640
Originally published as: Tutti sapevano che ero stata suora.
19th century, catholicism, missionaries, Mahdi, islam, jihad, slavery, Women missionaries, El-Obeid, Rahad
VG softback
$45 C/B
Dunmore Publishing Limited 2012 first edition, 214pp.
[#5120 ]
When her wrestler father left Trudi and her mother for another woman, Trudi had to take up where he left off, becoming a wrestler to support herself and her mother.
Here she recounts the seedy, predatory world of British wrestling, and her sexual experiences with the men and women she encountered.
ISBN 0450027686
British, female wrestler, memoir, pulp
G+ paperback
$20 A/B
New English Library 1976 first edition, 126pp.
[PB1708]
VG- minor age browning to covers and closed edges
$10 A/A
Penguin 1956 first edition paperback, 221pp. Penguin 1145. [PB1420 biography ]
Autobiography of a long term member of the Royal Marines, born in Burwash, Sussex, and emigrating to New Zealand after WWII.
RNZN, Royal Navy, biography
VG hardback in VG dust jacket. Inscription to free end paper.
$15 C/C
Dai Nippon Printing Co. (1970) first edition, xviii 223pp.
[#4396 ]
A biography of George Bernard Shaw the man, his ideas, his work and his influence.
ISBN 090980107
British literature, theatre, playwright, GBS, Irish, criticism
VG hardback in VG dust jacket.
$35 C/C
Hutchinson 1969 first edition, xiv 306pp.
[#5093 ]
A follow up to Pearson's earlier biography of George Bernard Shaw.
British literature, theatre, playwright, GBS, Irish, criticism
VG hardback in a VG- dust jacket.
Jacket flaps trimmed to extreme vertical edges, call number to spine and small square cut from top right corner of rear panel, from a first edition ex-library copy but the book is not a cancel..
$15 C/C
Collins 1951 second impression, 192pp + plates.
[BIO 2 ]
G+ sunned spine, small split lower joint, light foxing.
$15 C/B [BIOG 17]
Pearson 1931 cloth, 190pp +plates +2pp adverts. Biography of the founder of the Boy Scout movement.
In 1949 Bryan Todd met Walter Haensli in Sun Valley Ski resort in the USA, and persuaded him to come to New Zealand to look for a skiing area.
Haensli recommended Mt Ruapehu and founded a ski club, ran a ski school at the Chateau Skifields (Whakapapa Ski Area) from 1949-51.
ISBN 0473060264
skiing, new zealand ski fields, Swiss, memoir, biography
VG softback SIGNED by author to title page.
$45 B/B
Fire and Ice Publications 1999 First edition, 86pp.
[#5213 ]