Tracings: A Book of Partial Portraits

New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1993. 260 pages; 24 cm. Tight, clean copy. Top right corners bumped. Stated First Edition. Fine DJ. "In this fascinating book of portraits, Paul Horgan records his personal encounters with some of the outstanding artists of the century. For over fifty years - from the time when, as a teenage reporter in New Mexico, he met the doomed poet Vachel Lindsay, to the final illness of his friend Igor Stravinsky - Horgan not only crossed paths with the great and near-great, but his writer's eye enriched these moments with special grace and depth. Whether in comedy or the spirit of elegy, and with the lightest touch, Tracings brings together partial portraits of such legendary figures as opera stars Feodor Chaliapin, Mary Garden, and Marguerite D'Alvarez; actresses Minnie Maddern Fiske and Greta Garbo; painter Peter Hurd; writers Somerset Maugham, T.S. Eliot, Thornton Wilder, and Edmund Wilson. While researching his Pulitzer Prize biography, Lamy of Santa Fe, Horgan is granted an unheard-of privilege when the '100-year' rule governing the Vatican's archives is mysteriously waived for him. In Rome during wartime, he is also permitted to spend several hours in the Sistine Chapel entirely alone. This rich collection confirms the verdict of James K. Morris: 'Paul Horgan is one of a handful of writers in America today who deserve the title of literary master.'" - Publisher. CONTENTS: 1922: Vachel Lindsay and The Book of the Dead; 1924: D'Alvarez, the Inca princess; 1930: The time I couldn't see Mrs. Fiske; 1935: L'Apres-midi de Mary Garden; 1937: Garbo observed; 1937: Frieda Lawrence and the tomb; 1940: Luncheon for Somerset Maugham; 1941: Peter Hurd: artist at war; 1942: Captain Wilder, T.N.; 1945: Michaelangelo's morning; 1956: To meet Mr. T. S. Eliot; 1959: The Vatican's hundred-year proviso; 1962: At Mrs. Longworth's; 1963: Roma barocca; 1964: Wilson at Wesleyan; 1971: Last days of Stravinsky.. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Fine. 8vo.