"Marion Meade has told the story of Eleanor, wild, devious, from a thoroughly historical but different point of view: a woman's point of view."--Allene Talmey, Vogue.

In her exuberant new work, Marion Meade presents a portrait of four extraordinary writers-Dorothy Parker, Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St.Vincent Millay, and Edna Ferber- whose loves, lives, and literary endeavors embodied the spirit of the 1920s.
These literary heroines did what they wanted and said what they thought, living wholly in the moment. They kicked open the door for twentieth-century women writers and set a new model for every woman trying to juggle the serious issues of economic independence, political power, and sexual freedom. Here are the social and literary triumphs and...

Buster Keaton (1895-1966) was a brilliant comedian and filmmaker who conceived, wrote, directed, acted, and even edited most of his ten feature films and nineteen short comedies, which are perhaps the finest silent pictures ever made. With a face of stone and a mind that engineered breathtakingly intricate moments of slapstick, Keaton has become an icon of the American cinema. Marion Meade's definitive biography explores his often brutal childhood acting experiences, the making of his masterpieces, his shame at his own lack of education, his life-threatening alcoholism, and his turbulent...

The blackly comic play about the oppressed lives of women in 1950s New York
One of literature's leading humorists, Dorothy Parker drew from the dark side of her imagination to pen The Ladies of the Corridor, a searing drama about women living on their own in a New York residence hotel. Loosely based on Parker's life, and co-written with famed Hollywood playwright Arnaud d'Usseau, The Ladies of the Corridor exposes the limitations of a woman's life in a drama teeming with Parker's signature wit.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher...

A comprehensive account of the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The wife of King Louis VII of France and then of King Henry II of England and mother to Richard Coeur de Lion and King John, she became a key political figure of the 12th century. Eleanor's long life inspired a number of legends. At 25 she set out for the Holy Land as a Crusader and at 78 she crossed the Pyreness to Spain to fetch the granddaughter whose marriage would be, she hoped, a pledge of peace between England and France. Marion Meade portrays Eleanor of Aquitaine as a woman of great intelligence and titanic energy who lived...

Nathanael West was a comic artist whose insight into the brutalities and absurdities of modern life proved prophetic. He is famous for two masterpieces, Miss Lonelyhearts and the most penetrating novel ever written about Hollywood, The Day of the Locust. Eileen McKenney, accidental muse and literary heroine, fled Cleveland in search of romance and adventure, inspiring her sister s humorous stories, My Sister Eileen, which led to stage, film, and television adaptations.
Until their tragic deaths in 1940, husband and wife were intimate with many of the literary,...