First Encounters: A Book of Memorable Meetings

by Nancy Caldwell Sorel

Book Overview

Fresh from a 12-year engagement in the pages of The Atlantic--65 wonderfully witty "first encounters" of the great and near great, the famous and infamous, throughout history. Brilliantly conceived... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679431195
• ISBN13: 9780679431190
• Release Date: September 1994
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 127 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.7" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Delightful

I found this book a delight. The illustrations are truly splendid. I disagree with one of the previous reviewers: The text is not so much "lite" as simply light-hearted. Most of the persons mentioned are sufficiently familiar to be of considerable interest. When I first looked at this book I thought it reminded me of the "Impossible Interviews" feature in the book "Vanity Fair: A Cavalcade of the 1920s and 1930s" (An anthology of that magazine when it was the wittiest, smartest, most entertaining thing ever.) Sure enough, when I read the introduction to "First Encounters", it turns out the authors were inspired by the "Impossible Interviews". (The "First Encounters" are people who really did meet and talk; among them are such interesting combinations as Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman, Sarah Bernhardt and Thomas Edison, Isak Denison and Marilyn Monroe). The "Impossible Interviews" were people who couldn't possibly have anything to say to each other; the funniest one was Greta "I vant to be alone" Garbo vs. Calvin "Cool Cal" Coolidge.) Anybody who loves the Vanity Fair collection will love First Encounters, and vice versa.

Marvellous wit!

edward sorel has one of the best drawings on the newpapers, and nancy caldwell, text is wonderfully wit! A high level humour.