Mint condition.Jonathan Cape,2004.First UK edition-first printing(2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1).Black hardback(silver lettering to the spine) with Dj(small nick and crease on the edge of the Dj cover),both in mint condition.Illustrated with b/w photos.339pp including Author's note,list of abbreviations,permissions,notes,index.Price un-clipped. This is another paragraph From Publishers Weekly: Bourke (The Burning of Bridget Cleary) writes a sensitive biography of writer Brennan, who came to the U.S. from Ireland as a teenager (her father was the first Irish ambassador to the U.S.) and in 1949, in her early 30s, joined the New Yorker to write about women's fashion. Tiny, fiercely intelligent and impeccably groomed, Brennan was cherished by her colleagues. William Maxwell, a close friend, edited her stories--mainly fictionalized accounts of her Irish childhood, which he greatly admired--for the magazine. She also wrote a Talk of the Town column under the pseudonym The Long-Winded Lady. Yet behind the archly sophisticated persona, Bourke writes, was a fragile, alienated woman who, following a failed marriage to fellow writer St. Clair McKelway, drifted into an eccentric middle age and serious mental breakdown before leaving the New Yorker. She died in an obscure nursing home in 1993. Bourke, who teaches at University College, Dublin, draws a portrait rich in New Yorker history and modern Irish feminist history alike, one likely to do much to foster a new readership for Brennan's work. 8 pages of b&w photos.