Many successful people downplay their native gifts and emphasize their willpower, and Thomas Alva Edison was no exception. Genius, he said so quotably, is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Whatever the ratio, Edison had genius. Phonographs, electric lightbulbs, motion pictures, telephones we trace all of these and many other inventions to this one man.

Now there is a hefty new biography worthy of the extraordinary man, Edison: A Life of Invention by Paul Israel. Editor of the ongoing Edison Papers project at Rutgers, and author of Edison’s Electric Light, Israel seems to know everything there is to know about his subject. He calmly clears away the misty fables and shrinks Edison from godlike to no-less-imposing human stature. Along the way, he impressively explains the origins of the modern industrial world. The story of Thomas Edison would demand nothing less.

Usually condensed books are an unnatural act. Only when pruned by the author do they escape disfiguring. Now the distinguished English biographer, Michael Holroyd, has wisely followed Leon Edel’s example and abridged his own sprawling multi-volume Bernard Shaw into a single fat, delicious tome. At 800-plus pages, it’s still hefty enough to serve as a murder weapon, but that’s a fraction less daunting than before. And it’s hard to imagine how one could squeeze a century of the indefatigable Mr. Shaw into a smaller space.

It is a lovely thing when a great writer finds a worthy biographer. Holroyd is a diligent, perceptive scholar, apparently tireless, but he is also a writer blessed with perfect pitch. He describes the biographer’s art in Hugh Kingsmill’s phrase, the complete sympathy of complete detachment. Holroyd achieves the balance without any feeling of cool distance, because his own good sense and energy never flag. The result is a gem now safe from crazed abridgers.

Elvis as you’ve never seen him before When he was on the cusp of national stardom (the first Ed Sullivan Show performance was only months away), Elvis Presley was photographed by Marvin Israel who trailed the once-and-future-King in Dayton, Ohio, and later, back home in Memphis, for Seventeen magazine. Except for two photos, Israel’s shots (mostly candids) have never been published. That is, until now. Elvis Presley: 1956, edited and designed by Martin Harrison, is a paean to the New York School of photography, which means the images are gritty, black-and-white, and cutting-edge. For Presley fans, as well as photo buffs who may know Israel as an artist and art director who teamed with Diane Arbus and Richard Avedon on books and exhibitions, the book’s most vivid images are of the young rock ‘n’ roller emoting on stage. Further proof that there’s never been anyone else quite like the King.

There have been authors before Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor who have written admirable books about the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. Mike Royko’s Boss and Daley: Power and Presidential Politics by F. Richard Ciccone are two titles that come to mind. So the challenge for Cohen and Taylor to come up with something unique was accomplished by publishing the most comprehensive biography on Daley to date. American Pharaoh may not have the verve or panache of those previous Daley books, but it makes up for that with thoroughness and attention to detail.

American Pharaoh carefully chronicles how Daley, a South Side Irish-Catholic, slowly built his political power base through shrewdness, hard work, and patronage. Establishing one of history’s most efficient big city political machines, Daley began in the 1960s to wield his power on the national level. Unfortunately, much of the national attention Daley received was negative. He was accused of stuffing the ballot box to secure the presidency for John F. Kennedy. He issued “shoot to kill” orders to police trying to control looters following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King. And in defending the police brutality surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Daley uttered the infamous malaprop: “The policeman is not there to create disorder. The policeman is there to preserve disorder.” While Daley obviously won the battle for Chicago, remaining in office for 21 years until his death in 1976, American Pharaoh convincingly argues that he lost the battle to control the nation. As people were crying out for desegregation and an end to the Vietnam War, Daley insisted on clinging to old values and old practices, making him an icon of an outdated era. Daley was, as the book title suggests, the pharaoh of a crumbling empire.

John T. Slania is a journalism professor and freelance writer in Chicago.

The King may be dead, but the books keep coming. In the 21 years since Elvis Presley’s death, on August 16, 1977, a veritable cottage publishing industry has emerged. A year ago, when I was adding to the bulging shelves as co-author (with Peter Harry Brown) of Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley I counted more than 300 titles. And those were just the English-language entries! Why? Chalk up the interest, in part, to Presley’s status in popular culture: he was the pulsating force of a revolution that got a generation all shook up. Then there’s the man himself and the enigma. And of course, there is the music. Music is the heart of one of the latest Elvis entries, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions ( St. Martin’s, $35, 0312185723), which is lavishly detailed and illustrated. Written by the authoritative Ernst Jorgensen, the book’s revelations range from the obscure (the first Elvis song to boast percussion was I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone ) to the heart-breaking (during his last concert, a slurry and sadly bloated Elvis introduced Are You Lonesome Tonight? and then, as if to answer, said, and I am. . . ). Jorgensen, an Elvis fan turned director of RCA’s Elvis catalogue, also underscores an overlooked Elvis talent as a savvy music producer. As a promoter, no one was more savvy than former carnival huckster Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s longtime manager, and subject of My Boy Elvis: The Colonel Tom Parker Story (Barricade, $22, 1569801274). This is the first of a spate of upcoming titles about the colorful Parker, who passed away in 1997, and though some anecdotes related by Sean O’Neal (Elvis Inc: The Fall and Rise of the Presley Empire) are familiar to Presleyphiles, there are new details about the Colonel’s early years. O’Neal also adroitly analyzes the Colonel’s motives for wanting Elvis to do Army time and details how he masterminded the post-Army career comeback. Elvis’s movie career, pre- and post-Army, is the subject of Eric Braun’s The Elvis Film Encyclopedia: An Impartial Guide to the Films of Elvis (Overlook Press, $23.95, 0879518146). Actually, it’s not all that impartial. In grading the songs from Elvis’s films, Braun gives three stars (out of a possible five) to the embarrassing Confidence, from the movie Clambake. And he gives just two stars to Can’t Help Falling in Love, the great Presley ballad from Blue Hawaii. Quibbles with ratings aside, the text is informative, as well as lively. The same can be said for most Elvis movies. Early Elvis is remembered in Elvis, Hank, and Me: Making Musical History on the Louisiana Hayride (St. Martin’s, $23.95, 0312185731), in which Horace Logan (with co-author Bill Sloan), recounts his days as producer and emcee of the show, which was broadcast over CBS radio. After bombing at the Grand Ole Opry, a young Elvis found a home away from home at the Shreveport program, which introduced him to much of the country and also featured music legends including Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Slim Whitman. Elvis’s early career is also recalled in That’s Alright, Elvis: The Untold Story of Elvis’s First Guitarist and Manager, Scotty Moore (Schirmer, $25, 0028645995), as told to James Dickerson. Way back when, Moore, bass player Bill Black, and Elvis were known as the Blue Moon Boys. From those early days on the road, to his latter-day revival, Moore (a Gibson man) has been a pivotal musical force. Moving from music to marriage: Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (Berkley Boulevard Books, $7.50, 0425165442), contradicts the official story delivered by Priscilla in her autobiography. Elvis’s famed ex has long maintained that she was a virgin when she finally married The King. Not so per this account, by Suzanne Finstad which relies heavily on the allegations of a former Presley buddy named Currie Grant (who has since been hit with a lawsuit, over his claims, by Priscilla). It was Grant who introduced the 14-year-old schoolgirl to the world’s most famous G.I., then 25, and stationed in Germany. But first, says Grant, he coerced the virginal Priscilla into sleeping with him as a kind of payment. As Finstad put it, She had entered into a Faustian pact to meet Elvis. It should be noted that Grant, at the time of the alleged tryst with the teenager, was 28, married, and the father of two. Along with sex and drugs, this page-turner includes a good cat fight between Priscilla and an Elvis fan complete with screaming and hair-pulling and a National Enquirer-ish ploy, with the use of a voice stress test to determine who’s telling the truth, in a tape-recorded encounter between Priscilla and Grant. I still don’t know who to believe . . . On the novelty side, Elvis gets the pop-up treatment in Elvis Remembered: A Three-Dimensional Celebration (Pop-Up Press, $29.95, 1888443456). See Elvis pop-up at the 1956 Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, which marked his landmark return to his hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi. He also cuts quite a 3-D figure in his famous gold lame suit, during his 1968 comeback concert, and during the so-called Jumpsuit Tours. In The Quotable King (Cumberland House, $8.95, 188895244X) Elvis’s words pop-out as categorized by Elizabeth McKeon and Linda Everett in chapters such as Early Elvis, Meet the Press, and Elvis on Elvis. There are Elvis’s observations on movies ( The only thing that’s worse than watching a bad movie is being in one ); his taste in burgers ( I like it done well. I ain’t ordering a pet ); and more. Speaking of more: Due in November is Elvis Presley 1956 (Abrams, $17.95, 0810908999), featuring photos by Marvin Israel. January will see the publication of Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (Little, Brown, $27.95, 0316332224). This is Peter Guralnick’s follow-up to his acclaimed 1994 early Elvis biography, Last Train to Memphis. Also due in January is Colonel Tom Parker: The Carny Who Managed the King, by James Dickerson (Watson-Guptill, $24.95, 0823084213).

Who said Elvis was dead? Biographer Pat H. Broeske is also a Hollywood reporter who regularly contributes to Entertainment Weekly.

Long live the King The King may be dead, but the books keep coming. In the 21 years since Elvis Presley’s death, on August 16, 1977, a veritable cottage publishing industry has emerged. A year ago, when I was adding to the bulging shelves as co-author (with Peter Harry Brown) of Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley I counted more than 300 titles. And those were just the English-language entries! Why? Chalk up the interest, in part, to Presley’s status in popular culture: he was the pulsating force of a revolution that got a generation all shook up. Then there’s the man himself and the enigma. And of course, there is the music. Music is the heart of one of the latest Elvis entries, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions ( St. Martin’s, $35, 0312185723), which is lavishly detailed and illustrated. Written by the authoritative Ernst Jorgensen, the book’s revelations range from the obscure (the first Elvis song to boast percussion was I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone ) to the heart-breaking (during his last concert, a slurry and sadly bloated Elvis introduced Are You Lonesome Tonight? and then, as if to answer, said, and I am. . . ). Jorgensen, an Elvis fan turned director of RCA’s Elvis catalogue, also underscores an overlooked Elvis talent as a savvy music producer. As a promoter, no one was more savvy than former carnival huckster Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s longtime manager, and subject of My Boy Elvis: The Colonel Tom Parker Story (Barricade, $22, 1569801274). This is the first of a spate of upcoming titles about the colorful Parker, who passed away in 1997, and though some anecdotes related by Sean O’Neal (Elvis Inc: The Fall and Rise of the Presley Empire) are familiar to Presleyphiles, there are new details about the Colonel’s early years. O’Neal also adroitly analyzes the Colonel’s motives for wanting Elvis to do Army time and details how he masterminded the post-Army career comeback. Elvis’s movie career, pre- and post-Army, is the subject of Eric Braun’s The Elvis Film Encyclopedia: An Impartial Guide to the Films of Elvis (Overlook Press, $23.95, 0879518146). Actually, it’s not all that impartial. In grading the songs from Elvis’s films, Braun gives three stars (out of a possible five) to the embarrassing Confidence, from the movie Clambake. And he gives just two stars to Can’t Help Falling in Love, the great Presley ballad from Blue Hawaii. Quibbles with ratings aside, the text is informative, as well as lively. The same can be said for most Elvis movies. Early Elvis is remembered in Elvis, Hank, and Me: Making Musical History on the Louisiana Hayride (St. Martin’s, $23.95, 0312185731), in which Horace Logan (with co-author Bill Sloan), recounts his days as producer and emcee of the show, which was broadcast over CBS radio. After bombing at the Grand Ole Opry, a young Elvis found a home away from home at the Shreveport program, which introduced him to much of the country and also featured music legends including Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Slim Whitman. Elvis’s early career is also recalled in That’s Alright, Elvis: The Untold Story of Elvis’s First Guitarist and Manager, Scotty Moore (Schirmer, $25, 0028645995), as told to James Dickerson. Way back when, Moore, bass player Bill Black, and Elvis were known as the Blue Moon Boys. From those early days on the road, to his latter-day revival, Moore (a Gibson man) has been a pivotal musical force. Moving from music to marriage: Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (Berkley Boulevard Books, $7.50, 0425165442), contradicts the official story delivered by Priscilla in her autobiography. Elvis’s famed ex has long maintained that she was a virgin when she finally married The King. Not so per this account, by Suzanne Finstad which relies heavily on the allegations of a former Presley buddy named Currie Grant (who has since been hit with a lawsuit, over his claims, by Priscilla). It was Grant who introduced the 14-year-old schoolgirl to the world’s most famous G.I., then 25, and stationed in Germany. But first, says Grant, he coerced the virginal Priscilla into sleeping with him as a kind of payment. As Finstad put it, She had entered into a Faustian pact to meet Elvis. It should be noted that Grant, at the time of the alleged tryst with the teenager, was 28, married, and the father of two. Along with sex and drugs, this page-turner includes a good cat fight between Priscilla and an Elvis fan complete with screaming and hair-pulling and a National Enquirer-ish ploy, with the use of a voice stress test to determine who’s telling the truth, in a tape-recorded encounter between Priscilla and Grant. I still don’t know who to believe . . . On the novelty side, Elvis gets the pop-up treatment in Elvis Remembered: A Three-Dimensional Celebration (Pop-Up Press, $29.95, 1888443456). See Elvis pop-up at the 1956 Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, which marked his landmark return to his hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi. He also cuts quite a 3-D figure in his famous gold lame suit, during his 1968 comeback concert, and during the so-called Jumpsuit Tours. In The Quotable King (Cumberland House, $8.95, 188895244X) Elvis’s words pop-out as categorized by Elizabeth McKeon and Linda Everett in chapters such as Early Elvis, Meet the Press, and Elvis on Elvis. There are Elvis’s observations on movies ( The only thing that’s worse than watching a bad movie is being in one ); his taste in burgers ( I like it done well. I ain’t ordering a pet ); and more. Speaking of more: Due in November is Elvis Presley 1956 (Abrams, $17.95, 0810908999), featuring photos by Marvin Israel. January will see the publication of Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (Little, Brown, $27.95, 0316332224). This is Peter Guralnick’s follow-up to his acclaimed 1994 early Elvis biography, Last Train to Memphis. Also due in January is Colonel Tom Parker: The Carny Who Managed the King, by James Dickerson (Watson-Guptill, $24.95, 0823084213).

Who said Elvis was dead? Biographer Pat H. Broeske is also a Hollywood reporter who regularly contributes to Entertainment Weekly.

In Robert Frost: A Life, Jay Parini is a man with a mission, namely to restore the poet’s reputation. His new biography is a corrective to the works of earlier biographers who, Parini feels, unfairly besmirched Frost’s image.

Robert Frost was arguably the last American poet whose name was known to nonliterary people. Prior to his death in January 1963, his poetry had long been included in school textbooks. Many people knew Mending Wall and The Road Not Taken. The stature of the man and the poetry were both enhanced by Frost’s participation in the Kennedy inauguration in 1961 and by JFK’s making it known that he often recited Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening in almost prayer-like fashion after a rough day. While Frost never won a Nobel Prize, being awarded the Pulitzer an unprecedented four times helped institutionalize him and his verse.

Then came the iconoclasts. The public perception of Frost was altered most by his official biographer Lawrance Thompson, who in 1966 published the first volume of what Parini calls his three-volume biography where he never lost an opportunity to discover and underline faults in Frost. Thompson’s view was that Frost was generally a misanthrope in his private life and was an especially captious parent.

Parini tells us Thompson wasted no opportunity to present Frost as a monster . . ., even though Parini does allow that there is no doubt that on occasion [Frost] behaved badly. Luckily, this corrective element detracts only a little from Parini’s excellent scholarly work. He writes well, indeed at times poetically, as when he tells us that Frost pulled a poem together, lacing the rhymes as tightly as a boot. As one would expect from such a major biography, there is a wealth of information how Frost conceived and built upon his public persona, how he created the role of writer-in-residence and the public literary reading. He often drew huge crowds and was handsomely paid even during the depths of the depression.

We remember Frost and read his poetry today in part because he realized the importance of fame. But as Jay Parini’s solid biography reminds us, it is the artistic achievement that the famous reputation relies on most.

The American landscape was never the same after Frederick Law Olmsted. The graceful landscapes he designed, from Central Park to the Stanford University campus, are among the greatest open spaces in the country. Olmsted’s landscape creations alone would place him among the most notable figures of 19th century America. But he hardly confined his limitless energy to designing parks. Witold Rybczynski’s latest book, A Clearing in the Distance, chronicles not just Olmsted’s remarkable designs: to do so would ignore half his achievements. This book unfolds Olmsted’s diverse life, and in doing so tells the story of an entire era. Landscape architecture came late in Olmsted’s life. By the time he started his first design, Central Park, he had accomplished more than many people dream of. Born in 1822, Olmsted grew up restless, unwilling to settle into a routine career. As a young man he traveled to China on a merchant vessel. Unsatisfied, he started a farm on Long Island, experimenting with the latest agricultural technology. Olmsted’s importance as a public figure was soon to follow. Although he never completed a formal education he briefly attended Yale Olmsted was drawn to the world of literature and social change. His first book chronicled his epic journey through Europe at the age of 28, studying the cultural and physical landscape. With this success, Olmsted turned to publishing and co-founded The Nation magazine. Not yet ready to settle down, Olmsted wandered through the American South for five years working as a journalist for the New York Times. Olmsted never studied landscape design. By the time he had designed and supervised the largest urban park in America, he had absorbed more knowledge about the landscape than any education could provide. Over the next 40 years, Olmsted designed more than 60 parks and neighborhoods throughout the country: Cornell University; Morningside Park, New York; Biltmore, North Carolina.

Witold Rybczynski tells Olmsted’s story with the insight one would expect from a great historian of American urbanism.

What won’t we do for our readers? We will travel the world, venture into dangerous lands literally. For the first time ever, we bring you a Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe Exclusive. The life of Joe Carstairs (nee Marion Barbara Carstairs), was . . . well the words unusual and remarkable don’t even begin to describe it. But when this great eccentric, born in 1900, died at the age of 93, she was all but forgotten. We have Daily Telegraph journalist Kate Summerscale to thank for bringing Joe’s story to light with The Queen of Whale Cay.

Carstairs, who in the 1920s held the record for the fastest female speedboat racer in the world, was quite an iconoclast. A cross-dresser, open about her sexuality, she had a string of beautiful lovers and surrounded herself with famous people and fine things (she inherited a Standard Oil fortune). Perhaps most curious of all, though, was her relationship with her beloved doll and constant companion, Lord Tod Wadley. (Yes, that’s him, perched on her shoulder.) She had outfits designed for the little fellow, pictures taken of him, conversations with him; he was for Joe, Summerscale posits, a talisman of sorts. Eventually Joe went into a self-imposed exile, taking Lord Tod with her, of course. She bought an island in the Caribbean (Whale Cay), populated it with Bahamians, and, in essence, created her own queendom. Which brings us to this exclusive business you’ve been hearing so much about.

Inspired by the book, an intrepid BookPage correspondent recently went on assignment to Whale Cay. Upon her arrival, she found the island turned to jungle and gave us this report from the front: I don’t know if they tore the stuff down and moved it, took it with them, or what, but we didn’t seen any evidence that there was once a small kingdom on Whale Cay. It’s a deserted island! I did find some beautiful pieces of beach glass so the trip wasn’t a complete wash. And if you look closely, one of those pieces very mysteriously resembles a glass eye . . . a doll’s eye, perhaps? Yes, perhaps it was.

Roger Kahn on boxing? It just doesn’t sound right.

Kahn is better known for writing about baseball. His book on the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1940s and 1950s, The Boys of Summer, is still considered to be one of the finest pieces of literature ever written about the game. His new book on boxer Jack Dempsey and his reign as the world’s heavyweight champion proves, however, that Kahn is worth reading under any circumstances. The 1920s are sometimes called the first Golden Age of Sport, and Dempsey was one of the period’s main heroes. World War I had ended, and as leisure time increased, Americans focused more attention on spectator sports. Dempsey ranked alongside Babe Ruth, Bill Tilden, and Bobby Jones as headliners of the decade.

According to Kahn, boxing exploded in the public consciousness while Dempsey was champion. Twenty-thousand fans looked on as Dempsey took the title from Jess Willard in 1919. His last championship bout, the famous Long Count fight against Gene Tunney, was witnessed by an estimated 125,000 and followed by millions of others. Along the way, Dempsey defended his title a few times, divorced one woman, married another, starred in some movie serials, and was an attraction wherever he went.

This biography is a little more personal than one might expect. Kahn interviewed Dempsey several times when the ex-champ was holding court as a restaurant owner in New York City in the 1950s and 1960s. Flame recounts some of these stories. Dempsey obviously made a big impression, as Kahn suggests that Dempsey is the greatest heavyweight of all time. And while that’s not the majority position in that never-ending debate, Kahn does a good job convincing the reader that Dempsey is a deserving contender. He makes an even better case that Dempsey is a figure of historical importance.

A friend of Kahn’s once told him a few years ago, I think too much has been written about Babe Ruth and not enough about Jack Dempsey. Kahn does a nice job of closing that gap. ¦ Budd Bailey is a hockey reporter and editor for the Buffalo News, and a contributor to The Sporting News.

Former heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston’s life was one big question mark.

Liston didn’t know how old he was at any point in his life. He didn’t know how many brothers and sisters he had, although it was at least 10. Liston grew up dirt poor and virtually without education in Arkansas. About all he learned was that life was hard, and he could beat up anyone around.

All of those facts helped set Liston on his life’s path, in which he made large amounts of money . . . for other people. Fittingly, when police found his body in Las Vegas in 1970, they weren’t sure how he died or how long he’d been dead.

If all that weren’t enough, Liston was the wrong man at the wrong place when he was champion. America was nervously going through the civil rights movement in the early 1960s; she didn’t really want the title-holder to be a seemingly invincible Negro, as his race was called then who kept getting arrested and was said to have connections to organized crime.

It’s all fertile material for a new biography, particularly with the perspective of time, and Nick Tosches dives right in with his book, The Devil and Sonny Liston. The most impressive part of the volume is its research. Tosches interviewed almost every shady character who ever encountered Liston, and there were plenty of them. Tosches takes a different approach to biography in this book, and it reads as if it belongs in the true crime section of the bookstore. The actual boxing matches are given little attention. Instead, Liston’s early life and his connections with the mob are explored in depth. That’s a good decision on Tosches’s part. After all, there are other places you can read about Liston’s boxing career, but this book goes into previously uncharted territory. And the story is told in a breezy, adult, rat-tat-tat style that would have been right at home in the movie L.A. Confidential.

The Devil and Sonny Liston is an interesting look at an elusive star athlete and personality. It’s nice to see someone supply answers to some of those questions about Liston’s life.

Budd Bailey writes from Buffalo, New York.