Here is the blurb from the dust jacket:
The wonder is that gift giving has never before had a book of its own -- so basic is the giving impulse to the human spirit, so ancient its lineage and so all-pervasive its tradition. Only the Best, taking America as its particular province, is a deserved and delectable tribute to the art of elegant and imaginative gift giving. Exquisitely illustrated with scores of large color photographs, this unique book carries the reader into the lives of some of the best-known and most influential Americans. Amazing, endearing, and amusing in turn are the intimate glimpses these pages afford into personal relations as expressed in gestures of generosity.
From the Vanderbilts to the Reagans, today's newsmakers and those of a bygone era fill the pages of this book with elaborate sentiments and sweet memories. Stately homes and valentines, snapshots and works of ail, extensive gardens and single flowers-all come into the wide range of carefully planned and cherished gifts. Lady Bird Johnson and Walter Annenberg point to a single photograph as the most important gift they have ever received. Zubin Mehta, Mamie Eisenhower, and Elizabeth Taylor have all been recipients of outstandingly well thought-out and executed tributes. Humor was the spark for presents given by Jack Benny, Ernie Kovacs, and Pablo Picasso. A miniature castle created from oatmeal boxes, an insurance policy on the weather for an outdoor party, a painting of three favorite hats-these have all been offerings of love that attained the stature of the perfect gift.
As Letitia Baldrige, Chief of Staff for Mrs. Kennedy in the White House, says in her Introduction: "The science and art of gift giving come together in this book. The pages are dramatized by wonderful photographs and anecdotes relating to history, sentiment, materialism, the art of timing, and the urges of love, humor, and revenge-in short, everyhing connected with the emotions of giving and receiving."
Only the Best reflects Americans' predilection for flamboyance and inclination toward the sentimental; it reaches from the gilded edges of the marketplace to the innermost spaces of the heart. Visually dazzling and spiced with the colorful personalities of the many notables who have enriched the history of giving, Only the Best enlarges the scope of Americana in a new and fascinating way.
215 photographs, including 140 plates in full color
The cover photograph depicts the living room in the New York apartment of Mr. and Mrs. R. Thornton Wilson. The eighteenth-century boiserie and parquet floors are from Versailles and were a wedding gift to R. Thornton Wilson's father and mother from his aunts, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and Mrs. Robert Goelet.
Stuart E. Jacobson has been engaged in public relations and advertising promotion for the past six years, based in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas.
Jill Spalding is a writer and Conde Nast editor living in Los Angeles with her two sons.
Letitia Baldrige, Jacqueline Kennedy's White House Chief of Staff, revised and expanded The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette.
Jesse Gerstein began his photography career as an apprentice to Richard Avedon in the mid-1970s. Only the Best is his first book
| Price | $7.50 |
|---|---|
| Shipping & Handling | $4.00 |
| Total | $11.50 |
