Austen, Alice. Alice’s World: The Life and Photography of an American Original: Alice Austen, 1866-1952 by Ann Novotny.

Chatham, 1976. First edition, 226 pages. Preface by Oliver Jensen includes his account of meeting Alice Austen before she died in 1952. Fine in hard cover in black cloth with protected dust jacket with edge chips and tears. Dust jacket is unclipped on front flap with original price until December 30, 1976. Austen has become well known for her exceptionally fine documentary photography in the late 1800s and early 1900s using glass plate negatives.  She came from a prosperous family in Staten Island but lost her large home (now a museum) and fortune as a result of the 1929 stock market crash and spent her last years in the poorhouse. She photographed both her upscale social class friends and the working class, including recent immigrants, in both Staten Island and Manhattan.  This book is profusely illustrated with her black and white photographs. A nicer copy than usually found. Summary:

Alice’s World: The Life and Photography of an American Original: Alice Austen, 1866-1952 by Ann Novotny is a biographical and photographic portrait of Alice Austen, one of the United States’ pioneering women photographers. First published in 1976, the book combines narrative biography with a rich collection of Austen’s own photographs to explore her life, artistic work, and the world she documented.

📘 Overview of the Book

• Life Story and Context: Novotny traces Austen’s life from her upbringing in a well-to-do Staten Island family, where she received her first camera as a young girl, through her development as a self-taught photographer who chronicled both her own social circles and the broader life of New York City.

• Photography as Personal and Social Document: The book showcases Austen’s talent in capturing everyday life — from elegant gatherings among the upper class to street scenes of working people and immigrants in Manhattan — offering a vivid visual record of American urban life at the turn of the 20th century.

• Illustrated With Her Work: Heavily illustrated with Austen’s black-and-white photographs, the volume emphasizes her technical skill and artistic eye, demonstrating why she is considered a significant figure in early documentary photography.

• Themes of Independence and Identity: Novotny highlights Austen’s unorthodox lifestyle for a Victorian woman — her independence, sporting pursuits like bicycling and tennis, and lifelong companionship with Gertrude Tate — though in the original edition the relationship is described more discreetly than later biographies do.

• Later Life and Legacy: The narrative also covers Austen’s financial decline after the 1929 stock market crash, her eviction from her longtime home, her rediscovery by historians and the media late in life, and the preservation of her photographic archive.

In sum, Novotny’s Alice’s World presents both an intimate biography and a visual celebration of Alice Austen’s life and work, situating her as an important, though long under-recognized, American photographer whose images remain valuable historical documents.