Who is the greatest living essayist writing in English? Unquestionably Joseph Epstein. Epstein is penetrating. He is witty. He has a magic touch with words, that hard to define but immediately recognizable quality called style. Above all, he is impossible to put down. How easy it is today to forget the simple delight of reading for no intended purpose. Each of the 39 pieces in this book is a pure pleasure to read.

Unique among early modern artists, the Baroque painter, sculptor, and architect Gianlorenzo Bernini was the subject of two monographic biographies published shortly after his death in 1680: one by the Florentine connoisseur and writer Filippo Baldinucci (1682), and the second by Bernini's son, Domenico (1713). This interdisciplinary collection of essays by historians of art and literature marks the first sustained examination of the two biographies, first and foremost as texts. A substantial introductory essay considers each biography's author, genesis, and foundational role in the study of Bernini. Nine essays combining art-historical research with insights from philology, literary history, and art and literary theory offer major new insights into the multifarious connections between biography, art history, and aesthetics, inviting readers to rethink Bernini's life, art, and milieu. Contributors are Eraldo Bellini, Heiko Damm, John D. Lyons, Sarah McPhee, Tomaso Montanari, Rudolf Preimesberger, Robert Williams, and the editors.Maarten Delbeke is Assistant Professor of architectural history and theory at the universities of Ghent and Leiden. Formerly the Scott Opler Fellow in Architectural History at Worcester College (Oxford), he is the author of several articles and a forthcoming book on Seicento art and theory.Evonne Levy is Associate Professor of the History of Art at the University of Toronto. She is also the author of Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque (2004).

"Originally published in Great Britain under the title Patrick O'Brian: Critical appreciations and a bibliography"--T.p. verso.

The contributions in this book draw attention to the close, though sometimes ambiguous, relationship between biography, aesthetics, ideology, social critique and gender in Dos Passosâ (TM)s writings. Most of the essays are important additions to the ongoing scholarly critique on the authorâ (TM)s works, considered in terms of innovative literary techniques and the myriad of literary representations, as well as of core thematic issues that have helped define Dos Passos both as a towering figure of American Modernism, and outspoken political and social critic. Further to scrutinizing Dos Passosâ (TM)s biographic aspects and literary innovations, the book also offers invaluable insights into the historiographical, ideological and social dimensions of the American (and to some extent European) society of the time, dominated by unprecedented social and political instability that shattered the â ~American Dreamâ (TM) of liberty and egalitarianism, and by international warfare. The present collection of essays is a worthy contribution to the growing body of critical studies on John Dos Passosâ (TM)s writings, which indisputably endorse the status of his literary name.

A Confession was written in the last decade of the 19th century and was mainly a treatise on the meaning of life. Tolstoy had by this point had a religious awakening and had wrestled for decades with the purpose of his life on Earth. Tolstoy had questioned his faith when still an adolescent. He had been raising, like the majority of Russians, in the official established church of the country – the Russian Orthodox Church. The trappings of religion, such as genuflecting, meant nothing to him and he formed the opinion that often people who proclaimed to be good religious folk were often inferior morally to those who were agnostic or atheist in their beliefs. This annotated edition includes a biography and critical essay.