Poet, aesthete and hedonist, Baudelaire was also one of the most groundbreaking art critics of his time. Here he explores beauty, fashion, dandyism, the purpose of art and the role of the artist, and describes the painter who, for him, expresses most fully the drama of modern life.GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlig...

Richard Holmes’s great work of biographical exploration, published alongside its sister volume ‘Sidetracks’.In 1985, Richard Holmes published a small book of essays called ‘Footsteps’ and the writing of biography was changed forever. A daring mix of travel, biographical sleuthing and personal memoir, it broke all the conventions of the genre and remains ons of the most intoxicating, magical works of modern literary exploration ever published.Sleeping rough, he retraces Robe...

In 1818, when he was in his mid-thirties, Stendhal met and fell passionately in love with the beautiful Mathilde Dembowski. She, however, was quick to make it clear that she did not return his affections, and in his despair he turned to the written word to exorcise his love and explain his feelings. The result is an intensely personal dissection of the process of falling - and being - in love: a unique blend of poetry, anecdote, philosophy, psychology and social observation. Bringing toget...

Dedalus should be treasured: a small independent publisher that regularly produces works of European genius at which the behemoths wouldn't sniff. If the corporations did care to look at this new work, they would find, on the surface, a precursor to W G Sebald, a Symbolist vision of the city that lays the way for Aragon and Joyce, and a macabre story of obsessive love and transfiguring horror that is midway between Robert Browning and Tod Browning. Bruges, an amalgam of greyish drowsiness"...

In these inspiring essays about why we read, Proust explores all the pleasures and trials that we take from books, as well as explaining the beauty of Ruskin and his work, and the joys of losing yourself in literature as a child.Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives...

Finding himself locked in his room for six weeks, a young officer uses his imagination to travel around his room, using the various objects it contains as inspiration for a delightful parody of contemporary travel-writing and exercise in Sternean picaresque, and humorously demonstrating what one can explore without having to travel to exotic locations. Contains a foreword by Alain de Botton

This collection of reflective essays forms a "spiritual autobiography" of André Gide, a key figure of French lettersAndré Gide, a literary and intellectual giant of twentieth-century France, mines his memories and personal observations in this collection of essays. Gide's reflections and commentary masterfully showcase his delicate writing style and evocative sensibility, yielding new insights on writers such as Goethe and contemporaries Joseph Con...

Collected here are the original publications from one of the most important exhibitions in the history of American art -- the 1913 Armory Show. Opening on February 17, 1913, in New York and traveling to Chicago and Boston, the Armory Show was meant to be a simple exhibition of the new abstract and cubist art coming out of Europe. What it ultimately became was a sprawling showcase of some of the most ground-breaking (and many said subversive) art America had ever seen. Sensational to crowds, c...

Witty and "enchanting" reflections on the experience of travel, with a focus on art, music, and literature, by the author of Brave New World ( The Spectator).One of the most renowned and prolific writers of the twentieth century, Aldous Huxley produced not only dystopian fiction like Brave New World and philosophical memoirs like The Doors of Perception, but also insightful travel writing. Here, he discusses his visits to Italy, ...

Casanova, the Venetian who lived most of his life in exile from his beloved city and created his own myth which in turn is a reflection of the nature of the city itself is the subject of this masterly biographical essay by Stefan Zweig. As Zweig describes in this volume: Imaginative writers rarely have a biography, and men who have biographies are only in exceptional circumstances able to write them ... Casanova is a splendid, almost unique exception. Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was born in V...

The Training of the Memory in Art and the Education of the Artist aims to teach the reader how to memorise things like form and colour composition so that they may draw and paint from memory alone.This fantastic guide is highly recommended for all artists, and it would make for a worthy addition to allied collections.The contents include:Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we a...

On June 23rd, 1950, Pavese, Italy's greatest modern writer received the coveted Strega Award for his novel Among Women Only. On August 26th, in a small hotel in his home town of Turin, he took his own life. Shortly before his death, he methodically destroyed all his private papers. His diary is all that remains and for this the contemporary reader can be grateful. Contemporary speculation attributed this tragedy to either an unhappy love aff air with the American film star Constance Dawlin...