Essays In Biography

Reprint of the original, first published in 1877.

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).

"Contains thirty-five sketches about Voltaire, Frederick the Great, Rousseau, Gibbon, Walpole, Boswell, Carlyle, Sarah Bernhardt, and a number of delightful eccentrics, including Lady Hester Stanhope."--Back cover

What choices must a biographer make when stitching the pieces of a life into one coherent whole? How do we best create an accurate likeness of a private life from the few articles that linger after death? How do we choose what gets left out? This intriguing and witty collection of essays by an internationally acclaimed biographer looks at how biography deals with myths and legends, what goes missing and what can't be proved in the story of a life. Virginia Woolf's Nose presents a variety of case-studies, in which literary biographers are faced with gaps and absences, unprovable stories and ambiguities surrounding their subjects. By looking at stories about Percy Bysshe Shelley's shriveled, burnt heart found pressed between the pages of a book, Jane Austen's fainting spell, Samuel Pepys's lobsters, and the varied versions of Virginia Woolf's life and death, preeminent biographer Hermione Lee considers how biographers deal with and often utilize these missing body parts, myths, and contested data to "fill in the gaps" of a life story. In "Shelley's Heart and Pepys's Lobsters," an essay dealing with missing parts and biographical legends, Hermione Lee discusses one of the most complicated and emotionally charged examples of the contested use of biographical sources. "Jane Austen Faints" takes five competing versions of the same dramatic moment in the writer's life to ask how biography deals with the private lives of famous women. "Virginia Woolf's Nose" looks at the way this legendary author's life has been translated through successive transformations, from biography to fiction to film, and suggests there can be no such thing as a definitive version of a life. Finally, "How to End It All" analyzes the changing treatment of deathbed scenes in biography to show how biographical conventions have shifted, and asks why the narrators and readers of life-stories feel the need to give special meaning and emphasis to endings. Virginia Woolf's Nose sheds new light on the way biographers bring their subjects to life as physical beings, and offers captivating new insights into the drama of "life-writing". Virginia Woolf's Nose is a witty, eloquent, and funny text by a renowned biographer whose sensitivity to the art of telling a story about a human life is unparalleled--and in creating it, Lee articulates and redefines the parameters of her craft.

Pioneers in Marketing: A Collection of Biographical Essays discusses eight historically important marketing scholars whose careers collectively spanned over 100 years. An introductory chapter describes the role of biography in the study of marketing thought, and introduces the eight subjects in this collection. Subsequent chapters describe the lives of Edward David Jones, Simon Litman, Henry Charles Taylor, Percival White, George Burton Hotchkiss, Theodore N. Beckman, David D. Monieson, and William R. Davidson, focusing on their intellectual and professional contributions to the marketing discipline. The biographies are based on rare archival materials, some personal interviews, and analysis of the subjects’ major works. The final chapter draws lessons from the collection for marketing students and teachers. Several important discoveries are reported that suggest opportunities for further research. These stories will inform and inspire students of marketing.

The chapters in this text comprise biographical sketches of previously unknown (or lesser known) African-Americans, among them General Daniel Chappie James Jr; William Levi Dawson (composer); Vinnette Carroll (director and playwright); and Elizabeth Ross Haynes (political speaker and activist).

Of the fifteen famous scientists, economists and statesmen sketched in this collection of essays, which was first published in 1933, John Maynard Keynes was directly acquainted with all but three. The unique quality of immediacy in these biographical fragments contributes immensely to our more intimate appreciation of the historical significance of these men. This volume is made up of two parts: The first part, titled Sketches of Politicians, includes chapters on Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Lord Oxford and Sir Winston Churchill. The greater portion of the second part, Lives of Economists, is taken up with the lives of Robert Malthun, Alfred Marshall and F. Y. Edgeworth. All are literature, and the reader needn’t be an economist or a specialist to enjoy the excellent flavor of Keynes’ style of writing.