Max Beerbohm Libri

"The first decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed a blossoming of creative nonfiction. In this extraordinary collection, Phillip Lopate gathers essays by forty-seven of America's best contemporary writers, mingling long-established eminences with newer voices and making room for a wide variety of perspectives and styles. The Contemporary American Essay is a monument to a remarkably adaptable form and a treat for anyone who loves fantastic writing"-- Provided by publisher

The story follows George, a deceitful socialite whose life takes a turn after being struck by cupid's arrow. Faced with rejection due to his immoral behavior, he embarks on a journey of transformation, adopting a charade to win back his love. Max Beerbohm's humorous fiction explores themes of identity and self-deception as George navigates the complexities of romance and personal integrity.

"The three decades that followed World War II were an exceptionally fertile period for American essays. The explosion of journals and magazines, the rise of public intellectuals, and breakthroughs in the arts inspired a flowering of literary culture. At the same time, the many problems that confronted mid-century America--racism, sexism, nuclear threat, war, poverty, and environmental degradation among them--proved fruitful topics for America's best minds. In The Golden Age of the American Essay, Phillip Lopate assembles a dazzling array of famous writers, critics, sociologists, theologians, historians, activists, theorists, humorists, poets, and novelists. Here are writers like James Agee, E. B. White, A. J. Liebling, Randall Jarrell, and Mary McCarthy, pivoting from the comic indignities of daily life to world peace, consumerism, and restaurants in Paris. Here is Norman Mailer on Jackie Kennedy, Vladimir Nabokov on Lolita, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and Richard Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Here are Gore Vidal, Rachel Carson, James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, John Updike, Joan Didion, and many more, in a treasury of brilliant writing that has stood the test of time." -Amazon

My Affair with Art House Cinema presents Phillip Lopate’s selected essays and reviews from the last quarter century, inviting readers to experience films he found exhilarating, tantalizing, and beguiling—and sometimes disappointing or frustrating—through his keen eyes.

Included are all seven of Max Beerbohm's major early essays. Though these essays were justly acclaimed in their time, their magnificence is such that they also demand the highest accolades in ours, replete as they are with undiminished colour and spectacle, humour and barbed excellence.--From back cover.

Facsimile of colour illustrated 1918 ed. of The Happy Hypocrite.

Background information accompanies caricatures of Rosetti, Swinburne, Browning, Tennyson, Wilde, Whistler, Ruskin, and Millais

"Not only an education but a joy. This is a book for the ages." --Rivka Galchen A monumental, canon-defining anthology of three centuries of American essays, from Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith. The essay form is an especially democratic one, and many of the essays Phillip Lopate has gathered here address themselves--sometimes critically--to American values. Even in those that don't, one can detect a subtext about being American. The Founding Fathers and early American writers self-consciously struggle to establish a recognizable national culture. The shining stars of the mid-nineteenth-century American Renaissance no longer lack confidence but face new reckonings with the oppression of blacks and women. The New World tradition of nature writing runs from Audubon, Thoreau, and John Muir to Rachel Carson and Annie Dillard. Marginalized groups in all periods use the essay to assert or to complicate notions of identity. Lopate has cast his net intentionally wide, embracing critical, personal, political, philosophical, humorous, literary, polemical, and autobiographical essays, and making room for sermons, letters, speeches, and columns dealing with a wide variety of subjects. Americans by birth as well as immigrants appear here, famous essayists alongside writers more celebrated for fiction or poetry. The result is an extensive overview of the endless riches of the American essay.

This record captures a year in the life of a writer, weaving together reflections on movies, art, music, friendship, travel, and family. The essay, often seen as the most versatile and engaging literary form, sifts through the everyday and historical to reshape it creatively. It thrives on surprise, often disregarding conventional style and respectability. In 2016, Philip Lopate, a seasoned essayist, shifted his focus to blogging, a medium already saturated with content. He committed to writing a weekly blog, embracing the challenge of a faster pace that risked inconsistency. The result is a collection of forty-seven essays, forming a cohesive piece that showcases the essay's expansive nature. Lopate's explorations include family dynamics, reflections on James Baldwin, a trip to China, insights on Agnes Martin and Abbas Kiarostami, commentary on the rise of Donald Trump, and the complexities of life and death. The outcome is a self-portrait, a reflection of contemporary society, and a fresh interpretation of the essay's potential.

This antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original, preserving its historical significance despite potential imperfections like marks and flawed pages. The publication aims to protect and promote important literary works, ensuring they remain accessible in high-quality modern editions that reflect the original's authenticity.