The Prince Of Minor Writers Main edition

Marc Notes: Called by Virginia Woolf the prince of essayists and praised by F. W. Dupee for a whim of iron, cleverness amounting to genius, Max Beerbohm himself noted that only the insane take themselves quite seriously. Nonetheless, from his precocious debut as a dandy in 1890s Oxford until, after World War II, when he put the pen aside, Beerbohm was recognized as an incomparable observer of modern life and an essayist whose voice was always and only his own. Here Phillip Lopate, one of the finest essayists of our day, has selected the finest of Beerbohm's essays. Whether writing about the vogue for Russian writers, laughter and philosophy, dandies, or George Bernard Shaw, Beerbohm is as unpredictable as he is unfailingly witty and wise. As Lopate writes, Today...it becomes all the more necessary to ponder how Beerbohm performed the delicate operation of displaying so much personality without lapsing into sticky confession.--; Provided by publisher. Biographical Note: Max Beerbohm (1872-1956) was born in London and studied at Oxford. He published his first collection of essays, "The Works of Max Beerbohm," in 1896 and soon developed a reputation as a brilliant caricaturist and critic. He was married to the American actress Florence Kahn and lived in Rapallo, Italy, for most of his later life. In addition to "The Prince of Minor Writers," NYRB Classics publishes Beerbohm's "Seven Men," a short-story collection. Phillip Lopate is the author of the essay collections "Against Joie de Vivre," "Bachelorhood," "Being with Children," "Portrait of My Body," and "Totally, Tenderly, Tragically"; and of the novels "The Rug Merchant" and "Confessions of a Summer." His most recent books are "Portrait Inside My Head" and T"o Show and to Tell."Review Quotes: "The great Max Beerbohm may be the paradigm of the minor writer and the happy man. In other words: Max Beerbohm was a good and gracious soul." --Roberto BolaNo, "Between Parentheses" "For me, Beerbohm has an almost dangerously perfect tone--a mixture of benign serenity and quiet intellectual authority that I think is the tone every essayist searches for." --Adam Gopnik "Beerbohm's prose style--clever, fast-paced, and sometimes on the verge of anarchy--balances humor with style, and provides a master class in using irony--the greatest weapon in Beerbohm's arsenal--to look at high culture." --Jason Diamond, "Flavorwire" "[Beerbohm's] works provide a glimpse of daily life in the 19th and early 20th centuries, revealing that while manners and dress have evolved, human nature certainly has not... Beerbohm's essays deserve to be revisited today...his writing is humorous and self-deprecating." --"Publishers Weekly"Publisher Marketing: AN NYRB CLASSICS ORIGINAL Virginia Woolf called Max Beerbohm "the prince" of essayists, F. W. Dupee praised his "whim of iron" and "cleverness amounting to genius," while Beerbohm himself noted that "only the insane take themselves quite seriously." From his precocious debut as a dandy in 1890s Oxford until he put his pen aside in the aftermath of World War II, Beerbohm was recognized as an incomparable observer of modern life and an essayist whose voice was always and only his own. Here Phillip Lopate, one of the finest essayists of our day, has selected the finest of Beerbohm's essays. Whether writing about the vogue for Russian writers, laughter and philosophy, dandies, or George Bernard Shaw, Beerbohm is as unpredictable as he is unfailingly witty and wise. As Lopate writes, "Today . . . it becomes all the more necessary to ponder how Beerbohm performed the delicate operation of displaying so much personality without lapsing into sticky confession." Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2015 (EAN 9781590178287, Paperback) Publishers Weekly 04/13/2015 (EAN 9781590178287, Paperback) Contributor Bio:  Lopate, Phillip Phillip Lopate was born in 1943 Brooklyn, New York in and received a B. A. from Columbia in 1964 and later a doctorate from the Union Graduate School in 1979. He spent twelve years working with children as a writer in schools, and taught creative writing and literature at Fordham, Cooper Union, University of Houston, and New York University. Currently, Lopate holds the Adams Chair at Hofstra University and he is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among his many awards he has received a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Public Library Center for Scholars and Writers Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, and two New York Foundation for the Arts grants. His work includes: These Eyes Don't Always Want to Stay Open (1972), Being With Children (1975), The Daily Round (1976), Confessions of Summer (1979), Bachelorhood: Tales of the Metropolis (1981), The Art of the Personal Essay (1995), Totally, Tenderly, Tragically (1998), Writing New York: A Literary Anthology (2000), Getting Personal (2003), Rudy Burckhardt: Life and Work (2004), Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan (2004), and American Movie Critics: An Anthology From the Silents Until Now (2006).