Best of
Essays

1908

All Things Considered


G.K. Chesterton - 1908
    As an author he created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and produced several notable works on apologetics including Oethodoxy (1908) and The Everlasting Man (1925). He routinely referred to himself as an 'orthodox' Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicisim, eventually converting to Catholicism from High Church Anglicanism. He was born in Kensington, educated at St Paul's School, and later attended the Slade School of Art, a department of University College London, to become an illustrator. He also took classes in literature at UCL but did not complete a degree in either subject. His first positions were within publishing houses, during which time he also became a freelance art and literary critic, and in 1902 the Daily News gave him a weekly opinion column, followed in 1905 by a weekly column in the London Illustrated News for which he continued to write for the next 30 years. In 1901 he married Frances Blogg who played a large role in his career as amanuensis and personal manager. Throughout the course of his career Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4,000 essays, and several plays. His writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour, and he would often employ paradox while making serious comments on the world, politics, economics, philosophy, theology, and many other topics. All Things Considered (1908) is a collection of 34 essays, the first of several books comprised of essays that had previously appeared as columns in the Illustrated London News. The contents of this collection are quintessential Chesterton, covering subjects from poetry to patriotism, anonymity to impartiality, from demagogues to mystagogues, from science to religion, from phonetic spelling to running after one's hat.

Notes d'un Peintre / Notes of a Painter (Parallel Text)


Henri Matisse - 1908
    In 1908, the prestigious Grande Revue invited Matisse to publish an article in reply to the movement's critics. The intensely personal Notes, presented in this book, were the result. Our unique parallel text presents the original French on the left page, the English translation on the right, with sentences and paragraphs aligned for easy reading and reference. Parallel texts of this kind are a very valuable learning resource, as they make the foreign language content immediately comprehensible.

Henry James: Major Stories and Essays


Henry James - 1908
    Early Manhood: "I have said that Hawthorne was an observer of small things"- -V. The three American novels- -The art of fiction- -Ralph Waldo Emerson: Review of A memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by James Elliot Cabot- -The question of the opportunities- -The lesson of Balzac- -William shakespeare: Introduction to the Tempest- -Preface to The portrait of a lady.