Signs of the Material World traces the literary effects of nineteenth-century materialism that includes the mind and body within a multifaceted “living life.” The book examines a range of scientists, from Auguste Comte and the “vulgar” materialists to...

Examining journal drawings as an integral--and often delightful--feature of Thoreau's work In 1850, Henry David Thoreau began to draw in his Journal--a hedgehog's quill, a locust's wing, a goldenrod leaf. The sketches reflect his efforts to train his...

In a world obsessed with expertise and control, the figure of the idiot illuminates deeper truths about society. Dostoevsky and Nietzsche wrote about him; Dadaists and punks idolized him; artists like Warhol and Beuys made him their icon. From holy...

Poetry, arguably, has a greater range of conceptual meaning than perhaps any other term in English. At the most basic level everyone can recognize it--it is a kind of literature that uses special linguistic devices of organization and expression for...

Available in a beautiful print edition for the first time, this brilliant lecture delivered by László Krasznahorkai, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, reads like an unforgettable short story Addressed to a rapt audience in Stockholm two days...

Tracing the influence and impact of Plato’s Timaeus—and its major themes, creation and beauty—through the centuriesMore than two thousand years after it was written, Plato’s Timaeus continues to fascinate and intrigue its readers. In Timaeus in Paradise,...

Exploring the deeply translational and transnational nature of the writings of Vladimir Nabokov, this book argues that all his work is unified by the permanent presence of three cultures and languages: Russian, English and French. In particular, Julie...

"The thoughts traced in this book may seem a little complicated but the project itself is simple. It is to see what sort of weight and extension Walter Benjamin's phrase 'reception in distraction' can be seen to bear in changing contexts. The book first...

"In Praise of Shadows belongs to that special order of slim, enormously powerful books that enchant the lay reader with an esoteric subject, leaving a lifelong imprint on the imagination." --Maria Popova These all-new translations of four landmark...

The life and times of Dante’s soaring poetic allegory of the soul’s redemptive journey toward God Written during his exile from Florence in the early 1300s, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy describes the poet’s travels through hell, purgatory, and...

A popular novelist and literary blogger answers those who claim the classics are too difficult, too problematic, and too white—and explains what we gain by reading themWhen she was in her early twenties, then-aspiring writer Naomi Kanakia set out to read...

A poignant and galvanizing anthology that illuminates the realities and nuances of family estrangement, with pieces by Stephanie Foo, Nick Flynn, Deesha Philyaw, Cheryl Strayed, and othersEstrangement presents an essential existential question: who are...

Traces the life of Pound, describes his childhood and education, and discusses the influence of his background on his poetry

Thirty years after its original publication, this newly imagined edition brings the work and musings of fifteen Black literary luminaries in conversation with a new generation of writers and readers. The first edition of I Know What the Red Clay Looks...

A memoir in essays that expands on the viral sensation “The Crane Wife” with a frank and funny look at love, intimacy, and self in the twenty-first century. From friends and lovers to blood family and chosen family, this “elegant masterpiece” (Roxane...