'He who thinks freely for himself, honours all freedom on earth.' Stefan Zweig was already an emigre-driven from a Europe torn apart by brutality and totalitarianism-when he found, in a damp cellar, a copy of Michel de Montaigne's Essais. Montaigne would become Zweig's last great occupation, helping him make sense of his own life and his obsessions-with personal freedom, with the sanctity of the individual. Through his writings on suicide, he would also, finally, lead Zweig to his death. With the intense psychological acuity and elegant prose so characteristic of Zweig's fiction, this account of Montaigne's life asks how we ought to think, and how to live. It is an intense and wonderful insight into both subject and biographer.

The three volumes that comprise this set are facsimile reproductions of contemporary biographical material. They include letters, memoirs, poems and articles on three outstanding Victorian literary partnerships. These are the Brownings, Brontes and the Rossettis.

More than eight decades after his death, the works of Franz Kafka continue to intrigue and haunt us. Even for those with only a fleeting acquaintance with his unfinished novels, or his stories, diaries and letters, 'Kafkaesque' has become a byword for the menacing, unfathomable absurdity of modern existence. Yet for all the universal significance of his fiction, Kafka's writing remains inextricably bound up with his life and work in the Czech capital Prague, where he spent every one of his 40 years. Klaus Wagenbach's biography provides a meticulously researched insight into the author's family background, his education and employment, his attitude to his native city, his literary influences, and his relationships with women. The result is a fascinating portrait of the 20th century's most enigmatic writer, in whose works, as W. G. Sebald recognised, 'literary and life experience overlap'.

Novelist Zora Neale Hurston and poet Langston Hughes, two of America's greatest writers, first met in New York City in 1925. Drawn to each other, they launched a radical journal. Later, meeting by accident in Alabama, they became close as they travelled together-Hurston interviewing African Americans for folk stories, Hughes getting his first taste of the deep South. By illuminating their lives, work, competitiveness and ambitions, Yuval Taylor savvily explores how their friendship and literary collaborations would end in acrimonious accusations.

In the second memoir from the first Native American to serve as US poet laureate, Joy Harjo invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses and humble realisations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic meditation, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of compassion and healing, poetry with the power to unearth the truth and demand justice. Weaving together the voices that shaped her, Harjo listens to stories of ancestors and family, the poetry and music that she first encountered as a child, the teachings of a changing earth and the poets who paved her way. She explores her grief at the loss of her mother and sheds light on the rituals that nourish her as an artist, mother, wife and community member. Moving fluidly among prose, song and poetry, Poet Warrior is a luminous journey of becoming that sings with all the jazz, blues, tenderness and bravery that we know as distinctly Joy Harjo.

Born in London in 1890, Angela Thirkell was Sir Edward Burne-Jones's granddaughter, J.M. Barrie's goddaughter and a cousin of Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin. John Collier painted her portrait and she was drawn by John Singer Sargent and Thea Proctor. Between 1931 and her death in 1961, Angela published more than thirty books in a variety of genres. She began with the acclaimed family memoir Three Houses and later settled on her amusing Barsetshire series, inspired by Anthony Trollope but set in the present day. Angela Thirkell: A Writer's Life tells the author's story from her Kensington childhood to her two marriages and the birth of three sons, Graham McInnes, Colin MacInnes and Lance Thirkell, all of whom also entered the literary world. The book traces her decade in Australia where she wrote for magazines and newspapers and made radio broadcasts, followed by her return to London and her fortuitous meeting with a young publisher called Jamie Hamilton, which lead to her bestselling Barsetshire novels.

Towards the end of a long and astonishingly full life, whose scope and variety most of us can only dream about, Jan Carew began writing his memoirs. A global, multifaceted man, they cover his multiple lives as Guyanese/Caribbean novelist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist activist, the early shaper of Black Studies in the United States, actor and playwright, painter, agricultural evangelist, advisor to Heads of State in Africa and the Caribbean and theoretician of the Columbian origins of racism in the Americas. Where there are gaps, Joy Gleason Carew goes back to some of the vivid, eyewitness journalism Jan Carew wrote in those heady days of hope and struggle.

An authoritative and comprehensive intellectual biography of the author of the Divine Comedy For all that has been written about the author of the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) remains the best guide to his own life and work. Dante's writings are therefore never far away in this authoritative and comprehensive intellectual biography, which offers a fresh account of the medieval Florentine poet's life and thought before and after his exile in 1302. Beginning with the often violent circumstances of Dante's life, the book examines his successive works as testimony to the course of his passionate humanity: his lyric poetry through to the Vita nova as the great work of his first period; the Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia and the poems of his early years in exile; and the Monarchia and the Commedia as the product of his maturity. Describing as it does a journey of the mind, the book confirms the nature of Dante's undertaking as an exploration of what he himself speaks of as "maturity in the flame of love." The result is an original synthesis of Dante's life and work.

On 3 August 1845, Emily Dickinson declared, "All things are ready"-and with this, her life as a poet began. Despite spending her days almost entirely "at home", Dickinson's interior world was extraordinary. She loved passionately, was ambivalent towards publication, embraced seclusion and created 1,789 poems that she tucked into a dresser drawer. Martha Ackmann unravels the mysteries of Dickinson's life through ten decisive episodes that distil her evolution as a poet. She follows Dickinson through her religious crisis while a student, her decision to ask a famous editor for advice, her letters to an unidentified "Master", her frenzy of composition and her terror in confronting blindness. These ten days provide new insights into Dickinson's wildly original poetry and render a concise and vivid portrait of this enigmatic figure.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was one of the most important philosophers of all time; he was also one of the most radical and controversial. The story of Spinoza's life takes the reader into the heart of Jewish Amsterdam in the seventeenth century and, with Spinoza's exile from Judaism, into the midst of the tumultuous political, social, intellectual, and religious world of the young Dutch Republic. This new edition of Steven Nadler's biography, winner of the Koret Jewish Book Award for biography and translated into a dozen languages, is enhanced by exciting new archival discoveries about his family background, his youth, and the various philosophical, political, and religious contexts of his life and works. There is more detail about his family's business and communal activities, about his relationships with friends and correspondents, and about the development of his writings, which were so scandalous to his contemporaries.

The Byzantine emperor Leo VI (886-912), was not a general or even a soldier, like his predecessors, but a scholar, and it was the religious education he gained under the tutelage of the patriarch Photios that was to distinguish him as an unusual ruler. This book analyses Leo's literary output, focusing on his deployment of ideological principles and religious obligations to distinguish the characteristics of the Christian oikoumene from the Islamic caliphate, primarily in his military manual known as the Taktika. It also examines in depth his 113 legislative Novels, with particular attention to their theological prolegomena, showing how the emperor's religious sensibilities find expression in his reshaping of the legal code to bring it into closer accord with Byzantine canon law. Meredith L. D. Riedel argues that the impact of his religious faith transformed Byzantine cultural identity and influenced his successors, establishing the Macedonian dynasty as a 'golden age' in Byzantium.

'A daring and mesmerizing twist on the art of biography' - Douglas Smith, author of Rasputin: The Biography 'Anyone who loves [Dostoevsky's] novels will be fascinated by this book' - Sue Prideaux, author of I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche Dostoevsky's life was marked by brilliance and brutality. Sentenced to death as a young revolutionary, he survived mock execution and Siberian exile to live through a time of seismic change in Russia, eventually being accepted into the Tsar's inner circle. He had three great love affairs, each overshadowed by debilitating epilepsy and addiction to gambling. Somehow, amidst all this, he found time to write short stories, journalism and novels such as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov, works now recognised as among the finest ever written. In Dostoevsky in Love Alex Christofi weaves carefully chosen excerpts of the author's work with the historical context to form an illuminating and often surprising whole. The result is a novelistic life that immerses the reader in a grand vista of Dostoevsky's world: from the Siberian prison camp to the gambling halls of Europe; from the dank prison cells of the Tsar's fortress to the refined salons of St Petersburg. Along the way, Christofi relates the stories of the three women whose lives were so deeply intertwined with Dostoevsky's: the consumptive widow Maria; the impetuous Polina who had visions of assassinating the Tsar; and the faithful stenographer Anna, who did so much to secure his literary legacy. Reading between the lines of his fiction, Christofi reconstructs the memoir Dostoevsky might have written had life - and literary stardom - not intervened. He gives us a new portrait of the artist as never before seen: a shy but devoted lover, an empathetic friend of the people, a loyal brother and friend, and a writer able to penetrate to the very depths of the human soul.

C. S. Lewis, based on the popularity of his books and essays, is one of the best communicators of the twentieth century. During his lifetime he was hailed for his talents as author, speaker, educator, and broadcaster; he continues to be a best-selling author more than a half-century after his death. C. S. Lewis and the Craft of Communication analyzes Lewis's communication skill. A comprehensive review of Lewis's work reveals five communication principles that explain his success as a communicator. Based on Lewis's own advice about communication in his books, essays, and letters, as well as his communication practice, being a skilled communicator is to be holistic, intentional, transpositional, evocative, and audience-centered. These five principles are memorably summarized by the acronym HI TEA. Dr. Steven Beebe, past president of the National Communication Association and an internationally-recognized communication author and educator, uses Lewis's own words to examine these five principles in a most engaging style.

Anne Bronte, the youngest and most enigmatic of the Bronte sisters, remains a best-selling author nearly two centuries after her death. The brilliance of her two novels - Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - and her poetry belies the quiet, yet courageous girl who often lived in the shadows of her more celebrated sisters. Yet her writing was the most revolutionary of all the Brontes, pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable. This revealing new biography opens Anne's most private life to a new audience and shows the true nature of her relationships with her siblings, in particular with her sister Charlotte.

In September 1769, three thousand people descended on Stratford-Upon-Avon to celebrate the legacy of the town's most famous son. For three days, attendees paraded through garlanded streets, listened to songs and oratorios, and enjoyed masked balls. It was a unique cultural moment-a coronation elevating William Shakespeare to the throne of genius. It was also a disaster as the poorly planned Jubilee imposed an army of Londoners on an ill-equipped backwater town. Told from the perspectives of David Garrick, who masterminded the Jubilee, and James Boswell, who attended it, What Blest Genius? is rich with humour, gossip and intrigue. Recounting the absurd and chaotic glory of those three days, Andrew McConnell Stott illuminates the circumstances in which Shakespeare became a transcendent global icon.

This book, the first of two volumes anticipating the bicentenary of the birth of William Makepeace Thackeray in 1811, details not only the author's life, but also the cosmopolitan and literary worlds inhabited by his two daughters, Minny and Annie. When Thackeray died in 1863, the two sisters were forced to find their own way forward. Minny would marry Leslie Stephen, later father of Virginia Woolf, and die at only thirty-five; Annie, encouraged in early years by her father, would herself emerge as a successful novelist, though one always living, albeit willingly, within her father's shadow. Drawing continuously on the letters, diaries, journals and notebooks of the Thackerays and their circle, Aplin sheds light on this remarkable man's family, and the effect that his life, death and legacy had on those closest to him. The book will appeal not just to those interested in Thackeray and the Victorians, but also to readers of biography, womenis studies and memoirs, and to followers of Viriginia Woolf and Bloomsbury.

Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600 81) is Spain's most important early modern dramatist. His varied career as a playwright, courtier, soldier and priest placed him at the heart of Spanish culture, and he reflected on contemporary events in his plays, most famously La vida es sueno (Life is a Dream). In this 2009 scholarly biography of Calderon in English, Don Cruickshank uses his command of the archival sources and his unparalleled understanding of Calderon's work to chart his life and his political, literary and religious contexts. In addition, the book includes much fresh research into Calderon's writings and their attributions. This elegant, erudite work will bring Calderon to a new audience both within and beyond Spanish studies. With illustrations, extensive notes and a detailed index, this is the most comprehensive English-language book on Calderon, and it will long remain the key work of reference on this important author.

If I had not kissed anyone, or danced with anyone, or had a reason to cry, the music made me feel as if I had gone through all that anyway . . . the music attracted and repelled, organised and disturbed and then let us into the night, clusters of emotion ready to dissolve into sleep. In The Importance of Music to Girls, Lavinia Greenlaw tells the story of the adventures that music leads us into: getting drunk, falling in love, dying of boredom, cutting our hair, terrifying our parents, wanting to change the world. This is a vivid memoir unlike any other, recalling the furious passion of being young, female, and coming alive through music.

From the beloved and bestselling author of I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, this memoir chronicles Maya Angelou's involvement with the civil rights movement. 'A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman' BARACK OBAMA Maya Angelou's seven volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration. The fourth volume of her enthralling autobiography finds Maya Angelou immersed in the world of black writers and artists in Harlem, working in the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King. 'She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence and a fierce grace . . . She will always be the rainbow in my clouds' OPRAH WINFREY 'She was important in so many ways. She launched African American women writing in the United States. She was generous to a fault. She had nineteen talents - used ten. And was a real original. There is no duplicate' TONI MORRISON

Louis Bromfield was a World War I ambulance driver, a Paris expat, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist as famous in the 1920s as Hemingway or Fitzgerald. But he cashed in his literary success to finance a wild agrarian dream in his native Ohio. The ideas he planted at his utopian experimental farm, Malabar, would inspire America's first generation of organic farmers and popularize the tenets of environmentalism years before Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. A lanky Midwestern farm boy dressed up like a Left Bank bohemian, Bromfield stood out in literary Paris for his lavish hospitality and his green thumb. He built a magnificent garden outside the city where he entertained aristocrats, movie stars, flower breeders, and writers of all stripes. Gertrude Stein enjoyed his food, Edith Wharton admired his roses, Ernest Hemingway boiled with jealousy over his critical acclaim. Millions savored his novels, which were turned into Broadway plays and Hollywood blockbusters, yet Bromfield's greatest passion was the soil. In 1938, Bromfield returned to Ohio to transform 600 badly eroded acres into a thriving cooperative farm, which became a mecca for agricultural pioneers and a country retreat for celebrities like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (who were married there in 1945). This sweeping biography unearths a lost icon of American culture, a fascinating, hilarious and unclassifiable character who-between writing and plowing-also dabbled in global politics and high society. Through it all, he fought for an agriculture that would enrich the soil and protect the planet. While Bromfield's name has faded into obscurity, his mission seems more critical today than ever before.

"I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows with a harp and a sword in my hands."

First published in 1942 at the crest of her popularity, this is Zora Neale Hurston's unrestrained account of her rise from childhood poverty in the rural South to prominence among the leading artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. Full of wit and wisdom, and audaciously spirited, "Dust Tracks on a Road" offers a rare, poignant glimpse of the life -- public and private -- of a premier African-American writer, artist, anthropologist and champion of the black heritage."Warm, witty, imaginative, and down-to-earth by turns, this is a rich and winning book by one of our genuine, Grade A, folk writers." "--The New Yorker"