When Bobby Fischer died in January 2008, he left behind a confounding legacy. Everyone knew the basics of his life: he began as a brilliant youngster, then became the pride of American chess, then took a sharp turn, struggling with paranoia and mental illness. But nobody truly understood him. What motivated him from such a young age, and what was the source of his remarkable intellect? How could a man so ambivalent about money and fame be so driven to succeed? What drew this man of Jewish descent to fulminate against Jews, and how was it that a mind so famously disciplined could unravel so completely? From his meteoric rise, to an utterly dominant prime, to his eventual descent into madness, the book draws upon hundreds of newly discovered documents and recordings, and numerous firsthand interviews conducted with those who knew Fischer best, to paint, for the very first time, a complete picture of one of the most enigmatic icons. This is the definitive account of a fascinating man and an extraordinary life, one that at last reconciles Fischer's deeply contradictory legacy and answers the question: 'Who was Bobby Fischer?'

"Onassis, as he emerges from these pages, is superb...Onassis was a phenomenon in our time, combining money, power, intelligence, a zest for humanity, and, I suspect, a deep-seated humanity...Onassis was, above all, a man...Brady provides many insights into the attitudes of the man." The New York Times Book Review "Onassis was a hard-driving ambitious man who went after whatever he wanted and usually succeeded...He was a shrewd businessman who knew how to charm people, how to entertain them, how to sweep them off their feet and into his corner...Brady is to be commended for coming up with such a probing study." West Coast Review of Books "A life that so excels most fiction...For Onassis's lifestyle, Brady's is the better source." The Washington Post "For the people yearning to read about the feud with shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos, the affair with diva Maria Callas, the marriage to Jackie Kennedy, the friendship with Winston Churchill, and the quarrel with Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier." Publishers Weekly "Glamorous ... more like a novel than a biography ... illuminates the paradoxes in Onassis' life." Newsday "A fast-moving biography of a robust, colorful life ... detailing the Greek's penchant for beautiful women ... An unblinking appraisal of a power-wielder and his vulnerabilities." Booklist "Brady concentrates on the women in Onassis' life, from the extraordinary Ingebord Dedichen who served as Onassis' early mentor ... to Jacqueline Kennedy." The New York Times "Laughing and conniving and handing out diamond necklaces, the man had something life-giving ..." Chicago Daily News

This is a major new selection of Samuel Johnson's best work, delightfully introduced by W. K. Wimsatt and scrupulously annotated by Frank Brady and Mr. Wimsatt.
Samuel Johnson, the only writer in English since the Renaissance to give his name to a literary period, was the center of English letters in his time. He was Dictionary Johnson, the lexicographer who had single-handedly settled the English language (it was hoped) on a firm basis; he was the author of a handful of fine poems, including two of the most remarkable satires of the century; he was a moralist whose "Rambler" and "Idler" essays, and novel-of-ideas "Rasselas," provided a searching view of men and matters. And in his final years he produced his greatest work, that extraordinary combination of biography and criticism which came to be known as the "Lives of the Poets."
This first extensive anthology of Johnson's writings to be published in many years emphasizes Johnson the writer. It responds to those aspects of Johnson's work of special interest to modern readers. It comprises a selection of Johnson's letters, all of his major poems (including "London"), "Rasselas," twenty-one "Rambler," nineteen "Idlers," the Prefaces to the "Dictionary" and to the edition of Shakespeare, and the following "Lives of the Poets: " Cowley, Milton, Swift, Pope, Savage, Collins, and Gray.
All these works are extensively annotated and printed complete. Mr. Wimsatt, one of the outstanding Johnsonians of this century, provides in his Introduction a clear, connected biographical account of Johnson, stressing his writings. An up-to-date bibliography is also included. Johnson's varied accomplishments--as poet, as moralist, asbiographer, as critic--are all amply represented.