More than half a century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach's Mimesis remains a masterpiece of literary criticism. A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature. This new expanded edition includes a substantial essay in introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay, never before translated into English, in which Auerbach responds to his critics.

A German Jew, Auerbach was forced out of his professorship at the University of Marburg in 1935. He left for Turkey, where he taught at the state university in Istanbul. There he wrote "Mimesis," publishing it in German after the end of the war. Displaced as he was, Auerbach produced a work of great erudition that contains no footnotes, basing his arguments instead on searching, illuminating readings of key passages from his primary texts. His aim was to show how from antiquity to the twentieth century literature progressed toward ever more naturalistic and democratic forms of representation. This essentially optimistic view of European history now appears as a defensive--and impassioned--response to the inhumanity he saw in the Third Reich. Ranging over works in Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English, Auerbach used his remarkable skills in philology and comparative literature to refute any narrow form of nationalism or chauvinism, in his own day and ours.

For many readers, both inside and outside the academy, "Mimesis" is among the finest works of literary criticism ever written. This Princeton Classics edition includes a substantial introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay in which Auerbach responds to his critics.

First published in English in 1954, this founding work of the history of religions secured the North American reputation of the Romanian emigre-scholar Mircea Eliade. Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no fewer than half a dozen European languages, The Myth of the Eternal Return illuminates the religious beliefs and rituals of a wide variety of archaic religious cultures. While acknowledging that a return to their practices is impossible, Eliade passionately insists on the value of understanding their views to enrich the contemporary imagination of what it is to be human. This book includes an introduction from Jonathan Z. Smith that provides essential context and encourages readers to engage in an informed way with this classic text.

The last two volumes of Casanova's account of his extraordinary life include the story of his imprisonment in Buen Retiro, his trip to Madrid and his affair with Dona Ignacia, his journey to Barcelona and his detention in the Tower, his encounter with Lord Baltimore, and his serious illness in Aix-en-Provence when he is taken care of by a mysterious woman who turns out to the servant of one of his first loves, Henriette.

First published in 1951, "Shamanism" soon became the standard work in the study of this mysterious and fascinating phenomenon. Writing as the founder of the modern study of the history of religion, Romanian emigre--scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) surveys the practice of Shamanism over two and a half millennia of human history, moving from the Shamanic traditions of Siberia and Central Asia--where Shamanism was first observed--to North and South America, Indonesia, Tibet, China, and beyond. In this authoritative survey, Eliade illuminates the magico-religious life of societies that give primacy of place to the figure of the Shaman--at once magician and medicine man, healer and miracle-doer, priest, mystic, and poet. Synthesizing the approaches of psychology, sociology, and ethnology, "Shamanism" will remain for years to come the reference book of choice for those intrigued by this practice."

In this landmark book, first published in English in 1958, renowned scholar of religion Mircea Eliade lays the groundwork for a Western understanding of Yoga. Drawing on years of study and experience in India, Eliade provides a comprehensive survey of Yoga in theory and practice from its earliest antecedents in the Vedas through the twentieth century.

A new introduction by David Gordon White provides invaluable insight into Eliade's life and work, highlighting the key moments in Eliade's academic and spiritual education, as well as the personal experiences that shaped his worldview. "Yoga" is not only one of Eliade's most important books, it is also his most personal--the only one to analyze a religious tradition that he had truly lived.

An approach to music as an instrument of philosophical inquiry, seeking not so much a philosophy of music as a philosophy through music.

"All that a life of this kind can contain Casanova put into his story. And how much of the world!--the eighteenth century as you get it in no other book; society from top to bottom; Europe from England to Russia, a more brilliant variety of characters than you can find in any eighteenth-century novel."--Edmund Wilson

Volumes 9 and 10 contain descriptions of Casanova's first visits to England, Prussia, Russia, and Poland. In all these countries he gained access to the Courts. Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia join the roster of potentates entertained and charmed by the adventurer. Though beginning to age, and ruing it, Casanova still manages to exert a powerful attraction on women.

"Trask's exemplary translation... makes the real Casanova accessible in English... as strange, as diverse, as compelling as fiction."--John Simon, "Book Week"

In volumes 7 and 8, Casanova is now close to forty. His various manipulations of the credulous rich have made him rich in turn. His travels take him to France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. In Rome he charms the Pope; in Naples, he nearly marries a young woman as licentious as he is himself, but she turns out to be his daughter.

"Trask has written a version in an English fully contemporary yet remarkably Italian in sensibility. With admirable restraint and refinement, he has conveyed the zest and sensuous delight of the original."-- "National Book Award Citation"

Volumes 3 and 4 offer some of the most extraordinary episodes in Casanova's extraordinary life, including his liaison with the nun M. M., and his flight from the State Inquisitor's prison--each in its own way a feat of singular dash and daring.

In volumes 1 and 2, Casanova tells the story of his family, his first loves, and his early travels. With the death of his grandmother, he is sent to a seminary--but is soon expelled. He is briefly imprisoned in the fortress of Sant' Andrea. After wandering from Naples to Rome in search of a patron, he enters the service of Cardinal Acquaviva.

About this edition: Because every previous edition of Casanova's "Memoirs" had been abridged to suppress the author's political and religious views and tame his vivid, often racy, style, the literary world considered it a major event when Willard R. Trask's translation of the complete original text was published in six double volumes between 1966 and 1971. Trask's award-winning translation now appears in paperback for the first time.

"These memoirs are compulsive reading... they are the work not only of a highly accomplished seducer but of a literary artist of the highest talents."--J. H. Plumb, "New York Times Book Review"

In volumes 5 and 6, Casanova brings his flight from the Inquisitor's prison in Venice to a happy conclusion. Exiled from Venice, he goes to Munich and Paris, where he establishes himself as a cabalist, makes a fortune in Holland, helps start the French State Lottery, goes on to Switzerland where he meets Voltaire.