
Congreve: The Most Elegant, Subtle Writer of His Time
The Works of William Congreve
edited by D.F. McKenzie, prepared for publication by C.Y. Ferdinand
December 20, 2012 issue
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Charles Rosen was a pianist and music critic. In 2011 he was awarded a National Humanities Medal.
Congreve: The Most Elegant, Subtle Writer of His Time
The Works of William Congreve
edited by D.F. McKenzie, prepared for publication by C.Y. Ferdinand
December 20, 2012 issue
Extreme Romanticism at the Met
‘Ernani,’ and the extraordinary range of Verdi’s genius
Ernani
an opera by Giuseppe Verdi
March 22, 2012 issue
The Super Power of Franz Liszt
The greatest pianist who ever lived
Liszt as Transcriber
by Jonathan Kregor
February 23, 2012 issue
The Pleasures of Rimbaud
Illuminations
by Arthur Rimbaud, translated from the French and with a preface by John Ashbery
Poems Under Saturn
by Paul Verlaine, translated from the French and with an introduction by Karl Kirchwey
August 18, 2011 issue
The Revelations of Frank Kermode
The Uses of Error
by Frank Kermode
Bury Place Papers: Essays from the London Review of Books
by Frank Kermode
The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative
by Frank Kermode
Shakespeare's Language
by Frank Kermode
June 9, 2011 issue
Isaiah Berlin’s Civilized Malice
The hostile review of Isaiah Berlin’s correspondence by A.N. Wilson in the TLS—which has set off a heated controversy about Berlin and his reputation—exhibited a misunderstanding of university life as well as of the nature of Sir Isaiah’s career. Wilson was unappreciative of Berlin as a historian, comparing him unfavorably with his close contemporary, the Oxford historian A.L. Rowse. Neither were truly major historians but Berlin was not really a historian at all, in the full sense of that word, nor was he exactly a philosopher. His field, largely untrodden and little understood, was the intersection of philosophy, aesthetics and history: in this, his achievement was very great, above all in his profound elucidation of the way that ideas like freedom, enlightenment and nationalism could appear, develop and be challenged in the politics and art from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
January 12, 2010
The Lost Pleasure of Browsing
I have read that more books in the United States are now sold online than in bookstores, and have noticed—and assume a causal connection—that there are less books on the shelves of stores. Since I almost never want to buy a book until I have held it in my hands and riffled through the pages, this means that I shall be purchasing fewer books in the future. Just as well, I suppose, as there is no space on my shelves.
October 13, 2009
Happy Birthday, Elliott Carter!
Elliott Carter: A Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents
by Felix Meyer and Anne C. Shreffler
March 12, 2009 issue
What Happened to Wystan Auden?
The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Prose, Volume III: 1949–1955
edited by Edward Mendelson
Randall Jarrell on W.H. Auden
edited by Stephen Burt with Hannah Brooks-Motl
November 20, 2008 issue
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