P. N. Furbank's 1978 two-volume portrait, combined here into one edition, is generally considered the definitive biography of novelist E. M. Forster. "One of the best biographies of a writer I've ever read."--Walter Clemons, Newsweek

E. M. Forster: A Life (A Harvest Book)

Biographies & Memoirs

Furbank, P.N.

Arts & Literature

Mariner Books

A Critical Bibliography of Daniel Defoe

Literature & Fiction

British & Irish

Routledge

A major reappraisal of the life and career of the art critic, novelist, dramatist, tireless correspondent and philosopher Denis Diderot. The author of "E.M. Forster: A Life", explores the range and subtlety of Diderot's mind, as well as the scale and tenacity of his intellectual adventure.

Diderot

Alfred.A. Knopf

Author of that inexhaustibly strange masterpiece Rameau's Nephew, Denis Diderot (1713-84) was also a dramatist, a speculative philosopher, the founder of modern art criticism and a tireless correspondent; he has also been called the most talkative man of his generation. His genius was profoundly subversive, and he spent much of his working life under the threat of exile. The son of a cutler, Diderot had an empathy with trades, tools and machinery that flowered magnificently in some of his contributions to the great Encyclopedie, which he edited with d'Alembert and published over a period of some twenty years. Diderot's range of contacts was prodigious: a close friend of Rousseau, Grimm and d'Alembert, a familiar figure in the literary salons of Paris, he also met and corresponded with Hume, Garrick and Laurence Sterne. It was the support of Catherine the Great (as her agent, Diderot in effect laid the foundations of the Hermitage collection) that led to the most extraordinary episode in an astonishing life: at the age of sixty Diderot travelled to St Petersburg where he drew up outline plans for the conversion of Russia into an ideal republic. P. N. Furbank's sympathetic and probing analysis of Diderot's work and influence was first published in 1992 and won a Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism.

Diderot: A Critical Biography

Memoirs

Faber and Faber

Edward Morgan Forster died in 1970 at the age of 91, having achieved a world-wide reputation as an outstanding writer. Though best-known for his novels - Howard's End and A Passage to India are arguably the finest - he was also a brilliant critic and essayist and the author of some remarkable short stories. Forster was born into a mixed family background of bohemia and prim respectability. Indulged, cosseted, dressed up and shown off by his adored mother Lily, it was not surprising that he found public school life painfully harsh. Cambridge began the emancipation - intellectual, artistic, social, and sexual - which Forster's experiences abroad, his growing literary reputation, his deep friendships, and his love affairs were to extend. In his closing years Forster invited Furbank, a close friend, to write his biography. Based on the full range of private diaries, correspondence, and personal reminiscences, this book (first published in 1977) is the authorized and definitive 'life' of Forster. In the words of John Bayley, 'it is impossible to overpraise Furbank's style and sympathy as a biographer'; according to Noel Annan, 'he has done what Forster asked his biographer to do: he has told the truth'.

E. M. Forster: A Life

A portrait of one of key figures of the French Enlightenment provides a incisive study of Diderot's private life, public career, and his literary and philosophical works. By the author of E. M. Forster: A Life.

KNOPF

In Behalf P. N. Furbank argues that in thinking about society and politics, one needs to start from the proposition that every human being contains within himself or herself the entire potentiality of the human species and that it is therefore wrong to regard cultural differences as innate. This conclusion, in turn, raises doubts about the concept of pluralism as propounded by political philosophers such as Isaiah Berlin. According to Berlin, societies incarnate sets of values that, while good in themselves, might be incommensurable or incompatible with those of other societies. As Furbank shows, however, the epithets “incommensurable” and “incompatible” fall to pieces under scrutiny. Furthermore, the tacit implication that pluralism is a political concept, rivaling democracy, appears to be an illusion. Furbank proceeds to consider the question of what it means to act “on behalf” of others. He notes that the apparent strength of “politics of the person”—the ground of feminist, black, and gay politics, with its insistence that everyone should speak with his or her own distinctive voice, unmediated by representation or action on behalf of others—is its freedom from the taint of philanthropy. But he argues that this freedom comes at a high price, which is no less than that of involving the term “politics” in self-contradiction. He concludes that there is seemingly no substitute for what one might call “politics proper” and that this form of politics is by nature on behalf of someone or something not itself—a politics that is, incurably, philanthropic, and, being so, is exposed to all the snares and temptations with which philanthropy is plagued.

Behalf

History & Criticism

University Of Nebraska Press

The Novels of Daniel Defoe, Part I Vol 1

Daniel Defoe is known as the father of the English novel. This is the modern critical edition of Defoe's novels. It brings together all three parts of "Robinson Crusoe" and examines their relationship. The editorial material includes an introduction to each novel, explanatory endnotes, textual notes, and a consolidated index in volume 10.

Owens, W.R.

Starr, G. A.

Keeble, N.H.

The Novels of Daniel Defoe, Part I Vol 2: The Farther Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe (1719)

The Novels of Daniel Defoe, Part I Vol 4

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Books by Furbank, P.N.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Furbank, P.N.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

E. M. Forster: A Life (A Harvest Book)

A Critical Bibliography of Daniel Defoe

Diderot

Diderot: A Critical Biography

E. M. Forster: A Life

Diderot: A Critical Biography

Behalf

The Novels of Daniel Defoe, Part I Vol 1

The Novels of Daniel Defoe, Part I Vol 2: The Farther Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe (1719)

The Novels of Daniel Defoe, Part I Vol 4