Diderot - Hardcover
Physical description; xiii, 524p, [12]p of plates : ill, map, ports ; 24cm. Subject; Diderot, Denis 1713-1784 - Biography.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
P.N. Furbank was born in Surrey in 1920 and has worked as an academic, in publishing and as a freelance writer and critic. In 1986 he was appointed Visiting Professor in Literature at the Open University.His publications include Samuel Butler (1835-1902), Italo Svevo: The Man and the Writer, Reflections on the Word 'Image', E.M. Forster: A Life, Unholy Pleasure: The Idea of Social Class and (with W.R. Owens) The Canonisation of Daniel Defoe.
From Publishers Weekly:
"Truly, posterity would be an ungrateful wretch if it forgot me altogether," wrote Denis Diderot (1713-1784), "seeing how often I remember it."305 Diderot was not to be forgotten but rather misremembered, often as simply the cutler's son who for 20-plus years labored over that monument of the 18th century, the Encyclopedie. This account gives short shrift to a life that included a spell in prison, the writing of a pornographic novel, an eccentric family, a longtime love affair and a circle of celebrated friends, among them D'Alembert, Mme d'Epinay, Grimm and Rousseau. It also shortchanges the works that are uniquely Diderot's own. Furbank's ( E. M. Forster ) special strength is in illuminating Diderot's plays, philosophical writings, art criticism and fiction, lucidly following his struggle with two ideas--fiction as deception and fiction as illusion. Weaving together biography and criticism can distort a subject's chronology and can strain a writer's transitions and place undue demands on a reader, such as having to recall the dates of works each time they are mentioned. But works and life are unavoidably integral; as Marmontel notes, "He who knows Diderot only from his books does not know him at all." Furbank certainly does not fit into this category. Illustrations not seen by PW .
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherAlfred A. Knopf
- Publication date1992
- ISBN 10 0436168537
- ISBN 13 9780436168536
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages480
- IllustratorIllustrated
- Rating
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Diderot: A Critical Biography
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Book Description Condition: Good. Illustrated (illustrator). This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. In good all round condition. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,900grams, ISBN:0436168537. Seller Inventory # 9167651
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Diderot : a critical biography / P.N. Furbank
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(1992)
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Book Description Illustrated (illustrator). First Edition. Fine cloth copy in a near-fine, very slightly edge-dulled dust wrapper. Remains particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong. Physical description; xiii, 524 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Notes; Includes bibliographical references (p. [484]-508) and index. Contents; Denis Diderot (1713-84) was one of the most dazzling and attractive figures of the French Enlightenment. Known principally as the chief editor of the Encyclopedie, the great "bible" of the age, he was an incomparable polymath -- a dramatist, novelist, speculative philosopher, the founder of modern art criticism, and tireless correspondent. And his works, all of them informed by an uncannily modern sensibility, have influenced a staggering range of writers -- from Goethe and Schiller to Balzac, Stendhal, Heine, Marx, Freud, and Kafka. In this masterful biography, P. N. Furbank provides a probing yet sympathetic account of Diderot's life and a brilliant analysis of his work, drawing intriguing connections between many previously disjointed notions about the man and his achievement. The son of a cutler (though a hopeless craftsman himself), Denis Diderot rose, after an interestingly complicated youth, to become an intimate of all the eminent intellectuals of the Enlightenment. A close friend of Rousseau, Grimm, and d'Alembert, and a familiar figure in the literary salons of Paris, he also met and corresponded with David Hume, David Garrick, and Laurence Sterne. The support of yet one more remarkable acquaintance, Catherine the Great, led to what is perhaps the most amazing episode in this astonishing life; at the age of sixty, he traveled to St. Petersburg and, in debate with the Empress, drew up plans for the conversion of Russia into an ideal republic. A deeply subversive genius, Diderot spent much of his working life under the threat of exile. Consequently his daring and inventive novels did not begin to reach the public until a decade after his death, and in the case of his inexhaustibly strange masterpiece, Rameau's Nephew, not until two decades or more. These and others of his most original compositions (also unpublished in his life) reveal aspects of Diderot virtually unknown to his contemporaries and often misunderstood today. Furbank's absorbing book meticulously draws the various strands together as it brings to life its astounding subject. Subjects; Diderot, Denis 1713-1784. Diderot, Denis 1713-1784 Biography. Diderot, Denis 1713-1784 Criticism and interpretation. Authors, French 18th century ; Biography. Philosophers France ; Biography. Diderot, Denis, 1713-1784 French literature, 1700-1800 Biography. 1 Kg. Seller Inventory # 402609
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Diderot : a critical biography / P.N. Furbank
Published by
New York London : A.A. Knopf ; Martin Secker & Warburg
(1992)
ISBN 10: 0436168537
ISBN 13: 9780436168536
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Book Description Illustrated (illustrator). First Edition. Fine cloth copy in a near-fine, very slightly edge-dulled dust wrapper. Remains particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong. Physical description; xiii, 524 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Notes; Includes bibliographical references (p. [484]-508) and index. Contents; Denis Diderot (1713-84) was one of the most dazzling and attractive figures of the French Enlightenment. Known principally as the chief editor of the Encyclopedie, the great "bible" of the age, he was an incomparable polymath -- a dramatist, novelist, speculative philosopher, the founder of modern art criticism, and tireless correspondent. And his works, all of them informed by an uncannily modern sensibility, have influenced a staggering range of writers -- from Goethe and Schiller to Balzac, Stendhal, Heine, Marx, Freud, and Kafka. In this masterful biography, P. N. Furbank provides a probing yet sympathetic account of Diderot's life and a brilliant analysis of his work, drawing intriguing connections between many previously disjointed notions about the man and his achievement. The son of a cutler (though a hopeless craftsman himself), Denis Diderot rose, after an interestingly complicated youth, to become an intimate of all the eminent intellectuals of the Enlightenment. A close friend of Rousseau, Grimm, and d'Alembert, and a familiar figure in the literary salons of Paris, he also met and corresponded with David Hume, David Garrick, and Laurence Sterne. The support of yet one more remarkable acquaintance, Catherine the Great, led to what is perhaps the most amazing episode in this astonishing life; at the age of sixty, he traveled to St. Petersburg and, in debate with the Empress, drew up plans for the conversion of Russia into an ideal republic. A deeply subversive genius, Diderot spent much of his working life under the threat of exile. Consequently his daring and inventive novels did not begin to reach the public until a decade after his death, and in the case of his inexhaustibly strange masterpiece, Rameau's Nephew, not until two decades or more. These and others of his most original compositions (also unpublished in his life) reveal aspects of Diderot virtually unknown to his contemporaries and often misunderstood today. Furbank's absorbing book meticulously draws the various strands together as it brings to life its astounding subject. Subjects; Diderot, Denis 1713-1784. Diderot, Denis 1713-1784 Biography. Diderot, Denis 1713-1784 Criticism and interpretation. Authors, French 18th century ; Biography. Philosophers France ; Biography. Diderot, Denis, 1713-1784 French literature, 1700-1800 Biography. 1 Kg. Seller Inventory # 402609
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