Most of Andre Gide's richly-varied literary output has long been available to American readers. Only one aspect of his protean career has been lacking in translation: the essays, the publication of which will go far to explain why Gide holds in France such high rank as a critic. Many of the essays in Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality were provoked by events in the cultural and political world of twentieth-century France, a turbulent setting that produced a lasting literature. These essays are vintage Gide, ...
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Most of Andre Gide's richly-varied literary output has long been available to American readers. Only one aspect of his protean career has been lacking in translation: the essays, the publication of which will go far to explain why Gide holds in France such high rank as a critic. Many of the essays in Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality were provoked by events in the cultural and political world of twentieth-century France, a turbulent setting that produced a lasting literature. These essays are vintage Gide, informed by his characteristic spirit-his hard brilliance, pointed honesty, and the enduring relevance of his concerns. Readers of his Journals will be prepared for the style, intelligence, and marksmanship that Gide brings to bear in these forty-two articles on life as well as on letters. His range, as always, is broad: a long and moving memoir of his encounters with Oscar Wilde; a series of combats against reactionary nationalists and self-appointed purifiers of morals; estimates of Mallarme, Baudelaire, Proust, Gautier, and Valery, among others; letters to Jacques Riviere, Jean Cocteau, and Francis Jammes; and general essays on art, literature, the theater, and politics. Justin O'Brien, famous for his studies in modern French literature, has written that Gide is "related to La Fontaine and Racine by his essential conciseness and crystalline style, to Montaigne and Goethe by his inquiring mind which reconciled unrest and serenity, to Baudelaire by his lucid, prophetic criticism." O'Brien, who has done so much to bring contemporary French literature to America, supervised the translations in Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality, prepared several of them himself, and contributes an informative general introduction and additional commentary to preface the various sections of this major book.
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Publisher:
Greenwich Editions, Meridian Books, Inc
Published:
1959
Alibris ID:
13550213148
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Seller's Description:
Very Good; Good Jacket. 1959 Greenwich Editions, Meridian Books, Inc. Selected, edited, and introduced by Justin O'Brien. First Edition thus. "First Published by Meridian Books 1959; First Printing 1959" on verso. NOT ex-library. Hardcover has black cloth-covered boards with white cloth-covered spine and black and gold spine lettering. Gild initials "A.G." on front cover. Top page edges are black. Yellow endpapers illustrated with black facsimile manuscript. Binding tight. Hinges NOT cracked. Spine ends very lightly bumped. Edges of covers very lightly tanned. Pages very lightly and uniformly tanned but still supple. Pages clean and unmarked. 352 pages. Dust jacket has light surface and edge wear, with chips at the corners and spine ends; half-inch tear at the top of the front panel. Dust jacket is NOT price clipped; jacket spine lightly sunned. Essays translated from the original French texts by Angelo P. Bertocci, Jeffrey J. Carre, Justin O'Brien, and Blanche A. Price. Carefully packed, shipped in a box. First Edition. Includes dust jacket.
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Seller's Description:
Good. First Delta printing. Binding solid. Pages unmarked but somewhat tanned. Cover is generally scuffed, but especially at edges, and it curls from bottom corner.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. B001KXKN4E. Selected, edited, introduced, and translated from the French by Justin O'Brien. First printing thus. Slight spine slant, else very good in a very good (one short closed edge tear, fading along the spine) dust jacket.
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Seller's Description:
Good. Green cloth binding with bumping to the corners and rubbing to the spine. Boards are in rather clean condition. Dark green cloth boards withgilt spine lettering.1st Thus.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good in Very Good Minus jacket. 8vo. First edition. Hard cover in dust jacket. Published NY: Greenwich/Meridian, 1959, first printing. 8vo., 352pp. Very good in very good minus dust jacket with edgewear, closed tear along the rear inner flap fold..
