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For Art and for Life
Series: Penguin Archive
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Brief Description
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Few artists' letters are as self-revelatory as Vincent van Gogh's. From the humanistic inspiration behind The Potato Eaters to his long-time obsession with painting the vision that eventually became The Starry Night, the letters in this selection...
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For Art and for Life
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Description
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
Few artists' letters are as self-revelatory as Vincent van Gogh's. From the humanistic inspiration behind The Potato Eaters to his long-time obsession with painting the vision that eventually became The Starry Night, the letters in this selection paint an intense personal narrative of his artistic development and creative process across the years.
They reveal a man of great spiritual and emotional depths who — in his own words — did everything for art and for life itself.
Series: Penguin Archive
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An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter
An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira is part of 90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books. It is 1837 and a brilliant German artist sets out to cross the mountains between Chile and Argentina. Perhaps nobody before him has been able to paint the sights that unfold—vast chasms, surreal plants and animals......Paperback$1700Elsewhere:$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Ecce Homo
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Ecce Homo No, I don't hate being black. I'm just tired of saying it's beautiful. No, I don't hate myself. I'm just tired of people bruising their knuckles on my jaw. A novella with the force of a screaming trumpet flare, Dambudzo Marechera's seminal literary debut explores a body and spirit...Paperback$1700Elsewhere:$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
How I Came to Know Fish
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Of all the sleep a man can have, the fisherman's sleep is the sweetest. It is the greatest of luxuries - sleep and fishing. Through tender, vivid, and often humorous recollections - from magical fishing trips to the rivers and ponds of Bustehrad to his charismatic father's eccentric business ventures -...Paperback$1700Elsewhere:$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Reflections in a Golden Eye
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books On a military base in 1930s Georgia, Private Ellgee Williams catches sight of his captain's wife in the nude and becomes obsessed with her. But Captain Penderton—unhappily married to the unfaithful Leonora—in turn erotically fixates on Williams. Spare, muscular and sensual, with the dramatic vision of a Greek myth, Carson McCullers'...Paperback$1700Elsewhere:$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Requiem
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books My dear friend, he said, life is strange and strange things happen in life It is a hot July Sunday in Lisbon and our narrator has an appointment to meet someone by the quayside. But when his guest does not arrive, he spends the day wandering the deserted city, encountering some...Paperback$1700Elsewhere:$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Dreaming Child
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The Driver's Seat
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Muriel Spark claimed The Driver's Seat to be her best and creepiest novel. Once you have met her heroine Lise—heading for the holiday of a lifetime in an extraordinarily garish dress and with violence on her mind—you will understand why.Paperback$1700Elsewhere:$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Umbrella
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books The Umbrella evokes the delicate interplay of emotion and subtle storytelling. In the words of the author: "Then she would feel exposed and cry, as if her life and happiness were ruined for all time, even though she could still hide it from those she only came in contact with by...Paperback$1700Elsewhere:$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Tristessa
Tristessa is a strange fever-dream of morphine sickness and belly-deep sadness. Or, in the words of Allen Ginsberg: 'a narrative meditation studying a hen, a rooster, a dove, a cat, a chihuahua dog, family meat, and a ravishing, ravished junky lady, first in their crowded bedroom, then out to drunken streets, taco stands, and pads at dawn in Mexico City...Paperback$1700Elsewhere:$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Daemon Lover
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books It's terribly important that I get in touch with a gentleman who may have stopped in here to buy flowers this morning. Terribly important. Sometimes, the person you think you love isn't who they seem. And sometimes, you can be your own deception. Spanning Shirley Jackson's entire career, these devilish tales...Paperback$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Hop-Frog
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Edgar Allan Poe's short stories have lost none of their power to horrify. He remains a destabilisingly terse sketcher of ideas, a writer who allows the reader to fill in the many ghastly blanks in his narratives of violence, retribution and animalism. It is hard to recommend Hop-Frog wholeheartedly (its original...Paperback$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Monkey King Makes Havoc in Heaven
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Wu Cheng'en's 16th-century novel Journey to the West is widely regarded as one of the most important Chinese novels ever written. Here, in Julia Lovell's witty and charismatic translation, we meet one of its heroes - Sun Wukong, or Monkey King, whose powers include shape-shifting, immortality, and being incredibly rude. Though...Paperback$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780241752463
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 17 April 2025
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Penguin Classics
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 10.0mm
Width: 110.0mm
Height: 180.0mm
Weight: 109g
Pages: 176
About the Author
Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work has had far-reaching influence on 20th-century art and beyond. Born to upper middle-class parents, he trained to become a pastor, and did not start painting until his twenties, travelling to The Hague, London, Paris and, famously, Arles. Most of his best-known works were completed during the last two years of his life. Van Gogh suffered from poor mental health and spent over a year in an asylum. On 27 July 1890, he shot himself at the scene of his last painting, the foreboding Cornfields with Flight of Birds. He died two days later.
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Ever Yours
"There is scarcely one letter by Van Gogh which I, who am certainly no expert, do not find fascinating." —W. H. Auden In addition to his many remarkable paintings and drawings, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) left behind a fascinating and voluminous body of correspondence. This highly accessible book includes a broad selection of 265 letters, from a total of 820...Hardback$9599Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
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