Marguerite Yourcenar

In her magnificent novel, Marguerite Yourcenar recreates the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world. The Emperor Hadrian, aware his demise is imminent, writes a long valedictory letter to Marcus Aurelius, his future successor. The Emperor meditates on his past, describing his accession, military triumphs, love of poetry and music, and the philosophy that...

This story collection is a welcome port of entry for any reader not yet familiar with Marguerite Yourcenar's works. Published to great acclaim in France in 1993, this collection is not only a delight for Marguerite Yourcenar fans but a welcome port of entry for any reader not yet familiar with the author's lengthier, more demanding works. This collection includes...

A selection of texts on art and artists by the Belgian French novelist and essayist Marguerite Yourcenar Best known for her seminal novel Memoirs of Hadrian (1951), an imagined autobiography of the Roman emperor, Yourcenar brings the same depth of inquiry and inventive speculation to her lyric prose on art and artists in this newest title in the ekphrasis series....

Both an exploration of character and a reflection on the meaning of history, Memoirs of Hadrian has received international acclaim since its first publication in France in 1951. In this work, Marguerite Yourcenar reimagines the Emperor Hadrian's arduous boyhood, his triumphs and reversals, and finally, as emperor, his gradual reordering of a war-torn world. She writes with the imaginative insight...