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Christopher Isherwood

    August 26, 1904 – January 4, 1986

    Christopher Isherwood was a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist whose work often explored themes of homosexuality and personal identity within turbulent historical periods. His formative years in Berlin, marked by both burgeoning self-discovery and the shifting political landscape of the 1930s, provided fertile ground for his most celebrated writings. Isherwood's prose is distinguished by its keen observational power and its unflinching examination of human relationships. Later in life, he turned to autobiography and spiritual themes, notably his conversion to Hinduism.

    Christopher Isherwood
    Diaries Volume One: 1939-1960
    Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1
    The Sixties
    Where Joy Resides
    Liberation Diaries, Volume Three
    Isherwood on Writing: The Complete Lectures in California
    • 2022
    • 2022

      Isherwood's lectures on writing and writers, now all available for the first time In the 1960s, Christopher Isherwood gave an unprecedented series of lectures at California universities about his life and work. During this time Isherwood, who would liberate the memoir and become the founding father of modern gay writing, spoke openly for the first time about his craft--on writing for film, theater, and novels--and spirituality. Isherwood on Writing brings these free-flowing, wide-ranging public addresses together to reveal a distinctly American Isherwood at the top of his form. This updated edition contains the long-lost conclusion to the second lecture, published here for the first time, including its discussion of A Single Man, his greatest novel, and A Meeting by the River, his final novel.

      Isherwood on Writing: The Complete Lectures in California
    • 2019

      The Complete Works of W.H. Auden

      Plays and Other Dramatic Writings, 1928-1938

      • 720 pages
      • 26 hours of reading

      The collection showcases dramatic works by Auden and Isherwood, featuring notable plays like The Dog Beneath the Skin and The Ascent of F 6, alongside two distinct versions of Paid on Both Sides. It introduces previously unpublished plays such as The Enemies of a Bishop and The Chase, along with prose and verse for documentary films and a cabaret sketch. The anthology reveals young Auden's unpublished poems and includes detailed historical notes that illuminate the plays' production and revisions, enriching the reader's understanding of these theatrical pieces.

      The Complete Works of W.H. Auden
    • 2014

      The Animals

      • 528 pages
      • 19 hours of reading

      Don, whose portraits of London theatreland were making his name, attends the world premiere of The Innocents with Truman Capote and afterwards dines with Deborah Kerr and the rest of the cast, spends weekends with Tennessee Williams, Cecil Beton, or the Earl and Countess of Harewood, and tours Egypt and Greece with a new love interest.

      The Animals
    • 2013

      Berlínské povídky jsou souborným vydáním dvou původně samostatně publikovaných svazků, novely Konec pana Norrise a souboru kratších povídek Sbohem Berlíne. Autor v knize představuje věkově, sociálně i národnostně pestrou paletu charakterů Berlína třicátých let: záhadného noblesního hochštaplera, bohatého dětinského barona, mladoufrivolní začínající zpěvačku, všetečnou postarší bytnou, chudou berlínskou rodinu, rodinu bohatých židovských obchodníků, atd. Všechny tyto živé a plastické postavy spojuje formálně postava vypravěče, autorovo literární alter ego; postavy vstupují do jeho života, z nenadání jej zase opouští, ale zanechávají v něm svou unikátní stopu. A pak je to samozřejmě Berlín jako takový – kvetoucí evropská metropole s bujarým nočním životem, kavárnami a rušnými ulicemi – dalo by se říct, že tvoří tu nejvýznamnější postavu ze všech. Někde v pozadí ale cítíme i narůstající politické napětí a hrozbu nacismu. Všechny Isherwoodovy postavy se s nastalou situací musejí nějak vyrovnat, ať už je politika zajímá či nikoliv.

      Berlínské povídky
    • 2013

      In the final volume of Christopher Isherwood's diaries, he reflects on aging with humor and curiosity. He explores Hinduism, writes his last works, and engages with the vibrant art scenes of the 1970s alongside his partner, Don Bachardy. The narrative captures a rich tapestry of cultural encounters amid significant historical events.

      Liberation Diaries, Volume Three
    • 2013

      The Condor and the Cows

      • 336 pages
      • 12 hours of reading
      3.9(26)Add rating

      WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY PICO IYERIn September 1947, long before mass tourism and with no knowledge of Spanish, Christopher Isherwood and William Caskey left for a six-month tour of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina.

      The Condor and the Cows
    • 2013

      Kathleen and Frank

      • 528 pages
      • 19 hours of reading
      3.9(27)Add rating

      This is the story of Christopher Isherwood's parents - their meeting in 1895, marriage in 1903 after his father had returned from the Boer War, and his father's death in an assault on Ypres in 1915, which left his mother a widow until her own death in 1960.

      Kathleen and Frank
    • 2013

      Lions and Shadows

      • 256 pages
      • 9 hours of reading
      3.5(55)Add rating

      WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY JAMES FENTONSubtitled 'An education in the twenties', this work blends autobiography and fiction to describe the inner life of a writer evolving from precocious public school boy to Cambridge drop- out at large in London's Bohemia.

      Lions and Shadows
    • 2013

      Liberation

      • 928 pages
      • 33 hours of reading

      Frpm Hollywood and the worlds of music and letters enter John Huston, Merchant and Ivory, John Travolta, John Voight, Elton John, David Bowie, Joan Didion and Armistead Maupin.

      Liberation