"The letters of one of the greatest observers of the human species, revealing his passion for life and work, friendship and art, medicine and society, and the richness of his relationships with friends, family, and fellow intellectuals over the decades. Collected here for the first time."--

The man behind "I Could Have Danced all Night" and "Almost Like Being in Love", lyricist Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986) is widely regarded as one of the most important figures of the American musical stage. In penning the lyrics to some of the most well-known and beloved Broadway shows, including Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady, and Camelot, Lerner worked and corresponded with some of the greatest luminaries of popular entertainment over a career which spanned four decades, from performers like Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews to composers like André Previn, Leonard Bernstein, Charles Strouse, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and especially Frederick Loewe. In this rich collection of correspondence, most of it published for the first time, author Dominic McHugh sheds new light on Lerner's working relationships with these legendary figures. McHugh's extensive commentary reveals Lerner's turbulent partnerships with Loewe and Lane, his affection for Harrison, and his reverence for Burton. Particular emphasis is placed on Lerner's aborted projects with composers like Richard Rodgers and Arthur Schwartz. Especially valuable is the correspondence from his final years, in which he worked on a movie version of The Merry Widow, a BBC TV series about musicals, and a musical version of My Man Godfrey, none of which came to fruition. The collection ends with a poignant final exchange between Lerner and Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he was to have written The Phantom of the Opera. Overall, this important and lively book reveals the highs and lows of the career of one of America's wittiest and most romantic lyricists.

While the collected writings of many major 20th-century artists, including Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell and Ad Reinhardt, have been published, Mark Rothko's writings have only recently come to light, beginning with the critically acclaimed "Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art". Rothko's other written works have yet to be brought together into a major publication. "Writings on Art" fills this significant void; it includes some 90 documents, including short essays, letters, statements and lectures, written by Rothko over the course of his career. The texts are fully annotated and a chronology of the artist's life and work is also included. This provocative compilation of both published and unpublished writings from 1934-69 reveals a number of things about Rothko: the importance of writing for an artist who many believed had renounced the written word; the meaning of transmission and transition that he experienced as an art teacher at the Brooklyn Jewish Center Academy; his deep concern for meditation and spirituality; and his private relationships with contemporary artists (including Newman, Motherwell and Clyfford Still) as well as journalists and curators. As was revealed in Rothko's "The Artist's Reality", what emerges from this collection is a more detailed picture of a sophisticated, deeply knowledgeable and philosophical artist, who was also a passionate and articulate writer.

"Milton Friedman and George J. Stigler shaped economics as we know it today - their Chicago School laid the groundwork for much of the neoclassical tradition in economic analysis. This book brings together a collection of letters from these two Noble laureates from the post-war years, containing new information about their personal and professional relationships, and also illuminating the development of ideas which are now fundamental to economic theory. The book, edited by Dan and Claire Hammond, contains an introductory chapter, chronologies for Friedman and Stigler, and transcripts of 71 letters written from 1945 to 1957 along with enclosures."--BOOK JACKET

Karl Abraham was an important and influential early member of Freud's inner circle of trusted colleagues. As such he played a significant part in the establishment of psychoanalysis as a recognised and respected discipline. Regarded by Ernest Jones as one of the best clinical analysts among his contemporaries1 he also elaborated and expanded upon Freud's theories. Exploring first-hand the complex relationship and rivalries that existed not only between Freud and his master pupil, but also the details of their combined and individual relationships with Jung, this substantial and absorbing collection of letters enables the reader to gain valuable insights into these two pioneers of psychoanalysis.'Since psychoanalysis is established as an essential part of the history of ideas for the last century, intellectual historians should relish the fact that an absolutely excellent and full edition of this correspondence has finally come out.'

This book presents a new and comprehensive biography of one of the most prominent artists of the twentieth century in dialogue with the events and ideologies of his time. It encompasses the 98 years of Chagall's life (1887-1985) in Russia, France, the US, as well as Germany and Israel, his deep roots in folk culture, his personal relationships and loves, his involvement with the art of the Russian Revolution, with Surrealism, Communism, Zionism, Yiddish literature and the state of Israel. The book exposes the complex relationships between Chagall's three cultural identities: Jewish-Russian-French. Indeed, it is a biography of the turbulent times of the twentieth century and the transformations of a Jew in it, his meteoric rise from the "ghetto" of the Russian Pale of Settlement to the centers of modern culture. -- Back cover.

One of the central relationships in the Beat scene was the long–lasting friendship of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. Ginsberg introduced Snyder to the East Coast Beat writers, including Jack Kerouac, while Snyder himself became the model for the serious poet that Ginsberg so wanted to become. Snyder encouraged Ginsberg to explore the beauty of the West Coast and, even more lastingly, introduced Ginsberg to Buddhism, the subject of so many long letter exchanges between them. Beginning in 1956 and continuing through 1991, the two men exchanged more than 850 letters. Bill Morgan, Ginsberg's biographer and an important editor of his papers, has selected the most significant correspondence from this long friendship. The letters themselves paint the biographical and poetic portraits of two of America's most important—and most fascinating—poets. Robert Hass' insightful introduction discusses the lives of these two major poets and their enriching and moving relationship.

One of the central figures in modern thought, Max Horkheimer (1895?1973) was the director of the Institute of Social Research at the University of Frankfurt and guided the activities of the Frankfurt School from its origins in Germany through its exile in the United States during World War II. The Frankfurt School writers developed what came to be known as Critical Theory, and anyone familiar with poststructuralist theory in the humanities and social sciences will recognize its indebtedness to the Frankfurt School. ø These letters show how Horkheimer?s thought was influenced by and engaged with the historical events of the twentieth century, particularly the Holocaust and the Vietnam War. The letters trace the trajectory of his thought from an early optimism about the possibility of revolutionary change to a critique of orthodox Marxism as his faith in revolution was replaced by a commitment to the transformative power of education. ø These letters also convey the contours of Horkheimer?s personal relationships and illustrate the connection of Horkheimer and the Frankfurt School to the work and thought of some of the most important figures in the intellectual life of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Karl Marx, Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse.