'A PELICAN IN THE WILDERNESS: HERMITS, SOLITARIES AND RECLUSES' - Hardcover
From Lao-tse and the Buddha, St. Anthony and the early Celtic hermits, through Rousseau, Thoreau, Ruskin, and up to the present day, certain gifted persons have shown a vocation for living alone and apart, finding in simplicity and attention to nature a spiritual space to be explored and rejoiced in. Others, retreating from the world in scorn or cut off from it by scandal, have found that solitude is Hell, a pit of melancholy and morbid fancy. In this, her first work of nonfiction, novelist Isabel Colegate gives us the lives of the solitaries — male and female, medieval and modern, divinely inspired and patently fraudulent. But this is no mere gallery of saints and sinners, poets and misanthropes. It is also a reevaluation of solitude for our times, and a reminder that it is in solitude that the soul meets itself, refreshes itself, and from there goes out to join the communal dance.
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About the Author:
Isabel Colegate is the author of many bestselling books including THE ORLANDO TRILOGY, AGATHA, A GLIMPSE OF SION'S GLORY, WINTER JOURNEY and THE SHOOTING PARTY. She reviews both fiction and non-fiction for the Daily Telegraph, TLS, the Spectator, Washington Post, New York Times as well as writing travel articles for the Independent, Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. She has appeared on a number of radio and television programmes. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1981and given an honorary degree by the University of Bath in 1988.
Review:
Praise for A Pelican in the Wilderness
Few books contain a cast of characters as fascinating as those who populate A Pelican in the Wilderness , Isabel Colegate’s charming meander through the history of hermits and solitaries. Elegantly written . . . a small gem of a book.” The Wall Street Journal
A bright and highly literate study of asceticism in both the East and the West.” Los Angeles Times
This is a charming book . . . witty and sagacious, entertaining and persuasive. It is not a volume that can be characterized as history or memoir or even a travel book but contains the best elements of all.” The Washington Times
Few books contain a cast of characters as fascinating as those who populate A Pelican in the Wilderness , Isabel Colegate’s charming meander through the history of hermits and solitaries. Elegantly written . . . a small gem of a book.” The Wall Street Journal
A bright and highly literate study of asceticism in both the East and the West.” Los Angeles Times
This is a charming book . . . witty and sagacious, entertaining and persuasive. It is not a volume that can be characterized as history or memoir or even a travel book but contains the best elements of all.” The Washington Times
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherHarperCollins Publishers Canada, Limited
- Publication date2002
- ISBN 10 0002571420
- ISBN 13 9780002571425
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages320
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A Pelican in the Wilderness. Hermits, Solitaries and Recluses
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London: HarperCollins 2002., London
(2002)
ISBN 10: 0002571420
ISBN 13: 9780002571425
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. First edition hardcover in dust jacket. 284 pp. Sources, index. New/New. Seller Inventory # 263589
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