To the Hermitage - Softcover

Bradbury, Malcolm

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1585672564 ISBN 13: 9781585672561

Publisher: Overlook Books, 2002

Synopsis

In alternating narratives, Bradbury brilliantly recreates the climate of the eighteenth century―as Diderot journeys to Russia at the behest of Catherine the Great for discussions on the nature of the late-18th-century world, as well as the twentieth century academic milieu.

In October 1993, a novelist is invited to go to Stockholm and Russia to take part in what is enigmatically referred to as the Diderot Project. In Stockholm he is joined by various other members of the project―including an academic, a lustful opera singer, and a Swedish diplomat. On the journey to Russia more is revealed about the great Enlightenment writer Denis Diderot―the son of a knife maker in Langres, who went to Paris and compiled the Encyclopedia, a book that changed the world.

About this title

About the Author

Malcolm Bradbury is a novelist, critic, television dramatist and Emeritus Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. He is author of the novels Eating People is Wrong (1959); Stepping Westward (1965); The History Man (1975); which won the Royal Society of Literature Heinemann Prize and was adapted as a famous television series; Rates of Exchange (1983) which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Cuts: A Very Short Novel (1987), also televised; and Doctor Criminale (1992). His critical works include The Modern American Novel (1984; revised edition, 1992); No, Not Bloomsbury (essays, 1987); The Modern world: Ten Great Writers (1988); From Puritanism to Post-modernism: A History of American Literature (with Richard Ruland, 1991) He is the author of a collection of seven stories and nine parodies, entitled Who Do You Think You Are? (1976), and of several works of humour and satire, including Why Come to Slaka? (1986), Unsent Letters (1988; revised edition, 1995) and Mensonge (1987). Many of his books are published by Penguin. In addition, he has written many television plays and the television 'novel' The Gravy Train and The Gravy Train Goes East. He has adapted several television series, including Tom Sharpe's Porterhouse Blue, Kinglsey Amis's The Green Man and Stella Gibbon's' Cold Comfort Farm, now a feature film.

Malcolm Bradbury lives in Norwich, travels good deal, and in 1991 he was awarded the CBE.

Edition details

• Publisher: Overlook Books
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1585672564
• ISBN 13: 9781585672561
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 510