Goethe: His Faustian Life with A.N. Wilson
Tuesday 22nd October
Topping & Company Booksellers of Edinburgh, 2 Blenheim Place, Edinburgh EH7 5JH
7pm
7.30pm
The story of a revolution started by Goethe, in subjectivism, individualism and freedom. One of the most prolific and well-researched biographers currently working today, we are delighted to be welcoming A. N. Wilson for an evening that will be nothing short of fascinating.
Goethe: His Faustian Life
Goethe was the inventor of the psychological novel, a pioneer scientist, great man of the theatre and a leading politician. As A. N. Wilson argues in this groundbreaking biography, it was his genius and insatiable curiosity that helped catapult the Western world into the modern era. A N. Wilson tackles the life of Goethe with characteristic wit and verve. From his youth as a wild literary prodigy to his later years as Germany's most respected elder statesman, Wilson hones in on Goethe's undying obsession with the work he would spend his entire life writing - Faust. Goethe spent over 60 years writing his retelling of Faust, a strange and powerful work that absorbed all the philosophical questions of his time as well as the revolutions and empires that came and went. It is his greatest work, but as Wilson explores, it is also something much more - it is the myth of how we came to be modern.
About A. N. Wilson
A. N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is one of the outstanding biographers of our time - his biographies of Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, Milton and Hilaire Belloc are beyond compare. In 2007, Wilson's novel, Winnie and Wolf, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and in 2020 The Mystery of Charles Dickens was published to great critical acclaim.