Review of the hardback: 'With The Story of Joy, Adam Potkay has written a deep and humane book, work of impressive learning and intellectual agility that is at once challenging, sophisticated and a pleasure to read.' The Review of English Studies

• Preface; Introduction: what is a joy?; 1. Religious joy: the ethics of oneness from the Bible to Aquinas; 2. Erotic joy: the Troubadour tradition; 3. The theology of joy and joylessness: Luther to Crusoe; 4. Ethical joy in the Age of Enlightenment; 5. The joys of doing and of being: Wordsworth and his Victorian legacy; 6. Joy and aesthetics: Coleridge to Wilde; 7. Post-Christian prophesies of forgiveness and exaltation; 8. Tragic joy and the spirit of music: Wagner, Nietzsche, Yeats; Conclusion: the career of joy in the twentieth century; Bibliography; Index.

Review of the hardback: 'With The Story of Joy, Adam Potkay has written a deep and humane book, work of impressive learning and intellectual agility that is at once challenging, sophisticated and a pleasure to read.' The Review of English Studies

• Preface; Introduction: what is a joy?; 1. Religious joy: the ethics of oneness from the Bible to Aquinas; 2. Erotic joy: the Troubadour tradition; 3. The theology of joy and joylessness: Luther to Crusoe; 4. Ethical joy in the Age of Enlightenment; 5. The joys of doing and of being: Wordsworth and his Victorian legacy; 6. Joy and aesthetics: Coleridge to Wilde; 7. Post-Christian prophesies of forgiveness and exaltation; 8. Tragic joy and the spirit of music: Wagner, Nietzsche, Yeats; Conclusion: the career of joy in the twentieth century; Bibliography; Index.