Ulrich Baer – författare

Friedrich Nietzsche presented many of his greatest insights in pithy, well-turned short phrases that do not follow any philosophical dogma. Instead, his chastening but ultimately life-affirming philosophy puts forth true love and friendship as our best hope in dark times. Here are Nietzsche’s key sayings about love from the vast body of his philosophical writings, which have influenced politics, philosophy, art and culture like few other works of world literature. As the first edition of its kind, this collection presents Nietzsche’s thoughts on love not as academic philosophy but as a guide to life. At turns delightful and astute—and always wise—Nietzsche on Love offers an original and startling glimpse into what one of the world’s foremost thinkers says about the fundamental experience of our lives.

Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry and letters have inspired countless readers around the world with their wisdom and insight into how we can be more than ourselves without recourse to religion, politics, or ideology: through the experiences of art and love. Gathered here for the first time in original translations are Rilke’s candid, piercing, and lyrical reflections on love—the experience he considered paramount for human existence but also, with the exception of death, the event for which we are least prepared. Selected from Rilke’s poetry and his vast correspondence, these passages present Rilke’s contemplations on falling in love, being in love, losing love, and the mystical ways in which love endures.

Emily Dickinson’s poems are characterized by an unmatched emotional and intellectual intensity that is cast into direct and accessible language of unusual brevity and grace. Some of her poems run for only a few lines but they survey the entire cosmos of human experience, including life and death, solitude and society, morality and nature. Many of her 1,775 poems are devoted to love, which Dickinson expressed from the position of the lover, the beloved, and the poet who marvels how love transports and transforms us. This selection gathers Dickinson’s thrillingly unique poetry about the central animating experience of our lives.

Jack London’s beloved 1903 masterpiece, The Call of the Wild, is unsurpassed as the gripping adventure of Buck, a California wolf-dog enjoying the good life who is brutally kidnapped and sold into the Canadian Yukon as a sled-dog during the gold rush of the 1890s. Buck quickly has to shed his civilized ways to survive the harsh new laws of fang and club, but after terrifying challenges he triumphs by discovering his true nature, which leads him to authentic love and finally an authentic life. Far more than a deeply moving animal fable, London’s harrowing and sublime tale probes fundamental questions of human existence and our relationship to the natural world.

Includes London’s haunting short story “To Build a Fire,” his 1903 article “How I Became a Socialist,” his 1910 essay The Other Animals, an afterword by Ulrich Baer, and a biographical timeline.

In colonial New England, beautiful, young Hester Pryne bears a child although her husband is presumed lost at sea. She refuses to name the father and is condemned to wear a scarlet “A” and live as an outcast. As she transforms the badge of shame into a symbol of freedom, Hawthorne’s dramatic masterpiece envisions an authentic relation between the sexes—and a different way of imagining love, sin, and redemption—that can form the basis for America’s radical project of a true democracy.

Oscar Wilde was a legendary wit, a poetic provocateur, and one of England’s greatest playwrights who became a martyr for free love, a scapegoat for repressive society, and a myth onto himself. Shimmering beneath the dazzling witticisms and delicious irony is Wilde’s profound, serious, and unshakeable commitment to love. Love is the experience that can unmoor us from the habits, conventions, and expectations of our lives in both thrilling and unsettling ways. It is also the thing that, like no other, inspires undreamed-of acts of courage. This edition combines Wilde’s thoughts on love from his published writings with a selection of Wilde’s letters to Lord Alfred Douglas (“Bosie”) and a little-known letter from Douglas to Wilde.

An unprecedented compendium of milestones in the history of American literature, this anthology presents all of the "first" literary works that broke barriers, inaugurated new traditions, and prove that the imagination of diverse authors was one of the most powerful forces in shaping our nation. Fictions of America brings together the first published work by literary pioneers who, through bold self-expression, helped create what we call America today. Surprising, thrilling, and charged with the energy of originality and innovation, this eminently teachable collection serves as a foundation and an inspiration for imagining our shared future. Draws on the most up-to-date scholarship for concise introductions to each work and author, key suggestions for further readings, and reliable source information.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Thus begins Jane Austen''s most beloved and celebrated novel that has delighted and enthralled readers ever since its anonymous publication in 1813. In Austen''s time, Mr. Bennet''s estate can only be passed down to a male heir-a circumstance that will leave his five daughters destitute. To escape poverty at least one of sisters must make a wealthy match to support the others. Despite this pressure, the spirited Bennet girls are determined to marry for love rather than for money and prestige. Austen''s humor, wit, and narrative prowess infuse this highly entertaining story that offers, along the way, a keen examination of the nature of true happiness and independence and has served as inspiration for countless retellings up to the present time. This authoritative edition includes a new afterword, Virginia Woolf''s seminal essay Jane Austen, and a detailed timeline of Austen''s life.