Gospel in Great Writers

How did a Catholic priest who died a failure become one of the world's greatest poets? Discover in his own words the struggle for faith that gave birth to some of the best spiritual poetry of all time. Gerard Manley Hopkins deserves his place among the greatest poets in the English language. He ranks seventh among the most frequently reprinted English-language poets, surpassed only by Shakespeare, Donne, Blake, Dickinson, Yeats, and Wordsworth. Yet when the English Jesuit priest died of typhoid fever at age forty-four, he considered his life a failure. He never would have suspected that his poems, which would not be published for another twenty-nine years, would eventually change the course of modern poetry and influence such poets as W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Geoffrey Hill, and Seamus Heaney. Like his contemporaries Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, Hopkins revolutionized poetic language. And yet we love Hopkins not only for his literary genius but for the hard-won faith that finds expression in his verse. Who else has captured the thunderous voice of God and the grandeur of his creation on the written page as Hopkins has? Seamlessly weaving together selections from Hopkins's poems, letters, journals, and sermons, Peggy Ellsberg lets the poet tell the story of a life-long struggle with faith that gave birth to some of the best poetry of all time. Even readers who spurn religious language will find in Hopkins a refreshing, liberating way to see God's hand at work in the world.

If you don't have the time to read all the novels of George MacDonald, the great Scottish storyteller who inspired C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, Mark Twain, W. H. Auden, and J. R. R. Tolkien, this anthology is a great place to start. These selections from MacDonald's novels, fairy tales, and sermons reveal the profound and hopeful Christian vision that infuses his fantasy worlds and other fiction. Newcomers will find in these pages a rich, accessible sampling. George MacDonald enthusiasts will be pleased to find some of the writer's most compelling stories and wisdom in one volume. Drawn from books including Sir Gibbie, The Princess and the Goblin, Lilith, and At the Back of the North Wind, the selections are followed by reflections from G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis and accompanied by classic illustrations of Maurice Sendak (print edition only).

In this anthology, renowned murder mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers tackles faith, doubt, human nature, and the most dramatic story ever told. For almost a century, a series of labyrinthine murder mysteries have kept fans turning pages hungrily as Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane discover whodunit, again and again. Detective novel enthusiasts may not know that for almost as many years, Christian thinkers have appreciated the same Dorothy L. Sayers for her acumen as an essayist, playwright, apologist, and preeminent translator of Dante's Divine Comedy. Now, for the first time, an anthology brings together the best of both worlds. The selections uncover the gospel themes woven throughout Sayers's popular fiction as well as her religious plays, correspondence, talks, and essays. Clues dropped throughout her detective stories reveal an attention to matters of faith that underlies all her work. Those who know Sayers from her nonfiction writings may wonder how she could also write popular genre fiction. Sayers, like her friend G. K. Chesterton, found murder mysteries a vehicle to explore the choices characters make between good and evil. Along with C. S. Lewis and the other Inklings, with whom she maintained a lively correspondence, Sayers used her popular fiction to probe deeper questions. She addressed not only matters of guilt and innocence, sin and redemption, but also the cost of war, the role of the conscience, and the place of women in society. None of these themes proved any hindrance to spinning a captivating yarn. Her murder mysteries are more reminiscent of Jane Austen than Arthur Conan Doyle, with all the tense interpersonal exploration of the modern novel.

The Gospel in Dostoyevsky vividly reveals – as none of his novels can on their own – the common thread of the great God-haunted Russian's questioning faith. Drawn from The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, and The Adolescent, the seventeen selections are each prefaced by an explanatory note. Newcomers will find in these pages a rich, accessible sampling. Dostoyevsky devotees will be pleased to find some of the writer's deepest, most compelling passages in one volume. Full-page woodcuts by master engraver Fritz Eichen¬berg enhance the book.

We know of no better introduction to the spiritual vision of one of the greatest writers of all time. This anthology vividly reveals – as none of his novels, novellas, short stories, plays, or essays could on its own – the great Russian novelist's fascination with the life and teachings of Jesus and the gospel themes of betrayal and forgiveness, sacrifice and redemption, death and resurrection. Drawn from War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Resurrection, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Master and Man, Walk in the Light, and Twenty-Three Tales, the selections are each prefaced by a contextual note. Newcomers will find in these pages a rich, accessible sampling. Tolstoy enthusiasts will be pleased to find some of the writer's deepest, most compelling passages in one volume.