Book Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1870 edition by Longmans & Co.; etc., London. ... Read more

Book Description
BOOK DESCRIPTION

* Who was Francis Bacon, a genius of modern times?

* Why did he often use cyptic or 'secret' ways of communicating in his writings?

*Was he also a Master of Hermetic Wisdom?If so, how do we know this?

*Are we currently living in the beginning of Bacon's long-awaited 'New Age'?

Francis Bacon, the acclaimed but hidden 'chief' who led the wits and poets in Elizabethan and Jacobean England during the period that saw some of the greatest masterpieces of English literature created, is now revealed.For the first time, readers will see his many dimensions, how Bacon deliberately followed the path of the ancients, using drama, certain codes and ciphers, to lead people to self-knowledge and enlightenment --a New Age.Through special techniques, cryptic codes and ciphers, we learn more about the ancient wisdom embedded in his works and how we -- today -- may well be living on the cusp of the 'New Age' of enlightenment that Bacon envisioned long ago.

Bacon and the Pursuit of truth:

Bacon's work is founded on the perennial wisdom underlying the Bible.His work is known as THE SIX DAY'S WORK (of creation) guiding the seeker towards peace, prosperity and illumination based on love, understanding and service.

Bacon and Enlightenment:

This illumination or light is the wisdom of ages, synthesised from many sources into books, music, drama nad art by a group led by Sir Francis Bacon.

Baconand the Shakespeare plays

These were written as working examples forming part of Bacon's method for the discovery of truth.

Bacon and Discovery:

In this book, author and readers work together to explore the 'treasure trail' of clues that Bacon and his Rosicrucian group left in order that we, too, may learn, practice and develop the work even further, in the early 21st century. ... Read more

Book Description
Thomas More: Utopia/ Francis Bacon: New Atlantis/Henry Neville: The Isle of PinesWith the publication of Utopia (1516), Thomas More introduced into the English language not only a new word, but a new way of thinking about the gulf between what ought to be and what is.His Utopia is at once a scathing analysis of the shortcomings of his own society, a realistic suggestion for an alternative mode of social organization, and a satire on unrealistic idealism.Enormously influential, it remains a challenging as well as a playful text. This edition reprints Ralph Robinson's 1556 translation from More's original Latin together with letters and illustrations that accompanied early editions of Utopia. Utopia was only one of many early modern treatments of other worlds.This edition also includes two other, hitherto less accessible, utopian narratives.New Atlantis (1627) offers a fictional illustration of Francis Bacon's visionary ideal of the role that science should play in the modern society.Henry Neville's The Isle of Pines (1668), a precursor of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, engages with some of the sexual, racial, and colonialist anxieties of the end of the early modern period.Together these texts illustrate the diversity of the early modern utopian imagination, as well as the different purposes to which it could be put. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Prose which still affects our thinking
Literature before James Joyce, before Jane Austen, before Daniel Defoe: NoUlysses, no Emma, no Robinson Crusoe - for modern readers it is hard toimagine a stock of English literature without the existence of these andother important writers and their `novels'. What kind of literature couldone refer to in a pre-novelistic age? As a matter of fact, there wereauthors, such as Sir Thomas More and Sir Francis Bacon, who wrote prosewhich, indeed, still affects our thinking. However, neither More nor Baconused English, but chose Latin as their original means of expression. Forwhat reasons? And none of these authors was in fact a free-lance writer -they were all occupied in public and political spheres. What made themactually write fictional works? How does their fiction relate to theircultural environment - or, what was regarded as `fiction'? These textscover a century of political, religious, scientific and literary debatesand gave rise to a new understanding of knowledge, and introducedinfluential literary devices. ... Read more

Book Description

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), commonly regarded as one of the founders of the Scientific Revolution, exerted a powerful influence on the intellectual development of the modern world. He also led a remarkably varied and dramatic life as a philosopher, writer, lawyer, courtier, and statesman. Although there has been much recent scholarship on individual aspects of Bacon's career, Perez Zagorin's is the first work in many years to present a comprehensive account of the entire sweep of his thought and its enduring influence. Combining keen scholarly and psychological insights, Zagorin reveals Bacon as a man of genius, deep paradoxes, and pronounced flaws.

The book begins by sketching Bacon's complex personality and troubled public career. Zagorin shows that, despite his idealistic philosophy and rare intellectual gifts, Bacon's political life was marked by continual careerism in his efforts to achieve advancement. He follows Bacon's rise at court and describes his removal from his office as England's highest judge for taking bribes. Zagorin then examines Bacon's philosophy and theory of science in connection with his project for the promotion of scientific progress, which he called "The Great Instauration." He shows how Bacon's critical empiricism and attempt to develop a new method of discovery made a seminal contribution to the growth of science. He demonstrates Bacon's historic importance as a prophetic thinker, who, at the edge of the modern era, predicted that science would be used to prolong life, cure diseases, invent new materials, and create new weapons of destruction. Finally, the book examines Bacon's writings on such subjects as morals, politics, language, rhetoric, law, and history. Zagorin shows that Bacon was one of the great legal theorists of his day, an influential philosopher of language, and a penetrating historian.

Clearly and beautifully written, the book brings out the richness, scope, and greatness of Bacon's work and draws together the many, colorful threads of an extraordinarily brilliant and many-sided mind.

Customer Reviews (1)

misses the boat
Zagorin has not added much to the great mystery of Francis Bacon. He has written a superficial understanding of the life and as a result left out many salient aspectsthat would have provided greater insight into Bacon'smotivations and philosophy. Save your money on this one and buy a copy ofAlfred Dodd's:"Francis Bacon's Personal Life Story"instead. ... Read more

Book Description
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is one of the most important figures of the early modern era.His plan for scientific reform played a central role in the birth of the new science.The essays in this volume offer a comprehensive survey of his writings on science, including his classifications of sciences, his theory of knowledge and of forms, his speculative philosophy, his idea of cooperative scientific research, and the providential aspects of Baconian science.There are also essays on Bacon's theory of rhetoric and history as well as on his moral and political philosophy and on his legacy. ... Read more

Product Description
Published for the Classics Club ... Read more

Book Description
This is the first extensive one-volume selection of Bacon's English writings in over 90 years. The latest addition to The Oxford Authors series, it includes all the major literary writings on which his reputation rests--the Advancement of Learning, the Essays (in their first and last versions), and the New Atlantis. It also includes sixteen other works not reprinted for over a century, which show Bacon's remarkable all-round abilities in politics, law, theology, and poetry. The selections are annotated in more detail than in any other edition, with particular emphasis on explaining Bacon's language. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A different slant
John Russell wrote this "biography" while Francis Bacon was very much alive and tends to emphasize the influences on Bacon's work more from an environmental standpoint than an art historian view.But to jump into Bacon's raucous life "in medias res" is a gift that now can be savoured, like picking the grapes off the vines that in years to come will become a fine vintage wine.A diversion, and only in black and white reproductions, but a rather important comment in retrospect.

A good introduction to Bacon but not a very deep analysis.
Like many biographies, Russell's work concentrates more on the man's times than on the man himself.While we learn a lot about what was going on around Bacon, what he himself experienced is left unexplored.Granted,Bacon made gathering biographical information very difficult, but I wouldhave appreciated more insightful analysis of Bacon's life and itsconnections to his work.Overall it is a very good introduction to Bacon'scareer and total output, and includes a huge number of pictures that makethe book extremely valuable as a reference.Unfortunately though, whilethere are many color reproductions, they are outnumbered by black and whiteones that take away from truly experiencing the power of Bacon's work.

francis bacon
WellireallythinkthatFrancis Baconisagreatartist. Ijust stratid readingabout hisartworkandhehassomanygoosdrawingslike Henrretta Moraes, and hisselftportrait. Theyareverinicedrawings.Soireally thinkhisgreatt. ... Read more

Book Description
Volume two of a two volume set. (This description is for all volumes.) Contents: The Argument: William Shakespeare did Not Write the Plays; Francis Bacon the Real Author of the Plays; Parallelisms; The Demonstration: The Cipher in the Plays; The Cipher Narrative; Conclusion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Pretzel logic
Of the 19th century Baconians, Ignatius Donnelly --- utopian, progressive politician, primordial New Age-r --- was surely the hardest working. And "The Great Cryptogram" (nearly 1,000 pages in its entirety) is the most convincing argument against Shakespeare's authorship of the Plays. The first part of this opus, not included in the edition under review, reprises other Baconians' claims against Shakespeare: that his lack of education, low moral character and rural background rendered it impossible that he could have written the masterworks attributed to him.

Donnelly goes further, claiming to have discovered by serendipity a sort of "Bible code" in the Folio edition of 1623, printed after Shakespeare's death. Donnelly's hunch --- that if Bacon, an expert on cryptography, wrote the Plays he would have left clues for posterity --- led to the discovery of a cipher. Based on the complex interplay of certain key numbers, Donnelly found an internal narrative that relates the history of Bacon's deception, why it was necessary (self preservation), and explictly stating that "Will Shak'st-spur" was his useful idiot in the intrigue. Donnelly answered accusations that he was simply plucking words out of the Plays to create the narrative with the argument thatthe words were extracted according to a fairly consistent arithmetical scheme, and the resulting coherence couldn't be pure chance.

It is human nature to cling to the orthodox explanation no matter the facts (how many Americans still believe Oswald was a lone gunman?), and perhaps because of this, Donnelly's conspiracy theory never achieved acceptance. It may not have helped his credibility that his other blockbuster book sought to prove the existence of Atlantis. In the 1950s, a CIA crytographer shredded Donnelly's work.

Nevertheless, this is a fine work of scholarship by an honest broker of information with much interesting detail about the life and times of Shakespeare, Bacon, and Elizabethan England. ... Read more

Book Description
`their excellence and their value consisted in being the observations of a strong mind operating upon life; and in consequence you find what you seldom find in other books.' Samuel JohnsonCelebrated today as a writer and scientist, Francis Bacon was for the most part of his life occupied with the law and public affairs at a high level. Although personally devastating, his fall from public office in 1621 nonetheless served to liberate him for his own work and the last five years of his life saw an enormous output in the most varied fields.It is to this period that we owe the last and most popular work published in his lifetime, the Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral (1625)Focusing on the ethical, political and historical constraints and influences on human behaviour and following principles laid down by rhetorical theory, Bacon sought to systematize his observations on such diverse topics as beauty, deformity, fortune, adversity, ambition, friendship, truth, marriage, atheism and superstition.Persuasive and diagnostic, his Essays are valued for many reasons, not least their combination of a dispassionate observation of human life with powerfully expressed moral judgements.This edition is based on the Oxford Authors series complete with notes on Bacon's rich vocabulary and substantial annotation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Academic yet Enriching!
Bold statements are made in these essays - essentially changing the way man thought about his universe.A great study in scientific thought and materialism.

Recommended reading, but footnotes excessive in this edition
Francis Bacon was an observant and insightful student of human society and human nature, as reflected in most of the essays here. The perspective *is* a bit bourgeois, but I guess Bacon can't help having been a nobleman. A lot of the later essays in the book seem to be along the lines of "how to put people to good use." Included also in this volume is a quite detailed biographical sketch at the beginning, and some extra material with aphoristic sketch-like versions of a few of the essays, plus the "Antitheses of Things," which is quite interesting.

The language is essentially Shakespearean, which I always enjoy reading, as it gives one the sense of watching as phrases and words are coined before your eyes (Shakespeare coined INNUMERABLE words and phrases in his works, and Bacon does a few here too, actually, according to the Explanatory Notes); a refreshing change from modern language, where we basically speak in cliches. The problem is, this edition (Oxford's World's Classics) has SO MANY "translational" footnotes explaining his 17th-century word usage, that it's quite distracting and unnecessary. One has to learn to basically ignore them most of the time. The Explanatory Notes collected at the end are quite indispensable for dealing with Bacon's penchant for endless streams of Latin quotes and likely-obscure-to-the-modern-reader classical references, but the footnotes are just ridiculous. I'd guess one could reasonably assume that anyone who'd pick up this book in the first place would not need to be told that "contrariwise" means "on the contrary," "mark" means "observe," "magnanimity" means "noble, generous feelings," "overlaid" means "burdened"... I could go on and on. I don't know if other editions have as thorough Explanatory Notes as this, though; if they do I'd go with that over this edition.

Essential
There are few writers I have read in my entire life who have taught me more than Francis Bacon. These essays are simply essential. ... Read more

Book Description
This is a major new student edition of the text described as "the first modern classic of English history." Francis Bacon's insight into human motives, his life-long experience of politics and government, and his remarkable literary skills, render this History of the Reign of King Henry VII a major work of English literature and an important document in the history of political thought. The edition also includes other relevant writings by Bacon, generous editorial footnotes explaining the historical and political issues of the period, and a substantial glossary. ... Read more

Book Description
1916. This book contains little discussion, but includes highly illustrated indexes of letters and symbols, tables, alphabets and other media used in deciphering the works of Francis Bacon. Set forth in a method to make even the amateur understand how to decipher Bacon's works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fresh and fascinating exploration of the hidden wisdom of Francis Bacon.
A must have book for anyone remotely interested in truly understanding the wisdom of this great philosopher. ... Read more

Book Description

Francis Bacon (1909-1992) is often said to have "put the pain in painting." His subversion of artistic conventions and religious symbols created a sensation during his lifetime. Even after his death, his paintings of distorted figures and fractured spaces continue to ignite controversy. To some, Bacon's imagery is a profound interpretation of the tragic human condition; others declare it violent and disgusting. This book examines the way Bacon's paintings were made, with reference to his life and words, revealing the strong influence of literary modernism. In particular, Bacon's rhetoric draws from the despair and guilt expressed by Charles Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound.

Andrew Brighton introduces Bacon as an ideologue who elaborated his view of the world--a view with origins in his homosexuality and his rejection of and by his colonial background--through his art. Brighton elucidates the values and meanings that can be ascribed to Bacon's sometimes shocking works, including his "screaming Pope" triptych. He also critically discusses previous interpretations of this provocative, self-taught artist.

Book Description
Herein is a biography on the life of Lord Bacon. ... Read more

Book Description
From the essay "Of Study":"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention." ... Read more

Book Description
Sir Francis Bacon, statesman, essayist and philosopher, studied law and rose to high office as Lord Chancellor. He had enormous influence on the change of direction for scientific method from being speculative and philosophical in the Aristotelian tradition to making it experimental and factual. Bacon's philosophical influence extended to Locke and through him to subsequent English schools of psychology and ethics. Abroad, his influence also extended to Leibniz, Huygens and Voltaire who called him "la pere de la philosophie experimentale". This edition contains all Bacon's philosophical works as well as translations, plus literary and professional works and includes illuminating introductions and explanatory footnotes by the three editors as well as a new introduction by Graham Rees. ... Read more