Product Description
This work provides an original account of Francis Bacon's conception of natural inquiry.Pérez-Ramos sets Bacon in an epistemological tradition that postulates an intimate relation between objects of cognition and objects of construction, and regards the human knower as, fundamentally, a maker.By exploring the background to this tradition, and contrasting the responses of major philosophers of the 17th century with Bacon's own, the book charts Bacon's contribution to the modern philosophy of science. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

Beautiful images!
I saw the Bacon's retrospective at the Met this summer and the prints in this monograph are exquisite! As a visual artist, I find that art books with good reproductions are so inspirational.
I suppose one disadvantage is that the work represented in this book is from a more limited time frame. But the paintings reproduced are comprehensive of the 50s and they are incredibly beautiful. Deep, dark portraiture and where there is color, it's always vivid and brilliant. The earlier investigations of the smeared, moving faces, the Popes and the abstracted figures are well documented in this monograph. It's a beautiful book and well worth the price.

Always interesting....
There is really not much to the book to be honest. There are about 30 paintings decently reproduced -- all of them very interesting -- but without much commentary except for a few. (Though I quickly discovered Bacon's paintings are fun to psychoanalyze for yourself.)It provided a short interesting biography that I told my mother to read which afterward she stated,"he has a disease for which there is no name..." -- and I agreed. Finally, the book ends with some of Bacon's letters.

Francis Bacon: The Formative Years
The shelves in the art section of bookstores, public and private libraries contain many publications about the important 20th Century figurative artist Francis Bacon: one would think there was little left to be said about the bizarre genius who influenced so many artists and thinkers.But this new volume by long admired proponent of Francis Bacon's work and historical significance, Michael Peppiatt, sheds even more light on how Bacon arrived at the point of creating such disturbing and magnificently painted works.

Born in 1909 Francis Bacon did not become a serious artist until the mid 1930s, electing to travel to Berlin and Paris and other magnetic hubs plying his trade as a hustler and effete and along the way making significant statements in the decorative arts and design.Peppiatt takes us from the late 1940s when Bacon's few paintings were of animal life and objects of design elements into the period of the 1950s when he explored the figure, developed his 'caged figure' theme and stretched his portraiture to extremes beyond which few other artists have dared go.It is the combination of history, drawings, previously unpublished reproductions of some paintings, photographs, and a collection of letters Bacon wrote to various people that Peppiatt writes with such mastery of description of Bacon's oeuvre that makes this volume so readable and memorable.

The well designed and produced book served as a catalog for a traveling exhibition of the works described in the book.It is not meant to be a definitive total biography of the artist: Peppiatt's 1996 'Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma' is the primer on the artist's life and work.But it is in closer studies such as this book covers that we discover more of the secrets and motivations that have established Francis Bacon as the important artist he became.Highly recommended.Grady Harp, September 07

The man behind the artist
This is the catalogue for a traveling exhibition (England and the U.S.)focusing on a crucial decade in Bacon's art, when he really revealed himself as a master, transcending the tradition of figurative painting. Many rarely seen works are illustrated (e.g. the portraits of the Sainsburies, one of the artist's first patrons). The book ends with a review of the letters written by Bacon to his first dealer and to his patrons, moving letters where he often asks for money loans, sometimes in a humble and desperate tone that betrays the mundane behind the genius. A valuable addition to the literature on Bacon. ... Read more

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The Essays, Bacon's chief contributions to literature, were published at various times between 1597 and 1625. This collection contains fifty-eight essays, masterfully written with a spirit of superior confidence. All forms of knowledge are subjected to the interpretation of Bacon's views on life. Compiled from his other works, the essays were intended only as private notes for the perusal of a few friends. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wisdom summarized
Francis Bacon Essays can be considered the best manual for living in short form that has ever been written. However, this translation lacks footnotes. And since Bacon's sometimes makes references to terms and events that we are mostly unfamiliar with, as well as quotes in latin from time to time, it is impossible to derive the full effect of his writing without footnotes. I therefore would sadly recommend the penguin edition, which does have them. ... Read more

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Francis Bacon was born in Ireland of English parents in 1909 and died in 1992. Self-taught, he expressed the satirical, horrifying, and hallucinatory in such works as Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944, Tate Gallery, London). His artwork is known for its bold, austere, and often grotesque or nightmarish imagery. ... Read more

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Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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In 1949 Francis Bacon found his main subject, the human body, and from then on it remained his principal theme. But he did not paint from life. Instead, he took from images from the mass media - newspapers, magazines, books, photos - and drew on them for his paintings.This book presents over 200 of these documents, about which Bacon was secretive but which, it emerges, were integral to his creative process, along with some of the works that the material inspired. over 100 color illustrations ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Incunabula for Collectors only
First of all, I don't know what a previous reviewer means when he writes this book is well written as it only contains a one pageintroduction by Barbara Dawson and an essay by Martin Harrison entitled "Bacon's Incunabula" barely four pages long.By Incunabula are meant the circa 180 full page illustrations of various objects that were found in Bacon's Reece Mews Studio formerly located in London and consequently moved to the Hugh LaneGallery in Dublin. There is no Index, but the objects are divided into the following categories:
1. Art - Photography, mostly photos ripped out of Muybridge's book,"The Human figure in Motion", books on sculpture and also erotic magazines.
2. Conflict - Mass Media, mostly images torn from newspapers and magazines, many of which depict violence or the aftermath of violence, such as dead bodies, effects from injuries etc.
3. Action - Painting, more images from Muybridge, but also photos from art and sports magazines.
4. Science - Nature, images torn from K.C. Clark's books on "Positioning in Radiography", Schrenk-Notzing's " Phenomena of Materialization" , more Muybridge, and also images from cookbooks etc.
5. Art - Photography - Art, images torn from Art Book and Catalogs, including Bacon's own work
At the end of the book there is a brief section of "Commentaries" with short descriptions of a sentence or two on each image.

Even though it is claimed that many of the images have not been published before, I have seen more than three fourths in other books on Francis Bacon. I really do not know what purpose this book can serve, other than the fact that the objects are shown in a larger size than before with one image per page. As a collector of book on Francis Bacon I continue to be amazed how many recentbooks concentrate onhis Studio instead of his art. The objects in the studio are supposed to be the "key" to Bacon's paintings, but I would argue they are in most cases only an inspiration. Conspicuously absent from this book are photographs of of Bacon himself and the people he painted. Granted there are a few of Peter Lacy and George Dyer, but not of the many other people he painted. The authors fail to make a case of how the majority of the images in this book are related to Bacon's paintings, which one would think is the whole point of the exercise.

Still there are a few pluses here. The book is well bound, and printed on quality paper. The full page images are of interest and are well printed, plus best of all for collectors, this book is not likely to stay in print long and should accrue in value.

Review by Walter O. Koenig

O to be a fly on the wall of Reece Mews studio!
Francis Bacon continues to grow in stature as one of the most significant artists of the last century.There are countless books both in print and out of print as collector's items that survey his artistic output, dissections of his psychological makeup, his preoccupation with distortion and grotesquerie, books that focus only on his portraits, catalogues that accompanied his exhibitions while he was alive, and several fine retrospective studies that explore his early 'design' career up to and including his final large canvases or triptychs. There are also several excellent films, both from Hollywood and from interviews. So why does this artist's life and talent garner so much continued exploration?This excellent book FRANCIS BACON: INCUNABULA shines some light on this question.'Incunabula' is defined as the earliest stages or first traces of anything.

Martin Harrison and Rebecca Daniels have gathered much of the stimuli that fed Bacon's imagination - bits of torn photographs, newspaper clippings, pages torn from cookbooks, art books, and other paraphernalia.These images are then paired with the canvases that Bacon derived from the detritus that gathered around him in his infamously cluttered and filthy Reece Mews studio in London. Though Bacon repeated painted portraits of his friends and lovers he seldom 'painted from the model' in studio.Photographs and studies of animals and people in motion infused his perceptions of his 'models' and the results of seeing some of these gathered idea fragments in context makes Bacon's portraiture even more satisfying.

Even for those who are collecting multiple volumes about the fascinating Francis Bacon, this book is a welcome addition to the library. It is well written, well designed and fills a void about which we to date have known very little.Grady Harp, October 09

The Man That Paints Those Dreadful Pictures
Francis Bacon (1909 - 1992) was an Irish painter, specializing in violent or grotesque art, using Catholic imagery or his friends as subject matter. Margaret Thatcher once referred to him as the man "that paints those dreadful pictures." Bacon routinely denied using preparatory materials when working on his paintings, but with his death, much of the materials he left in his studio and apartment have been donated to various galleries, and been cataloged and organized. From those materials, Harrison and Daniels have put together many of the drawings and media images that Bacon used when designing his paintings, and collected them in Francis Bacon: Incunabula. This is less a standalone book and more a companion to Harrison's earlier book, In Camera, Francis Bacon: Photography, Film and the Practice of Painting, showing just what images prompted different works produced by Bacon. His use of images from ordinary sources to become such extraordinary paintings underlies his belief that anything can excite an artist, even something lying on the floor.

Incunabula was produced to coincide with retrospectives of Bacon's work happening at the Tate, the Prado, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. ... Read more

Product Description
From the anguished, screaming, tortured canvases of Francis Bacon to the witty, ironic, twirling, sliced farmyard animals of Damien Hirst, Matthew Collings guides us merrily through art's Yellow Pages. "Matthew's wired and rushy art history, alternately irritating and insightful, gives late 20th century BritArt what it needs--a confusing, loony relevance".--David Bowie. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Needs to be updated.
I bought this book back in 1999. It was a year before the infamous Saatchi exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. I think this book gives too much praise and favoratism to the British artists featured inside. It doesn't give any information on their flaws, and you need to know the artists' flaws in order to understand their work.

British art has been rising in prestige in the last decade, and this book should be updated for a new edition. It should also include American reactions to the Brooklyn Museum show in 2000, plus the changes in the artists' styles.

Corr!
Matthew Collings is extremely aware of the zeitgeist.His criticisms can be so accurate that it hurts.To get a broad overview on the phenomena of Brit Art I really can't reccommend it enough.

Lightweight but fun
The chattiness is fine.I haven't seen Collings on television but I can imagine how he'd be entertaining there.I wondered about his motives a few times when Collings' own paintings showed up deep in the background ofphotos -- obviously he's so deep in this world that he may have someagendas.But the overall impression is certainly friendly and the fewartists he dismisses are big enough to take it.It's a fun book you canread in a couple of hours.The only problem then is remembering any ofwhat's been said.

EXCELLENT VISUALLY, INCREDIBLY SELF-STROKING OTHERWISE.
I recommend this for the photos, almost completely. And I do not mean the cover photo where the author, Matthew Collings, has chosen to put a huge picture of himself with an eye-trapping bullseye painting behind his head.This mystified me, till I read the incredibly disorganized, ungrammaticalaccount Collings writes, really more of a reminiscence than a history.Along the way he attacks the brilliant R.B. Kitaj and the rest of theSchool of London(including those such as Bacon and Freud) as "a bunchof oldsters exhibiting their charcoal life drawings and stuff."Incisive commentary that. Collings must make Robert Hughes tremble.Basically this is one huge self-promotional book, but generouslyillustrated with works of Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili, Tracey Emin and othersfrom the infamous and brilliant SENSATION show, and contains, in spite ofits obnoxiously chatty style, many interesting anecdotes about the Londonart world. One can almost piece it together despite the annoying narrator.The current London art scene is beautifully dangerous and the SENSATIONShow(and I hope its catalog goes into print in the US soon)may be, in theend, as influential as the 1913 Armory Show, so it deserves study. Artneeded back some kind of edge. The book is an OK intro to the subject andthe photos alone justify purchase.

My only other complaint is theconstant recurrence of those completely nightmarish perversions ofconceptual art, the "living sculptures"(or charlatans, as I liketo call them) Gilbert and George, laced oddly throughout the book for noapparent reason. What do they do? In a nutshell, they go about and placethemselves in context, in photos or live. Why they think they'reinteresting wherever they're placed, or make a place interesting by theirpresence, is beyond me, but they've apparently made a great deal of lootfrom this. Go figure. John Roberson

Nah. It's not really all that good.
I'd recommend something with a bit more... Marc Quinn in it ... Read more

Product Description
Prior to the publication of this biography, the elusive Anthony Bacon was merely glimpsed in the shadow of his famous younger brother, Francis. A fascinating historical figure, Anthony Bacon was a contemporary of the brilliant band of gallants who clustered round the court of Elizabeth I, and he was closely connected with the Queen's favourite, the Earl of Essex. He also worked as an agent for Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen's spymaster, living in France where he became acquainted with Henri IV and the famous essayist Michel de Montaigne. It was in France that du Maurier discovered a secret that, if disclosed during Bacon's lifetime, could have put an end to his political career ...Du Maurier did much to shed light on matters that had long puzzled historians, and, as well as a consummate exercise in research, this biography is also a strange and fascinating tale. ... Read more

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Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the publication of Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning (1605), this collection examines Bacon's recasting of proto-scientific philosophies and practices into early modern discourses of knowledge. Like Bacon, all of the contributors to this volume confront an essential question: how to integrate intellectual traditions with emergent knowledges to forge new intellectual futures. The volume's main theme is Bacon's core interest in identifying and conceptualizing coherent intellectual disciplines, including the central question of whether Bacon succeeded in creating unified discourses about learning. Bacon's interests in natural philosophy, politics, ethics, law, medicine, religion, neoplatonic magic, technology and humanistic learning are here mirrored in the contributors' varied intellectual backgrounds and diverse approaches to Bacon's thought. ... Read more

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Author name not noted above: Sir Thomas Browne. Originally published between 1909 and 1917 under the name "Harvard Classics," this stupendous 51-volume set-a collection of the greatest writings from literature, philosophy, history, and mythology-was assembled by American academic CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT (1834-1926), Harvard University's longest-serving president. Also known as "Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," it represented Eliot's belief that a basic liberal education could be gleaned by reading from an anthology of works that could fit on five feet of bookshelf.Volume III features:• Essays or Counsels--Civil and Moral and The New Atlantis, by English scientist and philosopher SIR FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626), the former the foundational writings of his development of the scientific method, and the latter his utopian novel that influenced British notions of science as a noble endeavor.• Areopagitica and Tractate on Education, by English poet JOHN MILTON (1608-1674), respectively his tract against censorship and his ideas on educational reform; both helped modernize English society.• Religio Medici, by English polymath SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682), one of the earliest personal memoirs that, as a psychological self-evaluation, would later influence Jung. ... Read more

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The portrait Bowen paints of this controversial man, Francis Bacon (1561-1626), balances the outward life and actions of Bacon with the seemingly contradictory aspects of his refined philosophical reflections. When Bacon's more notorious attributes are set in historical context, his actions seem less personally vindictive against the backdrop of an entire age seemingly devoted to the very vanity and ingenuousness with which he is so often accused. As Lord Chancellor of England, Bacon was impeached by Parliament for taking bribes in office, convicted, and banished from London an the law courts. In a prayer Bacon composed during the interval following his punishment, he reveals that the dichotomy of his existence was no more deeply felt than by himself, and he readily admits that his obligations to society were not as suited to his nature as the study of philosophy, science and law. Modem scholars hold Bacon's philosophical works, "Novum Organum", "Advancement of Learning" and "New Atlantis" as his greatest achievements.Bowen's story reveals a man whose genius it was not to immerse himself in the rigour of scientific experimentation, but to realise what questions science should ask, and thereby reach beyond the status quo and appeal to the wider imagination of his generation. In his writings, Bacon challenged established social and religious orders, raised questions about mind/body relation and the role of dreams, and foresaw the day when scientists at colleges and universities would share experimentation. It is Bacon's legacy to have gone beyond his age and, out of pure intuition, anticipate the concerns of future generations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A biographical portrait of Bacon
Francis Bacon was a man filled with contradiction. He was consumed by two ambitions: 1) an insatiable thirst for knowledge and, 2) an endless "striving for political favor and position." The latter ambition finally did him in, bringing about his impeachment from Parliament for taking bribes, losing the high position (Lord Chancellor) he had spent his whole life striving for. Five years of life were left to Bacon after his disgrace, time spent in scientific and writing pursuits, but the damage was done.

Ms. Bowen does not write a full and detailed biography here, but rather more a profile or "evocation." She sacrifices the impartial and detached position of the historian clearly in her prologue by declaring her great admiration for Bacon. And although she doesn't hide or ignore his faults, it's difficult to read any page and not feel Bowen's awe and respect for her subject. There is much to admire about Bacon: his broad and deep learning (he seemed to be an "expert" on every subject, from law to botany); his wit (this a verbal exchange between Bacon and his arch-enemy Edward Coke: "Mr. Bacon!" says Coke. "If you have any tooth against me, pluck it out, for it will do you more hurt than all the teeth in your head will do you good." "Mr. Attorney!" (Coke was the Attorney General), retorts Bacon. "I respect you, I fear you not, and the less you speak of your greatness, the more I will think of it." (Ouch!); his books such as NOVUM ORGANUM and THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, still regarded highly today; his life-long wish to found a university in England that would employ the scientific method in its pursuit of knowledge and not the old schoolman methods.

But there is also much to disdain: his bluntness; his naivete with regard to his enemies; his inability to control his spending impulses; his almost outrageous ostentation with his scores of servants, men in waiting, etc. He also had what came to become a most unpopular belief, that the king was above the law.

What makes Bowen's portrait of Bacon worth reading is her marvelous writing style. She is a descendant of the old-school of historical writing (Parkman and Prescott come to mind) that was as much of a literary bent as an historical one. She writes beautiful prose, worthy of her subject and the age in which he lived. Reading her book is a most enjoyable experience.
... Read more

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"Ninety-five percent of people are absolute fools, and they're bigger fools about painting than anything else. . . . Hardly anyone really feels about painting: they read things into it--even the most intelligent people--they think they understand it, but very, very few people are aesthetically touched by painting."--Francis Bacon

Controversial in both life and art, Francis Bacon was one of the most important painters of the twentieth century. His monumental, unsettling images have an extraordinary power to disturb, shock, and haunt the spectator, "to unlock the valves of feeling and therefore return the onlooker to life more violently." Eminent writer and curator David Sylvester provides the definitive account of the career of an artist whose friend and collaborator he was for more than forty years. Drawing on his unparalleled personal knowledge of Bacon's inspirations and intentions, he first offers a critical overview of the development of Bacon's work from 1933 to the early 1990s, and then addresses its crucial aspects. Sylvester also reproduces previously unpublished extracts from his celebrated conversations with Bacon in which the artist speaks about himself, modern painters, and the art of the past. Finally, he gives a brief account of Bacon's life, correcting errors that elsewhere have been presented as facts. Accompanying the incisive and revealing text are reproductions of almost every Bacon work discussed, including twelve triptych fold-outs. The most complete work on Bacon yet, this book constitutes a portrait of one of the creative geniuses of our age by a writer of comparable distinction. 230 illustrations, 84 in color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Through the glass, brightly
Few artists of the 20th century have engendered as much controversy while having such an enormous impact on coming to grips with personal demons on canvas as Francis Bacon.Once again the erudite scholar David Sylvester has written about his friend in a way that makes all other collections of images and gossips about Bacon pale in comparison.This book is a true "retrospective", not only because if can look at the entire output of this enormously gifted painter, but it puts Bacon in a perspective of comparison and study of influences that span all of art history. Sylvester manages all this with his usual eloquence of writing style.This book is an academic treatise, but is is also a biography that looks carefully and thoughtfully at the mad mind and paintings of Francis Bacon.Highly recommended for Bacon devotees as well as those who still seek to understand the past century's art journey.

Looking Back At Francis Bacon
A truly excellent addition to any art enthusiast's collection of artists' books and mongraphs.This piece is a must-have for any fan of the artist's work...it fills in quite a few holes regarding Bacon in relation to his work and his working process.Even if you are unfamiliar with the artist's work, you will find Sylvester's prose will easily entice you into taking a good long look at one man's dark, yet triumphant take on humanity and the world we live in.Brilliant! ... Read more

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Francis Bacon isrightly celebrated as one of the founders of the scientific andtechnological revolution that transformed Western civilization. Hischief works argue that a society dedicated to science and technologywould "relieve the human estate," providing a longer, healthier, moreinformed, and more ennobling life for everyone. Now available fromWaveland Press, Bacon's remarkable An Advertisement Touching a HolyWar stands as a document of major historical importance and intensecurrent relevance because it offers an additional reason for themodern revolution. In it Bacon dares to suggest that a revolution inthinking and acting is necessary because European intellectual andspiritual life as well as European politics had been captured byreligious fanaticism that threatened to plunge Renaissance Europe intoanother dark age. Bacon chose the old literary device of dialogue topresent his argument for wholesale change indirectly. In theconversation of his characters he allows readers to see the reasonsfor kindling spiritual warfare against the spiritual rulers ofEuropean civilization. An Advertisement Touching a Holy War gives agreat philosopher's reasons for initiating the war between science andreligion that was actually fought in the coming centuries in Westerncivilization and of which we are the heirs. ... Read more

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From tormented self-images to brutal portrayals of friends and fellow artists, the portraits of Francis Bacon account for one of the most remarkable aspects of the work of this great British painter. His stylistic distortions of classicism and his famous deformations have changed the traditional genre of portraiture more drastically than the work of any other artist of the twentieth century. Originally published on the occasion of a major retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Bacon: Portraits and Self-Portraits is the first book dedicated to this aspect of his work. Milan Kundera, the famed Czech novelist, provides a perceptive introduction explaining his personal response to Bacon's work, exploring the paradox that lies in the faithfulness of the distorted images, and likening Bacon's genius to that of Samuel Beckett, both working at the outer limits of their art. An important essay by art historian France Borel sets Bacon's works in the context of his life and influences and explains his approach to portraiture. With superb reproductions of more than 130 studies and portraits, including those of Lucian Freud, George Dyer, Mick Jagger, and Isabel Rawsthorne, Bacon: Portraits and Self-Portraits offers new insight into these radical and disturbing images. Many details are included, revealing for the first time the varied textures of Bacon's paint surface. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Face Off
Francis Bacon jolted the art world in a way that is only now, some nine years after his death, being fully appreciated.During the final years of his bizarre life he achieved fame and museum acceptance and the accompanying high figure prices for his canvases.And of course soon after his death there was the usual debate about whether he was a painter or a one note song. This beautifully presented volume seems to dispell the latter, as here is documentation of all the head-only portraits Bacon painted of his friends and of himself.His usual "brutal vision" seems less forced when the paintings are accompanied by photogrphs of the models:some of Bacon's friends were fairly distorted before his brush hit the canvas!This book allows the reader to examine a narrow part of Bacon's output and in doing so focuses keenly on his view of the world, his pallete and his technique.Very fine essays by Milan Kundera and France Borel enhance this sensitive tribute to one of the more important 20th Century figurative painters.

Art Meets Occultism, and not for the first time...
For those of you who have spent considerable time reading about the Templars, Illuminatus, Masons, et. al. then this book would be of no shock to you.Francis Bacon in the disquise of an artist, in the disquise of the painted. The art itself lends itself to the greater mystery, and as such is a must have for any enthusiast. ... Read more

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The statesman, scientist, and philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) lived a divided life. Was he a noble scholar, or a conniving political crook? Was he a homosexual? Lisa Jardine and Alan Stewart draw upon previously untapped sources to create a controversial, nuanced portrait of the quintessential "Renaissance man," one whose achievements, while enormous, were nonetheless sadly circumscribed by his class and station.Amazon.com Review
For modern readers--especially those in the sciences who revere him as the father of the inductive method--Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is the model of an English Renaissance man whose towering intellectual achievements somewhat paradoxically set him floating above mundane historical particulars. British academics Lisa Jardine and Alan Stewart fling Bacon back into the hurly-burly of Elizabethan and Jacobean politics, where he unquestionably belongs. Indeed, their magnificently detailed rendering of Bacon's bumpy progression to the pinnacle of royal office-holding, as James I's lord chancellor (he was forced to "retire" in 1621 after a bribery scandal), makes his scientific and philosophical contributions even more remarkable. How on earth did he find time to write The Advancement of Learning (1605) and Novum Organum (1620) at all? In the authors' deliciously dense re-creation, notable for their shrewd evaluations of often misleading written source material, Bacon seems almost exclusively preoccupied with intriguing for promotion, struggling to pay debts incurred by his lavish lifestyle, and currying favor with both Elizabeth's and James's male favorites. (The latter tactic leading to contemporary charges of "sodomy" that the authors do not necessarily dismiss.) Some may regret that this warts-and-all portrait does not spend more time on Bacon's books, but Jardine and Stewart brilliantly succeed in their stated goal of providing "a rich context for those works." Seldom has a scholarly tome so palpably conveyed the gritty, sweaty, faction-ridden reality of being a working politician at the turn of the 17th century. --Wendy Smith ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Flawed diminishing of a great British genius
Writing a biography of a famous person carries an ethical responsibility to convey, or at least try to convey, a sense of what made that person great. If one wants to understand the genius and polymath that was Sir Francis Bacon (the authors of this work deny him his title) then this book will lead away from such discoveries. There is evidence of diligent research that makes the book interesting to scholars and by and large it is well written and readable, but Baconians will be offended by its persistently mean-spirited view of a shallow self-serving man, wheeling and dealing in the cause of his own advancement. There is ample evidence that Bacon was loved by contemporaries (friends) who appreciated him as a poet,a philosopher,a wit,a superb speaker and a man of generosity whose contribution to English Rennaissance thought was of inestimable value to mankind.You will not find him here.

All about the life, little about the man
This book is in many ways superb.The writing is smooth, the judgments intelligently based on evidence, the archival research prodigious.But it leaves one with oddly little sense of Bacon the man.Partly that's because the authors don't speculate, confining themselves to the historical record.That's a great virtue, but it also means we never get a sense of Bacon's relations with his wife, or even his sexuality.We hear about his chronically poor health, but not what his symptoms suggest to a modern doctor.Also, the authors don't examine Bacon'swritings in any sort of detail.This is definitely a "life and times", not a "life and letters."

The authors rarely step back to give an overall picture.There are no scene-setting panoramas, no authorial intrusions to explain why, for example, they decided to go into such detail about the activities of Bacon's brother Anthony.One gathers that the authors believe Anthony and Francis were working closely together, but I would have liked to have their thinking explained more fully.(Although Anthony is practically the main character of the first quarter of the book, his death is mentioned only in passing.)

These criticisms reflect my occasional irritation with the book, but they don't detract from the authors' tremendous achievement.If the authors had included everything I missed, the book would have been quite a bit fatter, and that would have been a negative, too.As it is, the book is (just barely) small enough to be read without risk of injury, unlike so many other modern biographies.

The book contains a great deal about Bacon's political activities, as another reviewer has noted.That's because a great deal of Bacon's life was occupied with political activities.If all you want to read about is Bacon's scientific works, you shouldn't read a biography of their author.In the case of Isaac Newton, there is practically no difference between the life and the scientific work.But in Bacon's case, there is not only a difference but a dichotomy.He was a successful lawyer and politician who also happened to kick-start the Scientific Revolution.

To summarize, Hostage to Fortune provides all the details, but not the outline.My advice would be to familiarize yourself with the basic course of Bacon's life and his achievements before reading this book, so you can fully appreciate its richness.

Mixed Feelings
A powerhouse of academic scholarship, this book is the most tedious and boring biography I have ever read.Too many pages on Bacon's political career, too little on his scientific achievements.

Bacon for sceptics.
While the book starts slowly with what seems to be an overly detailed account of Bacon's family and their activities, it is a clear headed and balanced account of a man who achieved fame across the centuries, as well as in his own time---but never great virtue, character or happiness in his own life.It is quite readable, and even engrossing in the second half.Scholars will appreciate the careful documentation and extensive reference to sources and supporting materials. ... Read more

Product Description
The paintings of Francis Bacon are so confrontationally wordless in their articulations of the human plight that they seem-almost as a result-to attract continual commentary and meditation (not least from Bacon himself). Since Bacon's studio and its contents were moved to Dublin, and those contents at last documented and examined, a wealth of information has come to light about the artist's processes, his working habits, his readings and his source material. Benefiting from these new resources for Bacon studies, and marking the centenary of the artist's birth, this collection of nine essays from leading scholars worldwide is edited by the leading Bacon scholar Michael Harrison, and is full of fascinating new takes on the work. Contributors to these new perspectives on Bacon are Darren Ambrose, Rebecca Daniels, Hugh M. Davies, Marcel Finke, Martin Harrison, Andrew R. Lee, Brenda Marshall, David Alan Mellor, Joanna Russell and Brian Singer. ... Read more

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This volume belongs to the first new critical edition of the works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) to have been produced since the nineteenth century. The edition presents the works in broadly chronological order and according to the best principles of modern textual scholarship. The seven works in the present volume belong to the final completed stages (Parts III-V) of Bacon's hugely ambitious six-part sequence of philosophical works, collectively entitled Instauratio magna (1620-6). All are presented in the original Latin with new facing-page translations. Three of the seven texts (substantial works in two cases, and all sharing a startlingly improbable textual history) are published and translated here for the first time: these are an early version of the Historia densi, the 'lost' Abecedarium, and the Historia de animato & inanimato. Another--the Prodromi sive anticipationes philosphiae secundae--has likewise never been translatedbefore. Together with their commentaries and the introduction they open the way to important new understandings of Bacon's mature philosophical thought. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume inaugurates a new critical edition of the writings of the great English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626)--the first such complete edition in more than a hundred years. It contains six of Bacon's Latin scientific works, each accompanied by entirely new facing-page translations which, together with the extensive introduction and commentaries, offer fresh insights into one of the great minds of the early seventeenth century. ... Read more