logo for University of Chicago Press
An Artist's Journey
Lettres d'un bachelier es musique, 1835-1841
Franz Liszt
University of Chicago Press, 1989
In these eloquent and intensely personal writings, Franz Liszt sketches the cities, people, and scenes of his travels in the 1830s and explores ideas about art and its ideal place in the world. During six years of wandering through Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany (four of them together with Countess Marie d'Agoult), the composer saw the greatest art and most fabulous landscapes of Europe and crossed paths with celebrated singers and artists, renowned intellectuals, infamous socialites, and both reigning and deposed aristocracy. The article/essays that emerged from this period are both public and private: though written for the Paris press, they are the closest that Liszt came to autobiography. Some of these writings are travel articles; some are essentially reports of a music correspondent; still others are personal and confessional; and some are really essays on the nature of art. All offer precious insight into the musical, social, and intellectual life in the major European capitals seen through the eyes of one of the most well-read and influential musical personalities of the period.
[more]

front cover of Free Love in Utopia
Free Love in Utopia
John Humphrey Noyes and the Origin of the Oneida Community
Compiled by George Wallingford Noyes
University of Illinois Press, 2001
The "free love" Oneida Community, founded in New York state during the turbulent decades before the Civil War, practiced an extraordinary system of "complex marriage" as part of its sustained experiment in creating the kingdom of heaven on earth. For more than thirty years, two hundred adult members considered themselves heterosexually married to the entire community rather than to a single monogamous partner.
 
Free Love in Utopia provides the first in-depth account of how complex marriage was introduced among previously monogamous or single Oneida Community members. Bringing together vivid, firsthand writings by members of the community--including personal correspondence, memoranda on spiritual and material concerns, and official pronouncements--this volume portrays daily life in Oneida and the deep religious commitment that permeated every aspect of it. It also presents a complex portrait of the community's founder, John Humphrey Noyes, who demanded not only complete religious loyalty from his followers but also minute control over their sexual lives. It recounts the formidable legal suits faced by the community--one of which almost forced it to disband in 1852--and the critical behind-the-scenes work of Noyes's second-in-command, John L. Miller. Most important, Free Love in Utopia describes in detail how Oneida's "enlarged family" was created and how its unorthodox practices affected its members.
 
Key selections from a large collection of primary documents detailing Oneida's early years were compiled by George Wallingford Noyes, nephew of the founder. The present volume, astutely edited and introduced by noted communitarian scholar Lawrence Foster, marks the first publication of G. W. Noyes's remarkable manuscript, excerpted from the irreplaceable original documents that were deliberately burned after his death. The volume also reproduces Oneida's First Annual Report, which contains the sexual manifesto that underlay the community.
 
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter