Book cover of The Flight of Icarus: Artisan Autobiography in Early Modern Europe

Book description

Exploring autobiographical texts written by European urban craftsmen from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, this wide-ranging book studies memoirs, diaries, family chronicles, travel narratives, and other forms of personal writings from Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and England. In the process, it considers the motivations of the authors, the changing…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Flight of Icarus as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Amelang’s book is one-of-a-kind, a non-fiction study of hundreds of autobiographies by a group of people from whom one would not expect literary productions: common artisans and tradesmen and women. He explores through their writings covering several hundred years how a sense of individuality gradually emerged over time, pointing toward the appearance of the modern self.

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The High House by James Stoddard,

The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.

The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.

Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…

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