Books in the The Gospel in Great Writers series

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 Eichenberg enhance the book.

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).

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 He never would have suspected that his poems, which would not be published for another twenty-nine years, would eventually change the course of modern poetry and influence such poets as W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Robert Lowell, John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.