The Last Puritan

A Memoir in the Form of a Novel

Edited by William G. Holzberger and Herman J. Saatkamp Jr.

by George Santayana

Introduction by Irving Singer

Hardcover
$70.00 Paperback

674 pp., 6 x 9 in,

Hardcover
9780262193283
Published: May 17, 1994
Publisher: The MIT Press

$100.00

Paperback
9780262691789
Published: August 4, 1995
Publisher: The MIT Press

$70.00

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A novel of of ideas, expressed in the birth, life, and early death of Oliver Alden.

Published in 1935, George Santayana's The Last Puritan was the American philosopher's only novel. It became an instant best-seller, immediately linked in its painful voyage of self discovery to The Education of Henry Adams. It is essentially a novel of ideas, expressed in the birth, life, and early death of Oliver Alden.The Last Puritan is volume four in a new critical edition of The Works of George Santayana that restores Santayana's original text and provides important new scholarly information. Books in this series - the first complete publication of Santayana's works - include an editorial apparatus with notes to the text (identifying persons, places, and ideas), textual commentary (including a description of the composition and publication history, along with a discussion of editorial methods and decisions), discussions of adopted readings, lists of variants and emendations, and line-end hyphenations.

Irving Singer's new introduction to this edition takes up Santayana's philosophical and artistic concerns, including issues of homosexuality raised by the depiction of the novel's two protagonists, Oliver and Mario, and of the relationship between Oliver and the rogue character Jim Darnley. In his thoughtful analysis Singer finds the term "homosexual novel" too reductionist and imprecise for what Santayana is trying to achieve. Singer brings to light the author's skillful and inventive methods for perceiving and interpreting reality, including ideal forms of friendship, and his success in exploring the pervasive moral problems that people face throughout their existence.

Bradford Books imprint

William G. Holzberger is Professor of English Emeritus at Bucknell University.

Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., is Head of the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at Texas A&M University.

George Santayana (1863–1952) was a philosopher, poet, critic, and novelist. The MIT Press has published The Letters of George Santayana in eight books and The Life of Reason in five books.

Irving Singer was Professor of Philosophy at MIT. He was the author of the trilogies The Nature of Love and Meaning in Life, Philosophy of Love: A Partial Summing-Up, Mozart and Beethoven: The Concept of Love in Their Operas, all published by the MIT Press, and many other books.

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Works of George Santayana

The Last Puritan

A Memoir in the Form of a Novel

Works of George Santayana

The Last Puritan

A Memoir in the Form of a Novel

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