There is more than one history of the world. Before science defined the modern age, other powers, wondrous and magical, once governed the universe. Historian Pierce Moffett moves to the New England countryside to write a book about Aegypt, driven by an idea he dare not believe: that the physical laws of the universe once changed and may change again. Yet the notion is not his alone. Something waits at the locked estate of Fellowes Kraft, something for which Pierce and those near him have long sought without knowing it: a key, perhaps, to Aegypt.

An epic masterpiece of world literature, in a magnificent new translation by one of the most acclaimed translators of our time. A towering figure of the Renaissance, Luis de Góngora pioneered poetic forms so radically different from the dominant aesthetic of his time that he was derided as "the Prince of Darkness." The Solitudes, his magnum opus, is an intoxicatingly lush novel-in-verse that follows the wanderings of a shipwrecked man who has been spurned by his lover. Wrenched from civilization and its attendant madness, the desolate hero is transported into a natural world that is at once menacing and sublime. In this stunning edition Edith Grossman captures the breathtaking beauty of a work that represents one of the high points of poetic achievement in any language.

Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Fiction Canada Reads Selection (CBC), 2013 A landmark of nationalist fiction, Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes is the story of two peoples within one nation, each with its own legend and ideas of what a nation should be. In his vivid portrayals of human drama in First World War–era Quebec, MacLennan focuses on two individuals whose love increases the prejudices that surround them until they discover that “love consists in this, that two solitudes protect, and touch and greet each other.” The novel centres around Paul Tallard and his struggles in reconciling the differences between the English identity of his love Heather Methuen and her family, and the French identity of his father. Against this backdrop the country is forming, the chasm between French and English communities growing deeper. Published in 1945, the novel popularized the use of “two solitudes” as referring to a perceived lack of communication between English- and French-speaking Canadians. Content note: This book contains racial slurs that readers may find offensive or upsetting.

World Fantasy Award-Winning Author: “Affecting, cerebral, surprising and delightful . . . [An] extraordinary philosophical romance.” —Publishers Weekly John Crowley’s Ægypt series is a landmark in contemporary fiction. The series helped earn Crowley the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature, and Harold Bloom installed its first two volumes in his Western canon. In The Solitudes, the opening of the series—nominated for both a World Fantasy Award and an Arthur C. Clarke Award—we are introduced to Pierce Moffett, an unorthodox historian and an expert in ancient astrology, myths, and superstition. The land that Moffett studies is not the real, geographical Egypt but Ægypt, a country of the imagination. When Moffett moves from Manhattan to a small town upstate, and discovers the historical novels of little-known local writer Fellowes Kraft, his course is charted. Kraft’s books interweave stories of Italian heretic Giordano Bruno, young Will Shakespeare, and Elizabethan occultist John Dee—stories that begin to mingle with the narrative of Moffett’s real and dream life in 1970s America. As Moffett’s journey in and out of his comfortable reality continues, what becomes clear is revelatory: there is more than one history of the world. “A quirky celebration of truths that lie hidden, and an impassioned plea for the freedom to discover them.” —USA Today “The narrative itself, which spirals through time and space rather like a maze that Pierce must penetrate, startles the reader again and again with the eloquent rightness of the web of coincidences that structure it.” —The New York Times Book Review “Suggests an unlikely but thriving marriage between a writer like Anne Tyler and one such as Jorge Luis Borges.” —Publishers Weekly Previously published as Ægypt

"Solitude was seminal in challenging the established belief that "interpersonal relationships of an intimate kind are the chief, if not the only, source of human happiness." Indeed, most self-help literature still places relationships at the center of human existence. Lucid and lyrical, Storr's book cites numerous examples of brilliant scholars and artists -- from Beethoven and Kant to Anne Sexton and Beatrix Potter -- to demonstrate that solitude ranks alongside relationships in its impact on an individual's well-being and productivity, as well as on society's progress and health. But solitary activity is essential not only for geniuses, says Storr ; the average person, too, is enriched by spending time alone."--Back cover.