Read complete books and articles on: Arthur Koestler

Koestler, Arthur - kĕstˈlər, 1905–83, English writer, b. Budapest of Hungarian parents. Koestler spent his early years in Vienna and Palestine. An influential Communist journalist in Berlin in the early 1930s, Koestler was subsequently captured by Franco's forces during the Spanish Civil War; Spanish Testament (1937) relates his experiences. Released in 1937, he edited an anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet French weekly and served in the French Foreign Legion (1939–40). After the German invasion he was interned in a concentration camp, but escaped from France in 1940 and lived thereafter in England. Koestler broke with Communism as a result of the Soviet purge trials of the late 1930s. Darkness at Noon (1941), his most important novel, vividly describes the execution of an old Bolshevik for "deviationist" belief in the individual. Other significant accounts of the evil of Stalinism include The Yogi and the Commissar (1945), and a famous essay in The God That Failed (ed. by R. H. Crossman, 1951). In his later years Koestler ranged over a wide variety of subjects. His later novels include Thieves in the Night (1946), a powerful description of the conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine, The Age of Longing (1951), and The Call Girls: A Tragicomedy (1973). He wrote extensively on science in such works as The Lotus and the Robot (1960), The Act of Creation (1964), The Ghost in the Machine (1968), The Case of the Midwife Toad (1971), and The Roots of Coincidence (1972). Greatly concerned in later life with euthanasia and the right to die, Koestler and his wife committed a joint suicide in 1983. Koestler combined a brilliant journalistic style with an understanding of the great movements of his times and a participant's sense of commitment.

See his autobiography in 3 vol., Arrow in the Blue (1952), The Invisible Writing (1954), and Janus: A Summing Up (1978); biography by D. Cesarani (1999); studies by W. Mays (1973), S. Pearson (1978), and P. J. Keane (1980).

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12 of the Best Books and Articles on: Arthur Koestler

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Spanish Testament » Read Now
by Arthur Koestler. 384 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
2.

Dialogue with Death » Read Now
by Arthur Koestler. 218 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO Dialogue with Death BY ARTHUR KOESTLER Translated by TREVOR AND PHYLLIS BLEWITT NEW YORK THE...
3.

Essays on Politics and Literature (Chap. Four "Koestler's Koestler") » Read Now
by Bernard Crick. 259 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Young Writers of the Thirties 48 Four Koestlers Koestler 62 Five Hannah Arendt: Hedgehog or...set book, is as odd as that Conrad Nostromo , Koestler Darkness at Noon and...
4.

In My Opinion: An Inquiry into the Contemporary Novel (Chap. II "The Political Novel: Warren, Orwell, Koestler") » Read Now
by Orville Prescott. 262 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...novels of George Orwell and Arthur Koestler. There has been more sheer...years ago. George Orwell and Arthur Koestler have done the same in recent...finest novel yet...
5.

Politics and the Novel (Chap. Eight "Malraux, Silone, Koestler: The Twentieth Century") » Read Now
by Irving Howe. 252 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...III. 8. Malraux, Silone, Koestler: The Twentieth Century 203...side of things than do the chapters on Koestler and Orwell. And, I think, with good...emotion pure and...
6.

The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher (Chap. 6 "Koestler Money down the Psi Drain?") » Read Now
by Martin Gardner. 280 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Psychology, Entire Library

...In March 1983, after a long, dramatic career, Arthur Koestler ended his life dramatically by killing himself. He...their lives stuck fast in their prejudices. The late...
7.

The Sleep Walkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe » Read Now
by Arthur Koestler. 626 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
8.

Insight and Outlook, an Inquiry into the Common Foundations of Science Art, and Social Ethics » Read Now
by Arthur Koestler. 442 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Entire Library
9.

The Trail of the Dinosaur & Other Essays » Read Now
by Arthur Koestler. 245 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...DINOSAUR Other Essays By ARTHUR KOESTLER NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY...1948, 1951, 1953, 1955 by Arthur Koestler "A Way to Fight Suspicion...American country. DEAR MR...
10.

The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science (Chap. 4 "The Act of Creation") » Read Now
by Peter Medawar. 236 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Sir Peter Medawar was not only a Nobel prize-winning immunologist but also a wonderful writer about science and scientists. Described by the Washington Post as a "genuinely brilliant popularizer" of science, his essays are remarkable for their clarity and wit. This entertaining selection presents...
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Sir Peter Medawar was not only a Nobel prize-winning immunologist but also a wonderful writer about science and scientists. Described by the Washington Post as a "genuinely brilliant popularizer" of science, his essays are remarkable for their clarity and wit. This entertaining selection presents the very best of his writing with a new Foreword by Stephen Jay Gould, one of his greatest admirers. The wide range of subjects include Howard Florey and penicillin, J. B.S. Haldane, whom he describes as a "with-knobs-on variant of us all," and, in the title essay, scientific fraud involving laboratory mice. There is Medawar's defence of James Watson against the storm of criticism that greeted the publication of The Double Helix. A merciless debunker of myths, he reveals the nonsense to be discovered in psychoanalytic interpretations of Darwin's illness and launches devastating attacks on Arthur Koestler, IQ psychologists, and, most notably, Teilhard de Chardin. He raises questions about the nature of scientific endeavour--he famously defined science as the art of the soluble--and a common theme is his desire to communicate the importance of science to the widest possible audience.
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11.

Europe since 1945 ("The Example of Arthur Koestler" begins on p. 107) » Read Now
by Philip Thody. 328 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Europe Since 1945 is an exciting new survey of the history of Europe since the end of World War Two. In the second half of the twentieth century Europe has known a period of peace and stability unprecedented in its history and virtually unparalleled in the rest of the world. Europe explains the...
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Europe Since 1945 is an exciting new survey of the history of Europe since the end of World War Two. In the second half of the twentieth century Europe has known a period of peace and stability unprecedented in its history and virtually unparalleled in the rest of the world. Europe explains the reasons for this state of affairs.Thought- provoking and wide ranging, this book discusses political, economic, social and cultural change in modern Europe. Covering both Western and Eastern Europe comprehensively and featuring extensive analysis of the 1990s, this book includes examination of:* the Cold War* War at the edges - Northern Ireland and Yugoslavia* the European Union* the issues of Nationalism* the end of the dictatorships* economic prosperity, the EEC and the Euro* the break-up of the European Empires and the consequences.
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12.

Multicultural Writers since 1945: An A-to-Z Guide ("Arthur Koestler" begins on p. 293) » Read Now
by Alba Amoia, Bettina L. Knapp. 610 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

The end of World War II led to increased interest in multicultural concerns and a flourishing of literary and artistic endeavors. It was also a time of decolonization and the emergence of new nations and cultures clamoring for recognition and respect. The political circumstances following World War...
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The end of World War II led to increased interest in multicultural concerns and a flourishing of literary and artistic endeavors. It was also a time of decolonization and the emergence of new nations and cultures clamoring for recognition and respect. The political circumstances following World War II exposed many people to other cultures. This reference discusses the experiences of writers active since 1945 who were shaped by cultures other than their own.
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