• A photograph of a drawing of a crowd watching a theatrical performance inside a nineteenth-century style theatre hall

The Library of Comfort

by Jürgen Pieters The painting on my new book’s cover was made by the Viennese artist Friedrich Frotzel (1898-1971). Its title – ‘The Old Bookcase’ – makes it even more appropriate. The library of comfort, as I make clear in…

Normal People and the strangeness of other people

Towards the end of Sally Rooney’s acclaimed novel Normal People, the two main characters, Connell and Marianne, talk sleepily one morning about whether it’s possible ever really to know another person. ‘I guess everyone is a mystery in a way’,…

Emotion, History and the Arts

Erin Sullivan and Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild are guest editors of a special issue of Cultural History about ‘Emotion, History and the Arts’, published October 2018. Their introduction draws on a wide range of emotionally charged art works from different times and places—including…