Will a woman ‘lambent like a great cathedral candle’ find her purpose in life with the ambitious religious leader who preaches ‘beauty through toil, ‘ or the brilliant young architect he has hired to create a resplendent new temple? John Chance accepts Herman Stein’s commission as one showman working for another, and because it will give him the opportunity to build something staggeringly beautiful. Then Chance discovers that Stein’s new helper, Cynthia, is the woman he fell in love with in Paris – and who now believes every word the charlatan says. Webster, a popular author of the early 20th century, wrote short stories and novels with intriguing characters pursuing goals in unusual ways, sometimes in the business world.
เกี่ยวกับผู้แต่ง
At age five, I won my first writing award: a three-foot-long fire truck with an ear-splitting siren. I’ve been addicted to writing ever since. Today I’m an independent researcher, freelance writer, and lecturer. The challenge of figuring out how ideas and facts fit together, and then sharing what I know with others, clearly and concisely – that’s what makes me leap out of bed in the morning. Janson’s *History of Art*, lent to me by a high-school art teacher, was my first clue that art was more than the rock-star posters and garden gnomes that I saw in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and that history wasn’t just a series of names, dates, and statistics. Soon afterwards I read Ayn Rand’s fiction and nonfiction works, and discovered that art and history – as well as politics, ethics, science, and all fields of human knowledge – are integrated by philosophy. My approach to studying art is based on Rand’s *The Romantic Manifesto*. (See my review of it on Amazon.) As an art historian I’m a passionate amateur, and I write for other passionate amateurs. I love looking at art, and thinking about art, and helping other people have a blast looking at it, too. *Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide* (New York University Press, 2007), which includes 54 sculptures, was described by Sam Roberts in the *New York Times* as ‘a perfect walking-tour accompaniment to help New Yorkers and visitors find, identify and better appreciate statues famous and obscure’ (1/28/2007). Every week I issue four art-related recommendations to my supporters, which have been collected in *Starry Solitudes* (poetry) and *Sunny Sundays* (painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, and more). For more of my works, see https://diannedurantewriter.com/books-essays . Since 2018, I’ve been collecting and publishing Henry Kitchell Webster’s short stories, and republishing his early novels.