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  • Published: 10 December 2007
  • ISBN: 9780141188768
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $35.00

Humboldt's Gift




"I think it A Work of genius, I think it The Work of a Genius, I think it brilliant, splendid, etc. If there is literature (and this proves there is) this is where it's at." -John Cheever

For many years, the great poet Von Humboldt Fleisher and Charlie Citrine, a young man inflamed with a love for literature, were the best of friends. At the time of his death, however, Humboldt is a failure, and Charlie's life has reached a low point: his career is at a standstill, and he's enmeshed in an acrimonious divorce, infatuated with a highly unsuitable young woman and involved with a neurotic mafioso. And then Humboldt acts from beyond the grave, bestowing upon Charlie an unexpected legacy that may just help him turn his life around.

  • Published: 10 December 2007
  • ISBN: 9780141188768
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $35.00

About the author

Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow was born in Canada but brought to Chicago at the age of nine and educated there. He attended the Universities of Chicago, Northwestern and Wisconsin as well as fitting in a wartime stint in the Merchant Marine.
His first novel - Dangling Man - was published when he was in his twenties. Later novels, The Victim, The Adventures of Augie March, Seize the Day, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog, Mr Sammler's Planet, Humboldt's Gift, The Dean's December and Him With His Foot In His Mouth And Other Stories have brought him innumerable literary grants, awards, prizes, scholarships, fellowships and honours not only in his own country but internationally as well. He is probably the only man to have received an Honorary Degree from both Harvard and Yale in the same year. He has also written plays, short stories, articles for learned journals, been a war correspondent in Israel and held positions in a number of universities in the United States and elsewhere. He speaks four or five languages and has travelled extensively.
In 1976 Saul Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1984 President Mitterand made him a commander of the Legion of Honour.

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Praise for Humboldt's Gift

Bellow at his best ... funny, vibrant, ironic, self-mocking and wise

San Francisco Examiner

There was something about Humboldt's Gift - the sheer ecstatic pleasure of the writing, the intensity of the imagery, the entrancing ability to combine high comedy with deeply serious intellectual ideas, the astonishing talent for describing faces, the warm affection for Chicago characters - which excited me almost beyond endurance

Justin Cartwright, New Statesman

It has always been on the cards that Saul Bellow would write The Great American Novel. With Humboldt's Gift, I think that he has achieved this.

David Holloway, Telegraph