The Life and Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Robert Greene

Robert Greene

General Books LLC, 2009 - 140 pages

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883. Excerpt: ... I fear the ' Life' in Greene's case was a sorrowfully unchaste and stained one, though at longlast the Prodigal did arise from his swinetroughs and return weary, bruised, bleeding, and lowly-hearted to the Divine Father--as told in 'Confessions' beside which those of a Rousseau are tawdry and spectacular, so exquisite is their self-evidencing truth and pathos and penitence; whereas his Books are invariably pure. Gabr1el Harvey bewrays his absolute ignorance of Greene's writings by the hearsay way in which he denounces them. While characters and scenes and circumstance would over and over have given opportunity for broad and unclean speech, broad and unclean speech is never found. Let his memory have all the benefit of this to-day. Further--Even in his lightest and slightest love-story, if the Reader be on the alert, he will be struck with the opulence of weighty aphoristic thought, and penetrative vision of men and things. Speaking for myself as a Preacher, I have had repeatedly matter for a whole Sermon given me in some old legend, or brilliantly-set truth, or recondite fact, or epigrammatic saying, half-carelessly and bythe-bye, worked into these off-hand books. Everywhere Greene vindicates himself as a gentleman, a scholar, a travelled observer, a bright, pleasant, light-hearted fellow, "of infinite jest," save in the deep-shadowed and piteously tragic close. I always think of Robert Greene as type of Matthew Arnold's unique SelfDeception, which we shall profit by pondering here and now: --"Say, what blinds us, that we claim the glory Of possessing powers not our share?--Since man woke on earth, he knows his story, But, before we woke on earth, we were. Long, long since, undower'd yet, our spirit Roam'd, ere birth, the treasuries of God: Saw the gifts, ...

About the author

Robert Greene was born on May 14, 1959 in Los Angeles, California. He attended the University of California, Berkeley before transferring to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he received a B.A. in classical studies. Before becoming an author, he worked a variety of jobs including construction worker, translator, magazine editor, and Hollywood movie writer. In 1995, he worked as a writer at Fabrica, an art and media school in Italy, and met a book packager named Joost Elffers. Greene pitched a book about power to Elffers and wrote a draft, which eventually became his first book, The 48 Laws of Power. His other works include The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law, and Mastery.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Life and Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Robert Greene
• Author: Robert Greene
• Publisher: General Books LLC, 2009
• ISBN: 1150131543, 9781150131547
• Length: 140 pages