Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere

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Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere
Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere
by Christopher Hitchens
AuthorChristopher Hitchens
CountryUnited States/UK
LanguageEnglish
SubjectPolitics
PublisherVerso
Publication date
2000
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback)
Pages358
ISBN1859847862
820.9/358
LC ClassPR478.P64 H58 2000

Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere is a collection of essays[1] by the author and journalist Christopher Hitchens, published in 2000. It was first published in hardback by the New Left Books imprint, Verso.[2]

Synopsis[edit]

Described as 'A celebration of Percy Shelley's assertion that 'poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world',[3] the book contains thirty-eight essays on writers such as Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, George Orwell, Rudyard Kipling, Philip Larkin, H.L. Mencken, Anthony Powell, T.S. Eliot and Salman Rushdie, in which Hitchens attempts to 'dispel the myth of politics as a stone tied to the neck of literature'.

Reception[edit]

In 2016, James Ley of The Sydney Morning Herald listed Unacknowledged Legislation among the books from Hitchens that "[represent] the best of his work as a journalist, literary critic and cultural commentator."[4]

See also[edit]

The arts and politics

References[edit]