Join our neighbors, Charleston Library Society (in partnership with Middleton Place Foundation), for an evening of learning about some Magnificent Rebels with award-winning author, Andrea Wulf. Wulf’s newest exhilarating book paints the picture of a remarkable group of young rebels – poets, novelists, philosophers – who, through their epic quarrels, passionate love stories, heartbreaking grief, and radical ideas launched Romanticism onto the world stage, inspiring some of the greatest thinkers of the time. Their unconventional lives inspired radical ideas – about the creative power of the self, the aspirations of art and science, nature and the true meaning of freedom.
About the Book:
From the best-selling author of The Invention of Nature comes an exhilarating story about a remarkable group of rebels who changed the way we think about ourselves and the world. Forget Paris… the real Revolution in the 1790s happened in Jena, a quiet German university town where the unlikely revolutionaries were not soldiers or politicians but poets and playwrights (Goethe, Schiller and Novalis), philosophers (Fichte, Schelling and Hegel), literary critics (the contentious Schlegel brothers) and scientists (Alexander von Humboldt). And at their heart was the formidable and free-spirited Caroline Schlegel.
In Magnificent Rebels, Andrea Wulf takes us on a vivid journey through their adventures and misadventures, passionate love affairs and epic quarrels, successes and heartbreak. We are still empowered by their daring leap into the self today. The French revolutionaries may have changed the political landscape, but these young Romantics incited a revolution of the mind that shaped our modern world.
About Andrea Wulf:
Andrea Wulf is the award-winning author of several books, including Founding Gardeners, Brother Gardeners, and the bestselling The Invention of Nature which is published in 27 languages and won a Costa for Biography, the Royal Society Award for Science and the LA Times Book Prize (and thirteen other international literary awards). Andrea has written for many newspapers including the Guardian, New York Times, Financial Times, and The Atlantic. She is a member of PEN American Center and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in London.