A Splendid Wickedness and Other Essays

Incisive essays from a master wordsmith

Why has Don Juan become so passé of late? What’s the trouble with Ayn Rand? How did the Doge of Venice come to venerate the counterfeit remains of Siddhartha Gautama? Why does the Bentley family’s collection of ancestral relics include a bronzed human thumb? And what, exactly, is the story behind Great Uncle Aloysius, who was born a Quaker but died a pagan?

This collection of occasional essays brings us David Bentley Hart at his finest: startlingly clear and deliciously abstruse, coolly wise and burningly witty, fresh and timeless, mystical and concrete — often all at once. Hart’s incisive blend of philosophy, moral theology, and cultural criticism, together with his flair for both the well-told story and the well-turned phrase, is sure to delight.