Product Description

This invaluable anthology is the first and only collection dedicated to the art of the eulogy. For the past several years, Phyllis Theroux has collected the most eloquent and moving writing commemorating a death, assessing a life, or offering solace to the bereaved. Ranging from Thomas Jefferson's magisterial eulogy for George Washington to Anna Quindlen's affectionate memorial for her grandmother; from Helen Keller's words about her dear friend Mark Twain to Adlai Stevenson's about Eleanor Roosevelt, The Book of Eulogies establishes that great eulogies are a celebration of remarkable lives that can illuminate, confirm, inspire, and redirect our own.

Theroux has included some of the world's most well-known tributes, such as Pericles' Funeral Oration, Jules Michelet's appreciation of Jeanne d'Arc, Victor Hugo's ringing words on the one hundredth anniversary of Voltaire's death, Cardinal Suenens's eulogy for Pope John XXIII. But most of the eulogized assembled here are eighteenth- to twentieth-century Americans, and the stories of their lives illuminate our history with a particularly intimate light. In Robert Kennedy's extemporaneous remarks upon hearing of the death of Martin Luther King, or Eugene McCarthy's tribute to his friend and colleague, Hubert Humphrey, the values, wisdom, and spirit of both the eulogized and the eulogizer are revealed.

The Book of Eulogies is a sourcebook for anyone who must find words of solace, understanding, and inspiration on the occasion of a beloved's death. It is also a treasury of astonishing eloquence, passion, and humanity -- a record of extraordinary lives, seen through the eyes of those who knew and loved them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #646576 in Books
• Published on: 1997-05-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Amazon.com Review
Author Phyllis Theroux has assembled a large collection of funeral praises, and, amazingly, there's nothing morbid about it. A number of noted writers, including Thomas Merton, Peter Matthiessen, William Styron, H. L. Mencken, Hannah Arendt, and many others offer very lively thoughts on the departed. The book is well organized in thematic sections, and included in the more than 100 essays are a number of tributes to people whose lives may have been ordinary, but who also inspired very moving tributes. As editor Theroux notes in her introduction: "Some of the people are famous. Others are obscure. But all of them have one thing in common. When they died, someone wrote about them uncommonly well."

From Library Journal
Theroux has gathered over 100 eulogies delivered in the form of spoken tributes, editorials, letters of condolence, essays, and poetry. Many of these testimonials are eloquently penned by the well known to commemorate the well known (e.g., Thomas Merton on Flannery O'Connor, Robert F. Kennedy on Martin Luther King). Others are equally compelling memorials to unknown souls by everyday people. There are helpful commentaries by the author. A worthwhile addition to any collection.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Thomas Moore

author of Care of the Soul and The Education of the Heart

I now understand why some anthologies are called treasures and described as golden. Phyllis Theroux has created a book of such deep sentiment and beauty of language that it is truly a golden treasury, a volume worth keeping for a lifetime. It offers an education in humanity, civility, friendship, and the beauty of words.

M. Scott Peck, M.D.

author of The Road Less Traveled and Denial of the Soul

An anthology of eulogies: What a marvelous concept, and brilliant in execution! Makes history come wonderfully alive. Belongs in every school and home library. I loved it.

Judith Viorst

You need this book. It will absorb you, instruct you, touch you, and serve as a lifelong source of inspiration and consolation.

Cokie Roberts

ABC News/National Public Radio

This wonderful book teaches us a great deal -- about history, about courage, about writing. But most of all, in reading about the parts of a life eulogists choose to remember and recount, we learn a great deal about living a well-lived life.

Customer Reviews

Excellent perspective on the meaning of our life on earth
You cannot read this book without getting a sense of the importance of each soul and the real value in our interactions with other people. For it is how others remember us that matters, and how we touch each others lives that lasts. It is a very moving collection.

A sensible anthology
A collection of eulogies, as the title implies, along with some letters and writings on death and grief. It is a curious fact that, as shown here, the most unlikely people can be eloquent in the face of death. Many of the eulogies here quoted are beautiful and moving not for the sake of the dead but for the power of the language used to carry them back to the hearers' and readers' memories. Especially noteworthy are Atatürk's memorial to soldiers ~ both Allies and Central Powers ~ who died at Gallipoli in W.W.I, Richard Selzer on his mother, Neru on Ghandi ~ more than can be listed. Not at all the morbid book one might think this would be; it is, in fact, more a celebration of the possibilities of life than a mourning about death.