St. Augustine’s Press

Savrola is Winston Churchill’s first major literary effort and his only full-length work of fiction. Published in 1900, the novel’s subtitle, A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania, reflects the story’s modern political focus. Laurania, a long-established republic, is subjected to the autocratic rule of President Antonio Molara, a former general who has become known as the Dictator. Savrola, the man of the multitude, leads the democratic effort to restore the political liberties of the people. When the register of eligible electors is mutilated and the popular franchise compromised, a riot breaks out and the stage is set for a fight to the death between Molara and Savrola over who will rule Laurania. General Molara enlists the assistance of his beautiful wife, Lucile, to undermine Savrola’s influence with the people. But Lucile falls in love with Savrola, who is equally moved by the beauty and charm of the First Lady. As is indicated by the last chapter’s title, “Life’s Compensations,” all ends well in Laurania. After the violent troubles of the revolution, Molara is dead, Lucile and Savrola are united, and the Mediterranean republic returns to peace and prosperity.

After a long life with Shakespeare, seeing, reading, studying, playing, and teaching the works, Michael Platt has bequeathed to after-livers an appreciation of some of the many wonders of Shakespeare. Seven discerned here are: first, how vast his learning is; second, how witty in expression, how rich in thought, and inventive in coinage his language; third, that he is the first poet ever to write both comedy and tragedy, and beyond that, history, thus making him the English Aristophanes, Sophocles, and Thucydides; fourth, that, unlike his great poetic predecessors, he presents life without the presence of the gods or God and yet, though hidden, everywhere Christian teachings illuminate life; fifth, that he so abundantly multiplies instances, so skillfully juxtaposes them, and so frames them with wisdom, that to understand him you must become philosophic; sixth, that each of his near nine hundred characters is so himself, speaking like no other, that we marvel how a man is is what he is like others, and yet who he is is utterly self-referential and seventh, though Shakespeare is invisible in his own works, like water in water, still in one brief run of words, he tells himself the secrets of all his artful life.

 Witness Through Encounter intends to fulfill multiple needs. The diplomatic approach exemplified herein is singular and worthy of study among political scientists, sociologists, philosophers and diplomats eager to embrace a worldview that is more personal than simply humanistic. This work will also be useful in inter-religious settings. An additional advantage of O’Connor’s presentation of Benedict XVI’s diplomatic approach, his witness through encounter, is that it contains insight valuable to the scholar alongside the resources used.

These twelve essays, as varied in style and scope as sculpture and astro-physics, all point out the truth of Yves Simon’s belief that "the mind has for its end the perfection of the mind itself."