Critical Lives is a major series of short critical biographies that present the work of important cultural figures in the context of their lives. Each book relates and brings alive the life of the artist, writer, philosopher or architect in question and assesses their major works at the same time. The books in the series are accompanied by c. 20–40 illustrations.

All 200 x 130 mm

Shortlisted for the British Book Design and Production Awards 2005
Brand/Series Identity category

‘beautifully produced – very short critical biographies whose main target audience is likely to be undergraduates, but that will also do nicely for a general audience.’
- Times Literary Supplement

'Reaktion has published a distinguished series of these shorter critical appraisals of famous literary figures' – Independent on Sunday

'This excellent series should dispel many of the silly shibboleths about critical theory.'
- Scotland on Sunday

Charles Baudelaire
Rosemary Lloyd

Edgar Allan Poe
Kevin J. Hayes

Erik Satie
Mary E. Davis

Frank Lloyd Wright
Robert McCarter

Franz Kafka
Sander L. Gilman

Georges Bataille
Stuart Kendall

Gertrude Stein
Lucy Daniel

Guy Debord
Andrew Merrifield

James Joyce
Andrew Gibson

Jean Cocteau
James S. Williams

Jean Genet
Stephen Barber

Jean-Paul Sartre
Andrew Leak

Jorge Luis Borges
Jason Wilson

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Edward Kanterian

Marcel Duchamp
Caroline Cros

Michel Foucault
David Macey

Noam Chomsky
Wolfgang B. Sperlich

Octavio Paz
Nick Caistor

Pablo Neruda
Dominic Moran

Pablo Picasso
Mary Ann Caws

Salvador Dalí
Mary Ann Caws

Samuel Beckett
Andrew Gibson

Sergei Eisenstein
Mike O'Mahony

Simone de Beauvoir
Ursula Tidd

Walter Benjamin
Esther Leslie



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Frank Lloyd Wright

Franz Kafka

James Joyce

Jean Cocteau

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jorge Luis Borges

Noam Chomsky

Walter Benjamin