Artists & Authors: A Life in Good Company

by Charles Scribner III

Overview

From the author of Scribners: Five Generations in Publishing comes this new collection of personal essays reflecting on the past fifty years of his pursuits and passions in literature, art, and music. Beginning with a memoir of his father’s tutelage through letters to a young son away at school, it moves along to his “dual professions” on parallel tracks—book publishing and art history.
 
Behind-the-scenes stories of famous Scribner authors F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe give way to the section on Scribner’s forte, the art of the Baroque masters: a murderous Caravaggio and the two tycoons Rubens and Bernini.
 
From his role in a sting operation to recover a stolen Rubens painting on Miami Beach to his personal profiles of three luminous sopranos—Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Frederica von Stade, and Mary Costa—Scribner shares a fascinating peek into the life and loves of a Renaissance man.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493093632
Publisher:	Globe Pequot
Publication date:	02/03/2026
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Charles Scribner III received his PhD in art history from Princeton University in 1977. He taught Baroque art in Princeton’s department of Art and Archaeology, where he later served on its advisory council, and joined his father at the family publishing house, Charles Scribner’s Sons. With Talleyrand as his model, he remained at Scribner's through three changes in ownership (Macmillan, Maxwell, and Viacom), overseeing the publication of its literary classics. He was a commentator for television documentaries on Edith Wharton (BBC/PBS), Fitzgerald and Hemingway (A&E Biography).
 
As an art historian, Scribner has lectured on Baroque art at universities and museums—the Metropolitan, National Gallery, Getty, Frick, and Morgan Library. His books include The Triumph of the Eucharist: Tapestries by Rubens (1982), Rubens (1989), Bernini (1991), The Shadow of God (2006), Home by Another Route (2016), Sacred Muse (2023), and Scribners (2023). His favorite assignment was an undercover operation for U.S. Customs special agents in Miami Beach in 1991 to trap art thieves and recover a stolen Rubens oil sketch. In 2003 he appeared in the BBC/Bravo documentary The Rubens Robbers (on YouTube) about the successful mission. He lives in New York City. His webpage is www.charlesscribner.com. 
 

Table of Contents

Preface: Lux Umbra Dei

Books & Company

1. Digging for Diamonds: A Father’s Tutelage
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald: From Princeton to Paradise.
3. Tender is the Night: Fitzgerald’s Credo
4. Ernest Hemingway—“First: Last”
5. Crying Wolfe: “Last Poem”
6. Five Best Books on Family Businesses

Old Masters

1. Caravaggio: Shadows into Light
2. Rubens and Bernini: Artists Who Didn’t Starve
3. Rubens Meets Miami Vice
4. Michelangelo Revisited
5. Velásquez and Teresa: “God Among the Pots and Pans”
6. Transfigurations: The Late Bernini 
7. Bernini’s Cristo Vivo 
8. The Garden of Love—from Rubens to Mozart

The Vocal Arts

1. Sacred Music: “The Holy Art”
2. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf: Reflections at Twilight
3. Frederica von Stade: Flicka in the Firmament
4. Mary Costa: A Star that Sparkles                                                                     
5. Envoi: Home by Another Route