Lifting the Veil: Beloved Dead, Biography & Other Appreciations

With the poet's passion and the scientist's precision, Max Ehrmann in Lifting the Veil set out to go beyond the philosophers of the ages. In clear, accessible language he tugs at the veil of reality and the question of meaning in a seemingly meaningless world.
Now often overlooked, Ehrmann was widely praised in the 1920s and 1930s as the author of "Desiderata", which still hangs in homes and offices around the world (and is included in this collection). He was a poet-philosopher of his era, capturing the dark realities of life while never forgetting the rays of light within the universe. Alongside fellow Indiana writer Theodore Dreiser, author of An American Tragedy, Ehrmann confronted suffering and injustice without losing sight of hope.
Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote of him: "Max Ehrmann has been about the world, looking with a clear eye, and tells about it with a sharp pen... honest and straightforward and written by a man who has a grasp of literature and a power of expression."
The companion pieces in this volume, selected and introduced by actor Tim Dalgleish, provide biographical and intellectual background to the ideas behind Ehrmann's powerful poetic thinking. Contemporary reviewers saw in him "a student of the deep problems of life... a philosophy of awareness and reconsideration of the real values of life" (Indianapolis Star), and praised his "deep insight into the human heart... dignity of style... and dramatic intensity" (Buffalo Courier).