Marius the Epicurean, Two Volumes - Tapa blanda

Walter Horatio Pater (1839 - 1894), anEnglish critic, essayist, and humanist, was born in Stepney, England. In 1864 he secured a fellowship at Brasenose College, Oxford. As an aesthete, he started writingarticles of criticism that were collected in his Studies in the History of the Renaissance in 1873. His style was precise, subtle, and refined. Pater was a proponent of the doctrine of art for art's sake. Another notable work isMarius the Epicurean (1885).

In the exquisite prose style that was profound and perceptive, Pater has united philosophy, truth and moral values. He draws the portrait of a young man whose quest for truth takes him from Stoicism to Cyrenaicism to Epicurianism and finally to Christianity. The book imparts the idea that ethical traditions of religion are important as they are the only civilizing influences on society.