Books like Imaginary portraits by Walter Pater

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde, first appearing as a novella in 1890 and expanded into a full novel in 1891.

Candide: A Tale of Conviviality and Optimism in a Wretched World

A sharp satire of Victorian business and politics, "The Way We Live Now" exposes the corrupt world of capitalists and criminal schemes in London society.

A concise collection of 39 essays by G.K. Chesterton, covering literature, philosophy, history, and social criticism, offering a sharp-eyed view of early 20th‑century European society.

Zadie Smith’s *Feel Free* gathers her most recent essays and earlier pieces, offering sharp commentary on cultural politics, technology, libraries, and climate change.

Nietzsche’s first book explores Greek tragedy, Schopenhauer’s philosophy, and Wagner’s music, arguing that the fusion of Apollonian order and Dionysian ecstasy creates the highest art and offers insight into suffering.

"Jeanette Winterson argues in this collection for the importance of art in all our lives. In ten intertwined essays, the acclaimed author of such recent novels as Written on the Body and Art & Lies proposes art as an active force in the world - neither elitist nor remote, available to those who want it and affecting even those who don't." "An act of courage and effrontery, a uniquely human endeavor that defies time and differences, art offers new realities, emotions and worlds to anyone prepared to meet the demands it places on us. Art objects to the lie that life is small, fragmented and mean. Art objects to the myth of inevitable decay. Winterson's eloquent vision of objecting, transforming, exuberant art is presented in pieces on painting, autobiography, style and the future of fiction. She also declares her admiration for Modernism and examines the writing of Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein. More personally, she confronts the current fascination with the writer's life or sexuality instead of the work itself, and describes her relationship to her own fiction."--BOOK JACKET.