In Sappho’s Journal, the author brings the famous Greek poet Sappho back to life in a finely crafted novel that reveals her sense of beauty, her loves, her reflections, her inner world. Based on a careful study of ancient Greece and Sappho’s surviving fragments of poetry, Bartlett recreates Sappho in a lyrical account of the life, passion, fears, and faith of this remarkable woman whose intimate journal takes us back to 642 B.C. The book includes a Foreword by the well-known Sappho scholar and translator Willis Barnstone.
Bartlett’s writing has been praised by many leading authors, reviewers, and critics, among them:
JAMES MICHENER, novelist: “I am much taken with Bartlett’s work and commend it highly.”
CHARLES POORE in The New York Times: “...believable characters who are stirred by intensely personal concerns.”
GRACE FLANDRAU, author and historian: “...Characters and scenes are so right and living...it is so beautifully done, one finds oneself feeling it is not fiction but actually experienced fact.”
JAMES PURDY, novelist: “An important writer... I find great pleasure in his work. Really beautiful and distinguished.”
ALICE S. MORRIS in Harper’s Bazaar: “He tells a haunting and beautiful story and manages to telescope, in a brilliantly leisurely way, a lifetime, a full and eventful lifetime.”
RUSSELL KIRK, novelist: “The scenes are drawn with power. Bartlett is an accomplished writer.”
PAUL ENGLE in The Chicago Tribune: “...articulate, believable ... charms with an expert knowledge of place and people.”
MICHAEL FRAENKEL, novelist and poet: “His is the authenticity of the true and original creator. Bartlett is essentially a writer of mood.”
WILLIS BARNSTONE, Sappho scholar and translator: “A mature artist, Bartlett writes with ease and taste.”
J. DONALD ADAMS in The New York Times: “...the freshest, most vital writing I have seen for some time.”
PEARL S. BUCK, Nobel Laureate in Literature: “He is an excellent writer.”
HERBERT GORMAN, novelist and biographer: “He possesses a sensitivity in description and an acuteness in the delineation of character.”
FORD MADOX FORD, English novelist, about Bartlett: “...a writer of very considerable merit.”
LON TINKLE in the Dallas Morning News: “Vivid, impressive, highly pictorial.”