Irving Stone was born in San Francisco in 1903 and received his B. A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1923 and his Master's degree from the University of Southern California in 1924. He wrote plays and supported himself by writing detective stories until the publication of Lust for Life, his first novel, in 1934, Stone called his work 'bio-history' and based his novels on meticulous and extensive research into the lives of the historical characters at the heart of his novels. He married his editor, Jean Factor, in 1934. He founded the Academy of American Poets in 1962. He died in Los Angeles in 1989.
Lust for LifePrologue - London
1. L'ange aux poupons
2. Goupil and Company
3. In its own image, love creates love
4. "Let's forget it, shall we?"
5. The Van Goghs
6. "Why, you're nothing but a country boor!"
7. Ramsgate and Isleworth
Book One - The Borinage
1. Amsterdam
2. Kay
3. A stuffy, provincial clergyman
4. Latin and Greek
5. Mendes da Costa
6. Where lies the greater strength?
7. Evangelical school
8. The Blackjaws
9. A miner's hut
10. Success!
11. Terril
12. Marcasse
13. A lesson in economics
14. Fragile
15. Black Egypt
16. Exit God
17. Bankruptcy
18. An incident of little importance
19. As one artist to another
20. Enter Theo
21. The old mill at Ryswyk
Book Two - Etten
1. "There's a living in that!"
2. Fou
3. The student
4. Mijnheer Tersteeg
5. Anton Mauve
6. Kay comes to Etten
7. "No, never, never!"
8. There are some cities in which a man is forever ill-fated
Book Three - The Hague
1. The first studio
2. Christine
3. Work in progress
4. A man needs a woman
5. "You must hurry and begin to sell!"
6. Goodness grows in curious places
7. Savoir souffir sans se plaindre
8. The merciless sword
9. Love
10. The Holy Family
11. Theo comes to the Hague
12. Fathers are funny
13. L'art, c'est un combat
Book Four - Nuenen
1. A studio in the vicarage
2. The weavers
3. Margot
4. "It's loving that's important, not being loved"
5. Whither thou goest
6. Inquisition
7. "Your work is almost salable, but..."
8. The Potato Eaters
Book Five - Paris
1. "Ah, yes, Paris!"
2. The explosion
3. "Why should anyone want to be a count when he can be a painter?"
4. Portrait of a primitive
5. Painting must become a science!
6. Rousseau gives a party
7. A poor wretch who hanged himself
8. Art goes amoral
9. Pere Tanguy
10. The Petit Boulevard
11. Art for the workingman
12. The Communist Art Colony
13. Southward, ever southward, to the sun!
Book Six - Arles
1. Earthquake or revolution?
2. The painting machine
3. Le Pigeon
4. Postman
5. The Yellow House
6. Maya
7. Gaugin arrives
8. The sound and the fury
9. Fou-rou
10. "In existing society, the painter is but a broken vessel"
Book Seven - St. Remy
1. Third Class Carriage
2. The fraternity of fous
3. An old crock is an old crock
4. "I discovered painting when I no longer had teeth or breath"
Book Eight - Auvers
1. The first one-man exhibition
2. A specialist in nervous diseases
3. One cannot paint goodbye
4. A more resilient earth
5. "And in their death they were not divided"
