The World Within | Guy Stagg

A luminous new book from the critically acclaimed author of The Crossway, winner of the Edward Stanford Travel Memoir of the Year, and shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and Somerset Maugham Award 2019.

All my life I have dreamed of retreat. Of letting go each responsibility and cutting every tie. And I know I’m not the only one. But, when I learnt about the creative figures who left their lives behind, I began to ask myself: what is gained and what is lost when we withdraw from the world?

To answer this question, Guy Stagg tells the story of three of the twentieth century’s most original minds: the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the poet and painter David Jones, and the writer Simone Weil. All three went on retreat during times of crisis, to find their work and their lives changed for ever. Seeking to understand these experiences, Stagg follows Wittgenstein to the ancient monastery outside Vienna where he recovered from depression, sails to the isolated island off the Welsh coast where Jones discovered a new way to make art, and spends Lent at the forbidding French Abbey that sparked an epiphany in Weil’s thinking.

The World Within blends a moving personal account with history, biography and travel, offering a profound exploration of the impulse to withdraw. It asks why retreat still enchants people to this day and hints at how each one of us can find a sanctuary of our own.

Guy Stagg was born in 1988 and grew up in Paris, Heidelberg, Yorkshire and London. The Crossway is his first book and is an account of his ten-month walk to Jerusalem. The author sets off from Canterbury on New Year's Day, telling his friends and family only that he'll be home before the year's end. It was shortlisted for the inaugural DRF Award in 2016 and since then has won the Edward Stanford Travel Memoir of the Year 2019, as well as being shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2019, the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2019 and the Somerset Maugham Award 2019. The Crossway was a BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week'.

The Very Reverend Dr Mark Oakley was ordained at St Paul’s Cathedral in 1993 and served his curacy at St John’s Wood Church. He was later appointed Chaplain to the Bishop of London and after four years was made Rector of the Actors’ church in Covent Garden. He has subsequently served as an archdeacon in the Diocese in Europe, Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral and Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge. Mark holds a PhD in English Literature and is an admired author of several books on poetry and spirituality. He is well known as a speaker and preacher and has been awarded both the Michael Ramsey Prize for theological writing and the Lanfranc award, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, for education and scholarship. Mark has a strong commitment to human rights and has served on the board of Liberty and the Civil Liberties Trust, as well as being awarded one of the first ‘Upstander’ awards for his work with hate crime victims. King’s College London awarded him a Fellowship in recognition of his work and ministry. Mark was installed as the Dean of Southwark in early December 2023.

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