The Grammar of Angels: The Life of a Renaissance Prodigy and His Search for a Philosophy of Everything...

— —

Edward Wilson-Lee

The Grammar of Angels

Name: The Grammar of Angels
Price: 24.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9780008621834

The Life of a Renaissance Prodigy and His Search for a Philosophy of Everything

Edward Wilson-Lee

$24.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English

William Collins
28 April 2026

Biography: general; Biography: religious & spiritual; Philosophy of language; Philosophy; Western philosophy: Medieval & Renaissance, c 500 to c 1600; History of ideas

'Ingenious… a glorious portrait of the great 15th-century prince of learning' Daily Telegraph

'A deeply fascinating, sui generis book by a brilliant scholar-writer, which uses the life story of a Renaissance prodigy to summon an angel-host of ideas, people and stories, all circling the question of language's ability to transcend the mortal realm' Robert Macfarlane, bestselling author of Underland

Does there exist a form of speech so powerful as to allow the speaker to control the listener, taking over their thoughts and even their will? Renaissance prodigy and polymath Giovanni Pico della Mirandola – the uncontested marvel of an age of true wonders – believed that there was.

The Grammar of Angels tells how Pico dedicated his short, brilliant life to finding a philosophy that would settle the most important questions about human existence. This philosophy would, he believed, provide tools by which man could transcend his mortal limitations and join the ranks of the angels.

At the heart of Pico’s ideas were questions that he traced through the breadth and depth of human thought, from the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to the medieval Arabs and Jews. He made use of everything at his disposal from Europe’s broadening horizons and asked primal questions of himself and the world. Why is it that we can be astonished by beauty? That the hairs on the backs of our necks can be made to stand by intoxicating rhythms and harmonies? That we can be provoked to ecstatic experiences by the simple means of an incantation?

In 1486, when he was just twenty-three, he declared his intention to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers and for which he wrote a speech that is often deemed the ‘manifesto of the Renaissance, even though the ideas it introduced were subject to an unprecedented ban by the Church. He died mysteriously aged only thirty-one.

The implications of his thought were dangerous in the Europe of his day, suggesting as they did that the notion of the individual might be just as much of an illusion as a flat earth or a geocentric universe. Pico’s tempestuous life at the heart of the Renaissance was a testament to intellectual daring, to a human dignity founded in the willingness to think the unthinkable and to peer over the edge of the abyss in search of answers.

By: Edward Wilson-Lee
Imprint: William Collins
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 22mm
Weight: 260g
ISBN: 9780008621834
ISBN 10: 0008621837
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 28 April 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Brought up in Kenya, the child of conservationist parents, Edward Wilson-Lee studied English at University College London and completed a doctorate at Oxford and Cambridge. He now lives in Cambridge with his wife and son, and teaches Shakespeare (among other things) at Sidney Sussex College. Over the past few years he has spent extended periods in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and South Sudan.

Reviews for The Grammar of Angels: The Life of a Renaissance Prodigy and His Search for a Philosophy of Everything

A Daily Telegraph Best Book of 2025 'The life of Renaissance thinker Giovanni Pico della Mirandola quivers with intellectual fizz and sadomasochistic energy…[A] marvel…As a biography of Pico and an account of his thought, this is a first-class book… such range and ambition is, after all, very Renaissance. It’s very Pico. It is also a joy to read' Sunday Times 'Wilson-Lee performs without fail the sympathetic, translucent ventriloquism that sets apart the most absorbing biographies… His prose, subtly then gleamingly witty, is deliberately unworldly: it bears all the marks of enraptured enthusiasm which he finds in his once-renowned subject. And – by the by – at one point Wilson-Lee also composes the most startling, ingenious, aesthetically joyous description of the new technology of printing that I have yet encountered' Daily Telegraph 'Wilson-Lee is good at carnivalesque historical colour… he skilfully conveys the propulsive, addictive thrill when interpretation is taken for revelation…[he] pulls in analogies from times or cultures that even Pico was not familiar with, suggesting affinities in a kind of comparative sociology of incantation. In another work this might be more of a problem; in the shadow of an accretive, universalist intellect like Pico’s, however, it makes perfect sense for this impressive and scholarly book to see its subject everywhere it looks' Guardian 'A deeply fascinating, sui generis book by a brilliant scholar-writer, which uses the life story of a Renaissance prodigy to summon an angel-host of ideas, people and stories, all circling the question of language's ability to transcend the mortal realm' Robert Macfarlane