Elisabeth Abbott Bücher

Of all the heroic figures of the Old Testament, few are more arresting than David, the shepherd boy who was destined to rule Israel, and none is such as appealing mixture of jubilant joy in the Lord, greatness and human frailty... It begins with the momentous day when the boy is anointed by the prophet Samuel and continues through his years of service to King Saul, the splendour of his own long reign... Here are Jonathan, the princess Michol, Abner, Urias and Solomon: and here, too, are the joys and sorrows of David's life, especially overwhelming love for Bathseba and his betrayal by his favorite son...

My Life was written in Moscow in 1921–1922, when Chagall was thirty-five years old. Although long out-of-print, it remains one of the most extraordinarily inventive and beautifully told of all autobiographies. The text is accompanied by twenty plates which Chagall prepared especially to illustrate his life story. Together, the words and pictures paint an incomparable portrait of one of the greatest painters of this century, and of the now vanished milieu which inspired him.