Artists & Authors: A Life in Good Company

by Charles Scribner III

Join a literary insider for a behind-the-scenes tour of art heists, opera icons, and the golden age of publishing.

From the author of Five Generations in Publishing comes this new collection of personal essays reflecting on the past fifty years of his pursuits and passions in literature, art, and music. Beginning with a memoir of his father’s tutelage through letters to a young son away at school, it moves along to his “dual professions” on parallel tracks—book publishing and art history.

Behind-the-scenes stories of famous Scribner authors F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe give way to the section on Scribner’s forte, the art of the Baroque a murderous Caravaggio and the two tycoons Rubens and Bernini.

From his role in a sting operation to recover a stolen Rubens painting on Miami Beach to his personal profiles of three luminous sopranos—Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Frederica von Stade, and Mary Costa—Scribner shares a fascinating peek into the life and loves of a Renaissance man.

200 pages, Hardcover

Published February 10, 2026

About the author

Charles Scribner III is an art historian, author, editor, and lecturer based in New York. He specializes in Baroque art, music, religion, and literature, especially authors published by Charles Scribner's Sons, founded in 1846.