Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon, translated from the French by Harry Mathews, with an introduction by Will Self (London: Penguin Modern Classics / Penguin Books, 2012).
Georges Bataille, Eroticism, translated from the French by Mary Dalwood, with an introduction by Colin MacCabe (London: Penguin Modern Classics / Penguin Books, 2012) ("I have long been struck by one thing. The true philosopher must devote his life to philosophy. In the practice of philosophy there is no serious reason why we should not find the weakness common to all cognitive activity--superiority in one field bought at the expense of relative ignorance in other fields. The situation gets worse every day; every day it becomes harder to acquire the sum of human knowledge since the sum is aways and unendingly on the increase. The principle that philosophy should be this sum of knowledge treated not simply as a juxtaposition of facts in the memory but as a synthesizing operation is still retained, but with great difficulty; every day philosophy becomes a little more of a specialized discipline like the other. . . . On this point this principle has been admitted, philosophy is still common studied in a vacuum. I mean that it is difficult to live and to philosophise simultaneously. I mean that humanity is made up of separate experiences and philosophy is only one experience among others, Philosophy finds it harder and harder to be the sum of knowledge, but it does not even aim at being the sum of experiences, in the specialist's peculiar narrow-mindedness. Yet what significance can the reflections of mankind upon himself and on being in general have, if the take no account of the intense emotional states? Obviously this implies the specialisation of something which by definition may on no account be allowed to be anything but total and universal. Obviously philosophy can only be sum of the possibles in the sense of a synthesis, or nothing." "I repeat: philosophy is the sum of the possibilities in the sense of synthesis, or nothing." Id. at 252-254.).
Georges Bataille, L'Abbe C, translated from the French by Philip A. Facey (London: Penguin Modern Classics / Penguin Books, 2012).
Georges Bataille, Literature and Evil, translated from the French by Alastair Hamilton (London: Penguin Modern Classics / Penguin Books, 2012) (From the backcover: "'Literature is not innocent,' stated Georges Bataille in this extraordinary 1957 collection of essays, arguing that only by acknowledging its complicity with the knowledge of evil can literature communicate fully and intensely. These literary profiles of eight authors and their works . . . explore subjects such as violence, eroticism, childhood, myth and transgression, in a work of rich allusion and powerful argument.").
Georges Bataille, My Mother, Madame Edwards, The Dean Man, translated from the French by Austryn Wainhouse, with essays by Yuki Mishima and Ken Hollings (London: Penguin Modern Classics / Penguin Books, 2012).
Georges Bataille, Story of the Eye (by Lord Auch), translated from the French by Joachim Naugroschal, with Essays by Susan Sontag and Roland Barthe (London: Penguin Modern Classics / Penguin Books, 2001).
