Delightful People by Stephen Schmalhofer

“Each of us knows a delightful person whose presence is effervescence at any party. In this little book, I hope to introduce you to several delightful people."

Delightful People Stephen Schmalhofer Cluny Media Book Cover

Praise for Delightful People

In this delightful collection of essays, Stephen Schmalhofer lives up admirably to Horace’s injunction to delight as well as instruct. Here is the human comedy in all its beguiling eccentricity, served up in prose that is crisp, sharply observed, and deeply humane. God made the world and saw that it was odd. Schmalhofer captures that oddity with zest and understanding

— Roger Kimball, Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion

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With a wealth of learning Schmalhofer takes us happily into vanished worlds often Catholic and whimsical, peopled by savants, eccentrics and aesthetes. Pleasant and surprising.

—Cardinal George Pell, Prefect Emeritus of the Secretariat for the Economy, author of the forthcoming book Prison Journal, Volume 1

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Beautifully composed, the essays in Delightful People represent appreciations in the fullest sense: portraits of people who matter in part because of their attainments but still more because they are simply so enjoyable. Delightful People reminds us that people can indeed prove, well, delightful—and in this vexed moment what finer gift could Stephen Schmalhofer possibly have offered?

— Peter Robinson, former Speechwriter to President Reagan and the Murdoch Distinguished Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution

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Stephen Schmalhofer’s short and amusing essays shed light on a small and colorful group of mostly upperclass Americans, some whom already in their time were representatives of a bygone era. Many of them were cosmopolitan in their way of life and outlook. A common denominator is their Catholicism (usually as converts) or at least an attraction to it, in some cases in combination with an enthusiasm for the art and music of the medieval Church. The web of connections Schmalhofer portrays includes elements that will be new even to those who are related to some of the protagonists.

—Dr. Beatrice LaFarge, Goethe University - Frankfurt am Main

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Admirers eagerly await the next Stephen Schmalhofer essay, a jewel of wit, clear prose, discovery, and learning. Now admirers and new readers alike have the treat of this collection, in which Schmalhofer brings to life half-forgotten figures and writers in the best tradition of the republic of letters.

—Gerald J. Russello, Editor, The University Bookman

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There are persons--and then there are personalities. Attentive to the religious horizon of history, Stephen Schmalhofer brings alive some of the most interesting characters of the last century.

—R.R. Reno, Editor, First Things

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This is an enchanting collection of literary portraits, full of astutely observed details and surprising insights, all woven together by a humane moral and spiritual imagination.

—Sohrab Ahmari, op-ed editor, New York Post, and author of the forthcoming The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos

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Destined to be a classic.

—Catholic World Report

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The perfect book to read on a summer evening, Delightful People blends history, culture, and faith seamlessly and will stir both thought and conversation.

—Sophia Martinson, Angelus

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Stephen Schmalhofer revives the tradition of the amateur, independent writer/scholar. His Delightful People celebrates the moment before mass culture steamrolled us all.

—Peter Kadzis, WGBH Senior News Editor

News and Reviews

All roads lead to Rome, Catholic World Report

Missing Persons, Touchstone - A Journal of Mere Christianity

Sharing the treasures of the Catholic tradition, Catholic World Report

Book Event with Gerald Russello, Editor, University Bookman

The Best Books I Read in 2020, Catholic World Report

The Critic’s Notebook, The New Criterion

What We’ve Been Reading, First Things

The Critic’s Notebook,The New Criterion

‘Daisy chain of connections:’ Greenwich author pens essays on a circle of friends from a bygone era, Greenwich Time

A menu for the mind: Angelus reading recommendations 2021

About the Book

Delightful People

Willa Cather, Henry James, John La Farge, Henry Adams, and Friends

The eleven essays in this volume introduce a host of genuinely delightful people from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With abundant wit and a discerning eye for detail, Schmalhofer acquaints his reader with such social luminaries as Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop Chanler, novelists Willa Cather, Francis Marion Crawford, and Henry James, artist John La Farge and art collector Egisto Fabbri, as well the irrepressible Father Cyril Sigourney Fay, whose many friends included Pope Benedict XV and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The subjects of these literary portraits are indeed delightful: highly accomplished, cultured, and educated, one and all, they are also representative of a bygone, oft-overlooked age. As in life, when their “presence was effervescence,” even now, on paper, their fellowship remains a source of insightful enchantment.

By Stephen Schmalhofer

Foreword by Austin Litke O.P.

Published by Cluny Media

About the Author

Stephen Schmalhofer Photo — Stephen Schmalhofer is the author of *Delightful People*. He is a partner at a venture investment firm. He is a graduate of Yale College with a B.A. in History and an Ivy League Football Championship. His writing has appeared at *The New Criterion, First Things, The University Bookman, Spectator USA, City Journal,* and The New York Post. He writes from backcountry Connecticut where he lives with his wife and four daughters.

Austin Litke O.P. is currently completing doctoral studies in Patristic Theology at the Istituto Patristico “Augustinianum” in Rome. He is a member of The Hillbilly Thomists.