Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987) is now recognised as a writer of international stature. The success of "Memoires d'Hadrien" (1951) and her election to the Academie franiaise in 1980 have created a worldwide audience for her work across the genres - novel, short story, essay, memoir and play - and for her published interviews and correspondence. By subverting some of Yourcenar's own accounts of her work and engaging with recent developments in the fields of art history and critical theory, Nigel Saint offers new directions in literary studies and visual culture studies. His reading of "Yourcenar" embraces both the historical novels and the lesser-known essays, and constructs an interdisciplinary theory for the analysis of visual experience as inflected by writing.