• Even that most neutral of dictionaries, webster’s, in its seventh New Collegiate edition, shows its biased interpretation of ambition, its first definition of ambition being “ an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power.”
• His works: • Divorced in America, 1974 • Ambition,1980 • Plausible Prejudices, 1985 • The Middle of My Tether • Family Territory
Introdution to the Text
• He is a teacher in the acclaimed prose, writing fiction, as well as literature classes on Henry James, Willa Cather, and Joseph Conrad. He won the 2019 harold Washington Literary Award for the most prominent man or women of letters in Chicago.
The Virtues of Ambition
Introduction to the Author
• Joseph Epstein(1937-), noted essayist,short story author and novelist, was born in Chicago and grew up in Rogers Park. He then attended the University of Chicago and is now a promineng member of the literature faculty at Northwestern University.