[Sous bénéfice d'inventaire, a collection of essays shows] Yourcenar's historical imagination as being quite unrelated to any kind of literary archeology. In her essay on Thomas Mann she demonstrates how Mann was directly related to a tradition of hermetic thought in the West, or as she puts it, a representative of "the left wing of traditional humanism."… The volume includes among other pieces a superb essay on the Historia Augusta and a critical presentation of the work of Constantine Cavafy.

All in all, Sous bénéfice d'inventaire reminds us once again of the depth and probing brilliance of Yourcenar's imagination, and moreover makes us take the greatest amount of caution before labeling such an extraordinary writer as "merely" a "historical novelist." Such labels are both convenient and highly destructive. An open-minded reader will discover in all Yourcenar's writings a luminous and keenly magisterial intelligence. (pp...