John Crowley wrote a four-novel series, Aegypt, based on The Art of Memory.
Those who have read The Art of Memory tend to become obsessed with it, and the list of contemporary authors inspired by the book is impressive: Italo Calvino, Carlos Fuentes, Hilary Mantel, Philip Pullman, Penelope Lively, Harold Bloom, and Madison Smartt Bell, to name just a few.
Many well-read people have never even heard of it, yet tendrils of Yates’ ideas are entwined through contemporary culture-not just wrapped around Hannibal Lecter and Sherlock. Yates was the author of The Art of Memory, a 1966 title that remains oddly obscure despite having been named by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books published in the 20 th century.
