author
Russell Kirk
1918–1994
A leading voice in 20th-century American conservatism, he wrote with equal energy about political ideas, culture, and the pleasures of old houses and ghost stories. Best known for The Conservative Mind, he helped give a modern movement its historical memory.
1 Audiobook
Old House of Fear
by Russell Kirk
About the author
Born in Plymouth, Michigan, in 1918, Russell Kirk became one of the most influential conservative thinkers in the United States. He studied at Michigan State and Duke, served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and later earned a doctorate at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. His 1953 book The Conservative Mind brought him wide attention by tracing a long tradition of Anglo-American conservative thought.
Kirk wrote extensively across several fields, including political theory, cultural criticism, history, memoir, and fiction. Alongside his essays and books on conservatism, he also published supernatural tales and other imaginative works, which gives his writing a distinctive personality compared with many public intellectuals of his era.
He spent much of his life in Mecosta, Michigan, where his home, Piety Hill, became a gathering place for students, writers, and visitors. Kirk died in 1994, but his work continues to be read by people interested in conservatism, moral imagination, and the literary side of public life.