Major Prophets of Today

Major Prophets of Today examines the lives of philosophers Élie Metchnikoff and Henri Bergson, chemist Wilhelm Ostwald, mathematician and astronomer Henri Poincaré, zoologist Ernst Haeckel, and dramatist and essayist Maurice Maeterlinck in a single volume of profile pieces. These are the six men that Edwin Emery Slosson termed the "major prophets of today" back in 1914, and with this work, Slosson sets out to demonstrate what makes these leading figures so important to the development of culture and science in the early 20th century.

Edwin E. Slosson employed painstaking research as he compiled this anthology, interviewing the subjects directly and building a comprehensive overview of their lives and careers. The author would follow this collection with another six profiles in 1916's Six Major Prophets, and both works offer an interesting historical analysis across their pages. Slosson chose a staunchly biblical name for his book, invoking the image of the great prophets of antiquity, which modern readers may find a little grandiose. However, the author himself would have thought this title wholly fitting, given his admiration for these men and their respective works.