György Lukács, whose name appeared as Georg Lukács on his English-language publications, was one of the most important philosophers in the twentieth century and an influential theoretician of Hungarian aesthetics and literary criticism. Writing in Hungarian and German, Lukács created an extensive body of critical works over a period of more than a half century. Influenced early in his career by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, Lukács was concerned with the historical, political, and social dynamics of the work of art. His critical works on aesthetics and ethics influenced a generation of philosophical theorists while contributing to the growth and development of modern Hungarian literature.

György Löwinger was born on 13 April 1885 in Budapest, the second child of an assimilating Jewish family; the surname was changed to the Hungarian Lukács five...