When biographer Gretchen Gerzina came across an old British newspaper article calling Sarah E. Farro “the first negro novelist,” she wondered: who was Farro, and why had she been lost to history?
The psychological complexity of Shakespeare’s characters has rendered them timeless. Today, we see The Bard’s influence in shows like ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘True Detective.’
Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel ‘It Can’t Happen Here,’ which described the rise of an American dictator, was turned into a play seen by over 500,000 people.
Like it or not, the literary canon is part of the cultural capital of the West. Universities that choose not to teach it – or refuse to critically engage with it – are actually disempowering students.
This Saturday it will be a year since Alzheimer’s stole Terry Pratchett from the world. We mark the occasion with a beginner’s guide to his most enduring creation, the 41-book Discworld series.
The perception of publishing as a business, even a creative one, means that the question of book sales dominates our conversations about it. But publishing offers far more to our culture than that.
After Jonathan Bate, in his recent biography of Ted Hughes, wrote about Hughes’ salacious sex life, a number of critics – including Janet Malcolm – were quick to pounce.
England’s green and pleasant land will be beset by a plague of the living dead, corpses will dig their way out of graves … Jane Austen horror is now a distinctive subgenre of Austen adaptations.
Poetic terminology can be alienating, off-putting. Whispering “dactylic hexameter” in people’s ears won’t necessarily tempt them into reading heroic verse. But there is hope – and poetry – for us all.
Today marks six years since celebrated writer J. D. Salinger died at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire, at the age of 91. But his influence remains well and truly alive.
At the time of publication, the longevity of Jane Austen’s fifth novel Emma was far from guaranteed. And yet, 200 years later, it now seems immortal. This is the story of its remarkable life.
JK Rowling should have stated clearly in her books the nature of the characters rather than doing so after their publication through, for example, media interviews.
Slated to be demolished this year, a crumbling brick building on Ole Miss’ campus once operated as a power plant where novelist William Faulkner shoveled coal – and feverishly wrote.