The Short-Lived Le Navire d’Argent
Despite its short run, Adrienne Monnier’s literary review made its mark on modernist literature, publishing the work of James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and Walt Whitman.
Michael Gold: Red Scare Victim
The author of Jews Without Money, a proletarian lit best-seller, was ostracized for his Communism and derided for his prose. Today he is all but forgotten.
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe: Annotated
Poe's 1841 story, arguably the first detective fiction, contains many tropes now considered standard to the genre, including a brilliant, amateur detective.
Edna Ferber Revisited
The first-generation Jewish American novelist exposed entrenched prejudices of her day. A reissue of The Girls introduces her wit to new readers.
The Boston Athenæum
Founded in 1807, the subscription library was a gathering place for local scholars, “men of business,” and members of the upper classes in search of knowledge.
William Morris, Anti-Capitalist Publisher
By drawing on traditional typefaces for Kelmscott Press, Morris showed that he was unwilling to yield to capitalism’s demands for speed and efficiency.
Arabic Hebrew, Hebrew Arabic: The Work of Anton Shammas
Within the alienated and antagonist cultures inside Israel’s borders, Arabic and Hebrew—related, but mutually unintelligible languages—cross-fertilize each other.
Edgar Allan Poe (Sort of) Wrote a Book About Seashells
The American writer was an enthusiast of the sciences, which may explain his decision to “adapt” a text about seashells for publication under his own name.
Mermaids: Myth, Kith and Kin
Ariel epitomizes mermaids now, but these beguiling creatures precede her by millennia, sparking imaginations the world over with a hearty embrace of otherness.
Books on the Battlefield
During World War II, GIs battled boredom with novels provided by the Armed Service Division, raising questions about the “feminizing” effect of reading.