From “Stage-Land: Curious Habits and Customs of its Inhabitants” described by Jerome K Jerome with drawings by J Bernard Partridge. Published by Chatto & Windus, London, in 1890. The book is an entertaining account of the types of characters to be found upon the theatre stage and this shifty-looking individual is the ‘stage villain’. Of course, you would know that from his immaculate appearance and the fact that he is always smoking a cigarette. Things which would never happen in real life, naturally. And he does have a distressing tendency to get knocked down by the hero fairly regularly. Sad, really.

How to Be a British Villain

In classic British detective stories, villains might be atavistic monsters, foreign menaces, or conniving professionals—all tied to aristocrats’ anxieties.
Eva Bouchard's house in Péribonka

Quebec, Louis Hémon, and Maria Chapdelaine

Louis Hémon’s Maria Chapdelaine grew from his views as a French immigrant writer on the rural life of early twentieth-century Quebec.
Fredric Jameson, 2008

Verbatim: Fredric Jameson

Marxist cultural critic Fredric Jameson offered a philosophy of late capitalism that gave us a language for talking about globalization and the end of modernism.
F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, 1923

Zelda Fitzgerald on F. Scott’s Writing

Zelda’s satirical review of F. Scott's second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned, revealed much more than her wit.
The cover of Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong

Monique Truong and the New Southern Gothic

Truong’s second novel, Bitter in the Mouth, expands the region and the meaning of “the South” in contemporary literature.
The cover of The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort

Dr. Sex and the Anarchist Sex Cookbook

Known for his runaway bestseller The Joy of Sex, Alex “Dr. Sex” Comfort was an anarchist and a pacifist who preferred love and sex to war crimes.
Portrait of L.M. Montgomery

L. M. Montgomery’s Plain Jane

Though not as well known as Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery's Jane of Lantern Hill also explores domesticity, freedom, and, yes, Prince Edward Island.
Portrait of Aldous Huxley, 1920s

When Aldous Huxley Dropped Acid

In Hollywood, the esteemed ex-pat made the acquaintance of Alfred Hubbard, a Kentucky-born smuggler of ill-repute who introduced him to a brave, new world.
Paul Newman lets a lit cigarette hang from his mouth while lining up a pool shot in a scene from the film 'The Hustler', 1961.

Playing It Straight and Catching a Break

Cue games have had a lingering influence on our language and culture—even before the contributions of “Fast Eddie” Felson.

A Selection of Student Confessions

Did you break a campus rule? Let the students of Millersville Normal School show you how to confess to the administration.