How Lizzie Bennet Got Her Books
In Regency England, a novel cost about $100. Subscription-based circulating libraries became a way for women of modest means to gain knowledge.
The Unspeakable Linguistics of Camp
When gay and lesbian people had to invent their own languages with which to talk with each other, camp led the way.
Was Mark Twain a Con Man?
A man named Samuel Clemens received funds from the radical abolitionist Boston Vigilance Committee in 1854. It may have been Mark Twain, pulling a prank.
What a Paragraph Is
On the controversial directive that a paragraph must contain a topic sentence, an idea that theorists, writers, and students have questioned for decades.
Harry Potter, the Arthurian Romance
Perhaps the Harry Potter stories are so potent because they rework the iconic hero stories of medieval French Arthurian romances.
The Bright Future of Bangladesh: Researching The Storm
An interview with Arif Anwar, whose debut novel covers sixty years of Bengali history in five love stories.
My Summer of Watching Little Women
What the author learned from her mother, a feminist academic doing a research project on film adaptations of Little Women.
What This 19th-Century Poet Knew About the Future
The Anthropocene requires a new history to explain how humans transform the planet. The work of poet John Clare is a good place to start.
The Fairytale Language of the Brothers Grimm
How the Brothers Grimm went hunting for fairytales, accidentally changed the course of historical linguistics, and kickstarted a new field of scholarship in folklore.
The Restoration’s Filthiest Poet (and Why We Need Him)
Creature of the court, royalist and fop, dandy and dilettante, John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, knew how to scandalize with verse.