A woman's mouth whispering into a man's ear.

Isabel Allende’s “Two Words”

Many have tried to guess the two magical words whispered by Allende’s character Belisa Crepusculario, but the author has yet to reveal them.
Lucille Clifton posing for a photograph; Louisa H. Bowen University Archives and Special Collections; Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Remembering Her Memories: Lucille Clifton’s Generations in Our Time

The poet stares history down in an artful, Whitman-infused exploration of traumas her family endured and survived.
A detail from Ophelia by John Everett Millais, c. 1851

Elizabeth Siddal, the Real-Life “Ophelia”

A working-class woman with artistic aspirations of her own, Siddal nearly died of pneumonia after posing for John Everett Millais’s iconic painting.
A jet brooch with a vulcanite ring

Victorians Mourned with Vulcanized Rubber Jewelry

Nineteenth-century Anglo-American mourning rituals called for a period of sentimental sadness, but they also demanded an investment in clothing and jewelry.

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.

Elements of Design: Spotlight on Color

Color, like line, shape, texture, and the other elements of art and design, communicates meaning and creates visually compelling experiences. Here's how.
An orangutan attacks a woman and pulls her hair in an illustration for the murder scene in Edgar Allan Poe's short story 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue,' early 1840s. A victim lies on the floor, and a witness watches through a window.

“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.
circa 1945: A portrait of American writer Edna Ferber (1887 - 1968) crossing her arms. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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.
Illustration of two people trying to communicate through tin-can phones with a disconnected string

How Media Stifles Deliberative Democracy

As outlets that welcome rational exchanges of ideas dwindle those that serve as echo chambers are exploding. What does that mean for free speech and the health of the US?
English art and radio critic Frederick Laws (left) and American photographer Lee Miller attend a one-night performance of Pablo Picasso's play 'Desire Caught By The Tail' at the Rudolf Steiner Hall in London, March 1950.

Lee Miller, More than a Model

Miller photographed the chaos of war’s end in Europe, documenting major battles, the liberation of Paris, and the horrors of Dachau and Buchenwald.