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emily zarevich

Emily Zarevich

Emily R. Zarevich is a writer for Burlington, Ontario, Canada. She works as a journalist and has been featured in reputable publications such as The Queen’s Quarterly, The Smithsonian, and Missing Perspectives, among others.

Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, c. 1843-47

The Contrary Journalist: Lady Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake

One of the sharpest female journalists of Britain’s Victorian era, Eastlake considered Jane Eyre an exercise in rudeness and vulgarity.
Portrait of Frances Theresa Stuart, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox by Peter Lely, 1662

The Woman Famous for Not Sleeping With a King

As a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of England, Frances Stuart was known as much for her ability to fend off the advances of King Charles II as for her beauty.
Gwendolyn MacEwen

Remembering Gwendolyn MacEwen

The Canadian poet was inspired by everything from Ancient Egyptian mythology to folk magic, from Gnosticism to global politics.
Mary Wollstonecraft

Was This Book the Original Eat, Pray, Love?

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark was arguably the most popular book ever written by Mary Wollstonecraft.
Lady Arbella Stuart

The Lady Who Might Have Been Queen of England

The failed campaign to put Lady Arbella Stuart in the line of succession began with a matchmaking scheme between her two grandmothers.
Jean-Paul Sartre in front of a swirling background of red crabs

That Time Jean-Paul Sartre Got High on Mescaline

The French existentialist got more than he bargained for when he went in search of drug-induced inspiration for his philosophical writings.
The second page of Austen's The History of England, with illustrations by Cassandra Austen

Jane Austen’s Mock History Book

Working with her sister, Cassandra, the teenaged Austen composed a satirical send-up of England's monarchs.
Part of a painting by Paul Sandby of Reading Abbey Gateway

The Reading Abbey Girls’ School

This all-girls boarding school in England produced a generation of accomplished female writers in the eighteenth century.
Detail from Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez

Who Was the Little Girl in Las Meninas?

A Spanish princess who became a German queen, Margarita Teresa lived a life structured by Catholicism and cut short by consanguinity.
Queen Jadwiga's Oath by Józef Simmler

The Marriage Myths of Jadwiga of Poland

Crowned rex Poloniae, King of Poland, as a ten-year-old, Jadwiga soon had a decision to make: should she marry for love, or should she marry for politics?
An illustration from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, 1831

The Hoax That Inspired Mary Shelley

In the hot summer of 1826, the British people—including science fiction author, Mary Shelley—embraced a fake and frozen Roger Dodsworth.
Portrait of Beatrice Hastings before a door by Amedeo Modigliani

Beatrice Hastings: The Forgotten Modernist

Marginalized in early histories of Modernist literature, Hastings left a mark on one of the most influential literary magazines of the early twentieth century.
An illustration of the cat Behemoth from The Master and Margarita

The Symbolic Survival of The Master and Margarita

Neither supernatural forces nor Soviet censors were able to suppress individual creativity and determination.
Kenneth Haigh and Mary Ure in the final scene of 'Look Back in Anger' at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

The Reality Behind Kitchen Sink Realism

The gritty dramas of the 1950s and 1960s revealed the bitterness and disillusionment of Britain's working class youth.
Katherine Harris Bradley & Edith Emma Cooper

One Name, Two Writers: The Story of Michael Field

Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper worked within the constraints of Victorian society, building a writing career and a relationship under an assumed name.
Lesya Ukrainka circa 1896

Lesya Ukrainka: Ukraine’s Beloved Writer and Activist

“Lesya Ukrainka” was a carefully considered pseudonym for a writer who left behind a legacy of poems, plays, essays and activism for the Ukrainian language.
A colorized photograph of Marie Curie

Marie Curie and Polish Resistance

The two-time Nobel winner helped preserve her native Polish language, and undertook her education, at a time when these acts were potentially treasonous.
Nadezhda von Meck

Tchaikovsky’s Patroness

Madame von Meck offered Tchaikovsky her generous patronage, but spoke to him only through letters.
Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë’s Lost Second Novel

The author of the English literary classic Wuthering Heights died tragically young, leaving her second novel unfinished.