The Truth About Sherlock Holmes: He’s Actually Henry David Thoreau
A tongue in cheek comparison between the British fictional sleuth and the American Transcendentalist author, just because.
A Natural History of the Wedding Dress
The history of the wedding dress is shorter than the history of weddings, and even shorter still than the history of marriage.
What Herman Melville Can Teach Bob Dylan about Plagiarism
Bob Dylan delivered his Nobel Prize lecture on June 4, just days before a deadline that would have ...
Ten Favorite Love Poems
Love poems by Pablo Neruda, Joyce Carol Oates, Kenneth Koch, Willie Perdomo, Robert Penn Warren, Edith Wharton, and more.
Jack London’s Double
Catfishing, imposters, and mistaken identity are par for the course in the internet age. But it turns out ...
How Dorothy Parker Changed Lyric Love Poetry Forever
Today is Dorothy Parker's birthday, so you should probably have a martini or two in celebration.
Ossian, Rude Bard of the North
Ossian once rivaled Homer in the Western literary canon. Whatever happened to him?
Our Obsession with Orphans: A Short History from Jane Eyre to Annie
Little Orphan Annie is the latest in a sequence of pop culture foundlings, but America’s orphans of the Great Depression weren’t endearing at all.
Melville Reborn, Again and Again
A scholar traces Herman Melville's reputation in American and British literary circles.