Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Annotated
Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language declared Americans free from the tyranny of British institutions and their vocabularies.
A Garden of Verses
As commonplace books evolved into anthologies, they developed reputations as canonical works, their editors curating tomes as vibrant as the loveliest bouquets.
Searching for Home in Hmong American Writing
Two significant poetry anthologies deterritorialize home, showing that for Hmong Americans, home can be a process of moving and running despite living in a place.
The Indelible Lessons of Erasure
A Percival Everett fan weighs in on the novelist’s approach to racial satire and considers the translation of Erasure to the big screen in American Fiction.
What We’re Reading 2023
Enjoy a fresh batch of year-end book reports from all of the readers, writers, and editors at JSTOR Daily!
Ulysses Obscenity Decision: Annotated
In December 1933, Judge John Woolsey issued what would become one of the best known legal decisions on obscenity in United States history.
Shortcomings Shows the Loneliness of Refusing to “See” Race
Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel forces the reader to surveil the world through the eyes of its protagonist, Japanese American theater manager Ben Tanaka.
What Actually Happened to “The Danish Girl” and Her Wife
Lili Elbe, a Danish-born transgender woman, famously transitioned in the early twentieth century. What did her spouse, Gerda Wegener, think about it?
Burmese Women Novelists Speak Out
The novels of Ma Ma Lay and Wendy Law-Yone challenge the limits placed on the voices of Burmese women in the twentieth century.
Book Thieves Take the Story and Run with It
Book theft: the books may be rare, but the crime is not.