Book cover: The cover of a copy of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky 

Source: https://flickr.com/photos/cdrummbks/3756574568

The Power of Sibling Bonds in The Brothers Karamazov

In the year of Dostoevsky's bicentennial, a revisiting of familial relationships in one of his most popular works.
Handout for a 1776 performance of Oroonoko

Science and Slavery in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko

In one of the first novels written in English, a West African prince, fascinated with navigation, boards a ship for a fateful journey.
Photograph: A Russian soldier waves a flag while standing on a balcony overlooking a square, where military trucks gather, during the Battle of Stalingrad, World War II, and the cover of Life and Fate

Source: Getty/Wikimedia Commons

How a Forbidden Russian Epic Finally Got Published

Soviet dissident Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate was "arrested" by the KGB in 1961. Here's how it finally saw the light of day.
The front and back cover of an edition of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young

Sick of Streaming? Try This Really Long Cult Novel

Marguerite Young's Miss MacIntosh, My Darling is a dense fusion of poetry and prose. One critic says it's unjustifiably forgotten.
A hand holding a pen while surrounding by yellow crime scene tape

How to Write Great True Crime

Hint: Branch out from serial killers coming through the window.
Gypsy Rose Lee seated at a typewriter

Who Really Wrote The G-String Murders?

Gypsy Rose Lee, the most famous burlesque star of the 1940s, wrote a series of letters published by Simon & Schuster that may prove her authorship.
Shena Mcauliffe

The Wonderland Awaits: Researching The Good Echo

Author Shena McAuliffe describes how she used JSTOR to research her debut novel, The Good Echo.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley

Mary Shelley’s Obsession with the Cemetery

The author of Frankenstein always saw love and death as connected. She visited the cemetery to commune with her dead mother. And with her lover.
Jessie Chaffee Florence in Ecstasy

Expecting the Unexpected: Researching Florence in Ecstasy

Debut novelist Jessie Chaffee on how she researched her critically-acclaimed new novel Florence in Ecstasy, with a little help from JSTOR.
Samuel Richardson

Why the First Novel Created Such a Stir

Samuel Richardson's Pamela, the first novel in English, astounded and terrified readers. Authors have striven for the same effect since.