Mary Taylor, Charlotte Brontë’s Cool Friend
An independent traveler and business owner, Taylor inspired many of Brontë's own enterprises, including her relocation to Brussels.
A Tale of Two Visionaries
What roiled the mind of Nebraska poet John Neihardt with whom Black Elk, the iconic Lakota holy man, shared his story?
Redeeming the Old Maid
Scottish-born novelist Elizabeth Hamilton used her characters to anticipate a future for herself in middle age as a confident and intelligent woman.
Dervla Murphy: The Godmother of Hitting the Road
Perhaps the greatest female travel writer of her generation, Murphy defied the narrative of the dutiful Irish daughter—and motherhood—to find freedom.
Should Readers Trust “Inaccuracy” in Memoirs about Genocide?
To what extent do errors undermine life writing? The question is an urgent one when that writing is testimony to the genocidal actions of the Khmer Rouge.
Kahlil Gibran: Godfather of the “New Age”
Published in 1923, The Prophet became a perpetual best-seller, birthed a genre, and marked the poet as retrograde, sentimental, and florid.
A Literary Hit Job: Julian Hawthorne Takes Down Margaret Fuller
Fuller’s works, and works about her, sold very well until Hawthorne cast her as a “fallen woman” in his biography of his parents.
Olivia: An Oft-Overlooked Lesbian Novel
It took some fifteen years to bring Dorothy Strachey Bussy’s remarkable roman à clef to print, thanks to André Gide’s lukewarm reception.
Marie Bashkirtseff’s Diary
The art student died young, but her diary lived on to inspire future writers, including Anaïs Nin, Katherine Mansfield, and Mary MacLane.
American Immigrant Literature Gets an Update
Despite the historical gulf between canonical and recent immigrant writing, one constant is the mark that new immigrant artists leave on US literature.