Sorry, but Jane Eyre Isn’t the Romance You Want It to Be
Charlotte Brontë, a woman whose life was steeped in stifled near-romance, refused to write love as ruly, predictable, or safe.
The Periodicals That Shaped American Boyhood
19th-century "story papers" gave boys stories they liked, while also encouraging readers to contribute their own material and tell their own stories.
What The War of the Worlds Had to Do with Tasmania
H. G. Wells's famous science fiction novel imagines what would happen if Martians did to Great Britain what Europeans did to Tasmania.
The Secret Syndicate behind Nancy Drew
If you remember your grade-school reading log, the Nancy Drew mysteries are by Carolyn Keene. Only she never existed.
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.
How Truman Capote Advanced the New Journalism
In Cold Blood changed the face of journalism. And yet years after its publication, we are still asking: how much of it was factually true?
Charles Dickens and Fame vs. Celebrity
Many of our current celebrities are famous for being famous. Charles Dickens, the first self-made global media star, would've had a lot to say about this.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” and Women’s Pain
Charlotte Gilman wrote her famous short story in response to her own experience having her pain belittled and misunderstood by a male physician.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: I Became Black in America
Adichie speaks on the meaning of blackness, sexism in Nigeria, and whether the current feminist movement leaves out black women.
When Harriet Beecher Stowe and George Eliot Were Penpals
These 19th-century novelists might seem to have little in common. But for 11 years they wrote each other letters, forging an unusual literary friendship.