Today it's easy to have DNA tested. But before that technology was available, Alex Haley's Roots inspired generations to trace their families' histories.

James Tiptree, Jr., was a beloved sci-fi writer known for masculine prose and universal themes. Then her real identity was revealed: Alice Bradley Sheldon.

The marchese's 1939-1940 diary, detailing the months before Italy's armed alliance with Nazi Germany, is now available as A Chill in the Air.

Vernon Lee was a widely-read writer of 19th-century ghost stories, called the "cleverest woman in Europe." Her life story was pretty fascinating, too.

Great fiction-writing advice and commiseration from novelists that we dug out of the JSTOR vaults for you procrastinating, er, research pleasure.

Read up on some of the fascinating history of the City of Lights before you head off on your next romantic vacation.

While fact-checking his critically acclaimed novel about an enigmatic soprano of the Paris Opera , Chee happened upon a piece of information on JSTOR he could not ignore.

Constance Fenimore Woolson was a renown American Realist writer in her day, but has since almost disappeared. Two new books attempt to change that. 

$600,000 dollars have been added to the original fatwa against Salman Rushdie. But Khomeini's declaration may not have been a real fatwa after all.

Thomas Gore was a senator from Oklahoma. His isolationism philosophy may have been his greatest legacy to his grandson, Gore Vidal.