March 12, 2021, 12:00pm Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (not to be confused with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) is, to my mind, the single greatest horror story ever written, as well as the single greatest work of art ever created by a teenager (with apologies to Messrs. Mozart, Picasso, and Wonder). Shelley’s Gothic fireside-yarn-turned-novel is the story of
Literature
‘The Country of the Blind’ is one of H. G. Wells’s finest short stories, published in The Strand magazine in 1904 and then collected in Wells’s short-story collection The Country of the Blind and Other Stories in 1911. It belongs to his early phase, when – during the ten or so years following the publication
TODAY: In 1892, American writer and journalist Janet Flanner, who served as the Paris correspondent of The New Yorker magazine from 1925 until 1975, is born. Nineteen ways of looking at Marilynn Robinson: Kevin Brockmeier on the literary prowess (and workshop advice) of an American icon. | Lit Hub “With each new agent, each foray into
March 12, 2021, 12:18pm Shed Simove insists that he has bad timing. For eighteen years, the London-based writer has been working on his manuscript about a pandemic—only to attempt to publish it during a pandemic. Amid the throes of COVID-19 is perhaps not the best moment for Simove’s novel Alpha Male, a story about a
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the origins of a famous phrase associated with Oscar Wilde Which writer gave us the expression ‘the love that dare not speak its name’? Oscar Wilde? He gave us many other famous quotations, of course; but although ‘the love that dare not speak
March 12, 2021, 2:04pm Recently, I’ve started watching America’s Next Top Model, which is a show about discomfort; a show where contestants are forced to hold snakes and spiders and withstand darkness and rain and hang upside down like bats and leap from skyscrapers. The central question of America’s Next Top Model is: Are you
TODAY: In 1898, Brazillian writer Ribeiro Couto is born. “What does it mean to be both female and empowered in a society that sees femininity as opposed to power?” Sarah Menkedick on the liberation of early airline stewardesses. | Lit Hub Jeff Martin recounts turning on a dime to host Magic City Book’s very first
Iambic pentameter has been around in English verse for … well, almost as long as English verse itself has been around. Certainly, since the late fourteenth century when Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400), arguably England’s first great poet, used iambic pentameter in his work, this five-foot and ten-syllable verse line has proved indispensable to pretty much
March 11, 2021, 2:42pm The UK arm of Bookshop.org, the online retailer that partners with indie bookstores, has a new initiative on the way: it’s launching a series of online events for its customers as well as customers of unaffiliated indies. For the first event on March 23rd, Bookshop is partnering with Faber to host
TODAY: In 1744, English auction house Sotheby’s holds its first ever auction, the dispersal of “several Hundred scarce and valuable Books in all branches of Polite Literature” from the library of Sir John Stanley, which fetched a grand total of £826. “As to whether a male writer might have enjoyed more recognition for the same
The myth of Oedipus is one of the most famous tragedies in all of classical mythology. But how did this Greek myth come about? And what does it mean? Before we address these questions, it might be worth recapping the story of Oedipus in the form of a brief plot summary: Oedipus myth: summary There
TODAY: In 2011, Bill Blackbeard, founder and director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, a comprehensive collection of comic strips and cartoon art from American newspapers, dies. Lauren Groff in praise of Shirley Hazzard, whose “humor is built out of close observation and the precision of poetry.” | Lit Hub “Only when the
Published in 1678 and begun while its author John Bunyan was in prison, The Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the most influential books in the English language. After the Bible (in various English translations), it’s thought to be the biggest-selling book in English: one count, from 1692, just fourteen years after the book’s first publication
March 9, 2021, 2:47pm If you’re looking for something interesting to do while wearing your Murakami-themed shirt and listening to your Murakami-curated bossa nova, here’s an idea: play Memoranda, a point-and-click adventure game inspired by Murakami’s short stories. Memoranda, released by Canadian indie studio Bit Byterz in 2017, tries to capture Murakami’s surreal, melancholy atmosphere
March 9, 2021, 5:59am With the weather getting slightly warmer and spring just around the corner, I have vaguely thought about the concept of “getting back into shape.” In college, my friends and I used to go to the Rec Barn to exercise (read: read) on the stationary bikes. If this is the kind of
‘How Doth the Little Crocodile’ is a poem by Lewis Carroll, one of the two acknowledged masters of Victorian nonsense verse (along with Edward Lear). Although the poem is among his most popular, after ‘Jabberwocky’, ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’, and The Hunting of the Snark, its curious origins are less well-known. Before we offer
March 8, 2021, 4:44pm Yes, more than four decades on from its original publication, Octavia Butler’s legions of fans will soon be able to watch a prestige television adaptation of the visionary Sci-Fi author’s most beloved novel, and I think I speak for everyone when I say, it’s about damn time. Deadline today announced that FX
TODAY: In 2012, Simin Daneshvar, Iranian novelist, dies. “It is an odd kind of optimism, but it is the kind I am in search of.” Leora Fridman considers Takis Wuerger’s controversial Holocaust novel, Stella. | Lit Hub Criticism Megan Nolan recommends unrequited love stories, peopled with yearning characters who “may be crushed by their need,