Literature

May 15, 2020, 2:30pm “I resisted. I would not die. I could not.” Katherine Anne Porter—the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author of Ship of Fools and Pale Horse, Pale Rider—was born 130 years ago today in Indian Creek, Texas, and should, by all expectations, have died less than twenty-eight years later alongside 675,000 of
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Hans Christian Andersen’s influence on the fairy tale genre was profound. Although ‘The Snow Queen’, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, ‘The Little Mermaid’, and ‘The Ugly Duckling’ have the ring of timeless fairy stories, they were all original tales written by the Danish storyteller in the mid-nineteenth century. First published in 1843, ‘The Ugly Duckling’ is
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In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle looks at a common line associated with Helen of Troy Who said, ‘Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?’ Most people know it was Doctor Faustus. Or rather, Christopher Marlowe, who gives Doctor Faustus these words in his play about the magician
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There’s a reason why Louisa May Alcott had Amy March burn Jo’s story. Amy could have torn her sister’s pages into pieces, or just thrown them away, but it wouldn’t have been the same. My wife tells me that I shuddered in my cinema seat at the manuscript burning scene when we watched Little Women.
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TODAY: In 1890, Katherine Anne Porter is born. We’re on round eight of our personalized quarantine book recommendations, and we’re not even tired (okay, we’re a little tired). | Lit Hub “From today’s standpoint there was no financial incentive for Sesame Street’s founding duo to do what they did.” David Kamp on the radical creators of an iconic
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May 15, 2020, 10:42am In the literary world, blurbs are a fraught business. These days they’re an industry standard, and writers and publishers need them to promote their books, but they are, above all else, a favor economy, and lots of people sort of wish they didn’t exist. But no matter your take on the
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