Insults From History That Are Beautifully Savage
These insults are from an era when we really knew how to throw some shade. 1. "He had delusions of adequacy ” Walter Kerr 2. "He has all...
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The 'Touch And Go' Starting Steps Of Jane Eyre
August 15th, 1847 - Charlotte Brontë sent her manuscript of Jane Eyre to a publisher in London from the little railway station near her...
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Rockwell Kent's Illustrations For Moby Dick
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself...
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Why Does ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Keep Getting Banned In The US?
In 2019 a school board’s decision to remove To Kill a Mockingbird from eighth grade curriculums in Biloxi, Mississippi, was the latest in...
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An Animated Introduction To Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka — he wrote that story about the guy who turns into a bug, and lot of stuff about complex and implacable bureaucracy, right?...
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Jack Kerouac’s Hand-Drawn Map of the Hitchhiking Trip Narrated in On the Road
Surely most ardent readers of Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road have tried to map Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty's American journey....
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Ernest Hemingway's Final Hours
July 2, 1961 — Ernest Hemingway, the Nobel Prize-winning author, adventurer, war correspondent, bullfighter, drinker and all-round macho...
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Shane MacGowan is one of the greatest writers of modern times. Exhibit A: The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn
Cuchulainn was a powerful leader in Irish mythology. He is the central figure in the "Ulster Cycle" of poems which is roughly the Irish...
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Goldeneye: A Persuasive Account Of Ian Fleming's Jamaica
In July 1943, a young naval commander named Ian Fleming, the assistant to the director of British naval intelligence, was dispatched to a...
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W.B. Yeats Reads Four of His Poems In The 1930s
The great Irish poet William Butler Yeats was born on this day in 1865. To mark the date have a listen to a series of recordings he made...
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Letterhead Designs Well Known People Used Throughout History
We’ve all seen letterheads before—the text and design at the top of a letter—but we rarely stop to think about it. This roundup of famous...
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Stanley Kubrick’s Annotated Copy of Stephen King’s The Shining
The web site Overlook Hotel has posted pictures of Stanley Kubrick’s personal copy of Stephen King’s novel The Shining, which is normally...
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The Secret Funeral of Charles Dickens
Death is said to be the great leveller – even when it comes to the paperwork. The private life of Charles Dickens would have made the...
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Before The Internet, This Is What People Asked New York Public Library's Librarians
Before there was the Internet and Google, the only way to find answers to a pressing question was to visit the local library and ask the...
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Communism, Hypnotism and The Beatles David A. Noebel (1965)
David A. Noebel is an evangelical Christian leader and the founder of Summit Ministries. In the mid 1960s Noebel wrote several pamphlets...
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Rabindranath Tagore; Poet, Writer, Playwright, Composer, Philosopher, Social Reformer and Painter
Starting out his life in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, Tagore was a polymath, poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright,...
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Voltaire: Philosopher, Novelist, Playwright, All-Round Troublemaker
As he lay dying on this day, the great French writer Voltaire noticed that the lamp next to his bed was violently flickering and flaring...
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The Farmhouse On 84th Street and Broadway
Many of us will have walked passed the spot on which this old farmhouse stood and not even realised it. In the second half of the 18th...
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The Trial Of Oscar Wilde
April 26, 1895 — The first criminal trial of Oscar Wilde began on this day as the downfall of the celebrated playwright, accused of gross...
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Spike Milligan Would Be Celebrating Today.
Legendary British sketch comic and writer Spike Milligan celebrates his birthday today. Or, he would, if he weren’t dead. Death was a...
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John Steinbeck Asking Marilyn Monroe for Her Autograph (1955)
When asking a celebrity for a special favour, it helps to be a bit of a celebrity yourself. As Keith Ferrell details in his biography,...
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Take The Utterly Ridiculous Literacy Test Louisiana Used to Suppress the Black Vote (1964)
In William Faulkner’s 1938 novel The Unvanquished, the implacable Colonel Sartoris takes drastic action to stop the election of a black...
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My dear Gauguin: Letters from Vincent Van Gogh to his friend Paul Gauguin
My dear Gauguin, Thanks for your letter, and thanks most of all for your promise to come as early as the twentieth. Agreed, this reason...
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Jack Kerouac's Famous Scroll of 'On the Road'
Legend has it that Kerouac wrote On the Road in three weeks, typing it almost nonstop on a 120-foot roll of paper. The truth is that the...
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