romance

A nineteenth-century twist on love at first sight.

While engagement or wedding rings are certainly not a new idea, the prevalence of diamonds is a more recent phenomenon.

She was an actress. He was a shortstop. What we can learn from the press parade around this 19th-century power couple.

A collection of previously unpublished stories offers a portrait of the playwright as a young artist.

President Warren G. Harding paid not one, but two women to remain quiet about their affairs with him.

The Atlantic Monthly reported on newly found love letters between Lincoln and Ann Rutledge, his supposed sweetheart. Even biographers fell for the hoax.

The story of the girl who grew up in Pasadena, took the bus, loved her mom and grandmother, and wrote herself into the world.

Uncovering the fallacy of his iconic image as a man ruled by solely by reason and logic.

Close your eyes and imagine you’re married to Ernest Hemingway. Now, imagine it twice as bad, and you’ll be approaching the life story of Mary Welsh Hemingway.

The writer had a deep bond with his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. But he also had a profound connection with Emerson’s wife.

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, novels were regarded as the video games or TikTok of their age — shallow, addictive, and dangerous.

Emily Dickinson and the woman in her orbit.

The politically complacent ’90s produced a surprisingly large number of mainstream American rom-coms about fighting the Man.

The authors of a new photography book explain how their project took shape.

The unusual union of a renowned artist and the discoverer of the Polio vaccine.

The public fascination was so intense that fans soon started demanding live reenactments.

During the Great Depression, the daughter of the first Jewish Supreme Court justice and the son of a prominent Christian theologian changed America.

The afterlife of Vivian Gornick's "The Romance of American Communism" shows that we bear the weight of dead generations—and sometimes living ones, too.

My whole life, my mother told me, ‘Always remember — you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president.’

Why did the priest and the choir singer die, and what was the nature of their love?