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Willa Cather

Willa Cather, Pioneer

Willa Cather's life and work broke with the standards of her time.
by Jane Smiley via The Paris Review on February 27, 2018

Was the Real Lone Ranger a Black Man?

The amazing true story of Bass Reeves, the formerly enslaved man who patrolled the Wild West.
by Thaddeus Morgan via HISTORY on February 1, 2018
original

At Home With Ursula Le Guin

Her novels featured dragons and wizards, but they were also deeply grounded in indigenous American ways of thought.
by Benjamin Breen on January 31, 2018

The Impossibility of Knowing Mark Twain

Even Twain's own autobiography cannot reveal the whole truth of the literary legend.
by Gary Scharnhorst via The Paris Review on January 9, 2018

Arthur Mervin, Bankrupt

An 18th-century novel explores how American society handles capitalism's collateral damage — and who deserves a second chance.
by Katherine Gaudet via Commonplace on January 1, 2018
Illustrated sperm whale with blue stripes of water.

The Original 1851 Reviews of Moby Dick

There was little indication 166 years ago that the book would enter the canon of great American fiction.
by George Ripley, Henry F. Chorley, London John Bull, William Young via Literary Hub on September 8, 2017

Brian Tochterman on the 'Summer of Hell'

What E.B. White, Mickey Spillane, Death Wish, hip-hop, and the “Summer of Hell” have in common.
by Brian Tochterman, Sarah Cleary via UNC Press Blog on July 21, 2017
Log cabin

Little Government in the Big Woods

Melissa Gilbert's lost bid for Congress and the forgotten political history of 'Little House on the Prairie.'
by Mary Pilon via Longreads on July 1, 2016
Aerial view of identical-looking houses in suburbs

Welcome to Disturbia

Why midcentury Americans believed the suburbs were making them sick.
by Amanda Kolson Hurley via Curbed on May 25, 2016
Rows of typewriters in front of computers

How Literature Became Word Perfect

Before the word processor, perfect copy was the domain of the typist—not the literary genius.
by Josephine Livingstone via The New Republic on May 2, 2016
An illustration of Weyer’s Cave from 1858.

The 19th Century ‘Show Caves’ That Became America’s First Tourist Traps

Novelists concocted elaborate fake histories for mysterious caves in Virginia.
by Alicia Puglionesi via Atlas Obscura on March 2, 2016
Edgar Allan Poe

On Edgar Allan Poe

Crypts, entombments, physical morbidity: these nightmares are prominent in Poe’s tales, a fictional world in which the word that recurs most crucially is horror.
by Marilynne Robinson via New York Review of Books on January 5, 2015
Typewriter with keys that have the letters "IA" on each of them.

How Iowa Flattened Literature

With help from the CIA, Paul Engle’s writing students battled Communism and eggheaded abstraction. The damage to writing still lingers.
by Eric Bennett via The Chronicle of Higher Education on February 10, 2014
Gen. Lew Wallace, circa 1861.

The Incredible Life of Lew Wallace, Civil War General and Author of Ben-Hur

The incredible story of how a disgraced Civil War general became one of the best-selling novelists in American history.
by John Swansburg via Slate on March 26, 2013
Harriet Beecher Stowe imagining her characters.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the Art of Persuasion

Stowe’s novel shifted public opinion about slavery so dramatically that it has often been credited with fuelling the war that destroyed the institution.
by Annette Gordon-Reed via The New Yorker on June 6, 2011
Illustrated cover of the "Secret Garden"

100 Years of The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett's biographer considers her life and how personal tragedy underpinned the creation of her most famous work.
by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina via The Public Domain Review on March 8, 2011
Amelia Earhart

The Truth About Amelia Earhart

Conspiracy theories about her disappearance do a disservice to the pilot’s remarkable, flawed legacy.
by Laurie Gwen Shapiro via The Atlantic on October 2, 2025
Cinderella Tries on the Slipper, by Millikin and Lawley, c. 1890.
partner

If the Slipper Doesn’t Fit

A scorched shoe is a crucial part of Zelda Fitzgerald’s modern mythology. But there’s no proof it existed.
by Gabby Kiser via HNN on September 9, 2025
Dorothy Parker at work writing

Pretty Garrotte: Why We Need Dorothy Parker

While she always insisted that she wasn’t a ‘real’ critic, Dorothy Parker is more astute than most on matters of style.
by Kasia Boddy via London Review of Books on September 3, 2025
25 small photos of Bruce Springsteen playing the guitar or photos of him.

Noir City vs. The Opera on the Turnpike

As Bruce Springsteen’s "Born to Run" turns 50, its most underrated track deserves some love.
by Kirk Curnutt via Clio and the Contemporary on August 26, 2025
Billboards advertising the new Superman film in Times Square.

Superman Was Always a Social Justice Warrior

A closer look at the character’s history shows that the latest movie is true to his past.
by Ryan Biller via New Lines on July 25, 2025
The four Harper Brothers, founders of the namesake publishing giant.
partner

The 200 Year History of American Virtue Capitalism

Despite the recent backlash against DEI, there is a longstanding tradition of virtue capitalism in the United States.
by Joseph P. Slaughter via Made By History on July 23, 2025
F. Scott Fitzgerald

‘The Great Gatsby’ at One Hundred

The neglected Catholic overtones of an American classic.
by Paul Baumann via Commonweal on July 15, 2025
Toni Morrison holding a manuscript.

She Was the Greatest Author of Her Generation. She Should Be Remembered for More Than Her Writing.

Toni Morrison was an editor for 12 years, even as she wrote her own masterpieces. I spoke to her authors about being edited by an icon.
by Dana A. Williams via Slate on June 17, 2025
A cartoon depicts two bandaged men suspended on the scales of justice raising their fists at each other.

Jack London’s Fantastic Revenge

In his short story “The Benefit of the Doubt,” Jack London turned truth into fiction, and then some.
by Andrew Rihn via The Saturday Evening Post on May 19, 2025
Science fiction landscape.

75 Years Ago, "The Martian Chronicles" Legitimized Science Fiction

On Ray Bradbury’s underappreciated classic.
by Sam Weller via Literary Hub on April 28, 2025
Chinese migrants wrapped in blankets on a beach, from the cover of "Camp of the Saints."
partner

Mutant Capitalism

How the dystopian visions of the nativist right are in keeping with a long tradition of neoliberal ideology.
by Quinn Slobodian via HNN on April 15, 2025
William and Henry James.

William and Henry James

Examining the tumultuous bond between the two brothers.
by Peter Brooks via The Paris Review on April 1, 2025
A portrait of Edgar Allen Poe.

The Most Overrated Writer in America

Do people really like Edgar Allen Poe?
by Naomi Kanakia via Woman of Letters on March 18, 2025
Painting by Earle Richardson titled "Employment of Negroes in Agriculture," 1934.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is the Great American Novel

Most countries take their popular novelists more seriously than America has. The term “Great American Novel” was literally invented to describe this book
by Naomi Kanakia via Woman of Letters on March 11, 2025
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