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Phillis Wheatley: an Eighteenth-Century Genius in Bondage

Vincent Carretta takes a look at the remarkable life of the first ever African-American woman to be published.
James Baldwin

The Making and Unmaking of James Baldwin

On the private and public lives of the author of “The Fire Next Time” and “Giovanni’s Room.”

What If It Is Happening Here?

Lessons from the anti-fascist novel in Trump’s second term.
Jack Clayton, The Great Gatsby, 1974.

America the Beautiful

One hundred years ago, "The Great Gatsby" was first published. It remains one of the books that almost every literate American has read.
Robert Frost.

Chapters and Verse

Looking for the poet between the lines.
1800s lithograph by George du Maurier showing a chair dance in an art studio.

Done in by Time

A review of Edwin Frank's short list of great 20th century novels.
Zora Neale Hurston.

Why Zora Neale Hurston Was Obsessed with the Jews

Her long-unpublished novel was the culmination of a years-long fascination. What does it reveal about her fraught views on civil rights?
Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman: The Original Substacker

Publishing needs his democratic spirit.
Image by Hans Glaser depicting a blood rain that supposedly occurred near Dinkelsbühl in Germany’s Franconia region in 1554.

Strange Gods: Charles Fort’s Book of the Damned

Rains of blood and frogs, mysterious disappearances, objects in the sky: these were the anomalies that fascinated Charles Fort in his Book of the Damned.

How Woodrow Wilson’s Privileged Southern Upbringing Influenced His Love Life

In Wilson’s chivalric framework, women were required to be submissive precisely so that men could protect the weaker sex.
A sketch of a woman praying outside.

“To Eat This Big Universe as Her Oyster”

Margaret Fuller and the first major work of American feminism.
Painting of Mercy Otis Warren by John Singleton Copley.

Mercy Otis Warren, America’s First Female Historian

At the prodding of John and Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren took on a massive project: writing a comprehensive history of the Revolutionary War.

The Great American Novels

136 books that made America think.
Elon Musk's face edited onto Apple advertisements.

A Bullshit Genius

On Walter Isaacson’s biographical project.
A hand-drawn, slightly abstract image of a pink typewriter, using a QWERTY keyboard.

Page Against the Machine

Dan Sinykin’s history of corporate fiction.
Tom Wolfe in profile against the New York City skyline.

The Electric Kool-Aid Conservative

Tom Wolfe was no radical.
Display of banned books or censored books at Books Inc independent bookstore.
partner

Book Bans Aren't the Only Threat to Literature in Classrooms

Literature is key to a healthy democracy, but schools are leaving books behind.
Lionel Trilling

Liberalism in Mourning

Lionel Trilling crystallizes the cynical Cold War liberalism that sacrificed idealism for self-restraint.
Television with LeVar Burton holding book and surrounded by rainbows.

How An Untested, Cash-Strapped TV Show About Books Became An American Classic

Despite facing political headwinds and raising 'suspicion' among publishers, 'Reading Rainbow' introduced generations of American kids to books.
Panting of a woman lounging with a book, titled “Dolce far niente” (The Sweetness of Doing Nothing), by Auguste Toulmouche, 1877.

We’re Distracted. That’s Nothing New.

Ever since Thoreau headed to Walden, our attention has been wandering.

The Making of Norman Mailer

The young man went to war and became a novelist. But did he ever really come back?
Octavia E. Butler.

The Spectacular Life of Octavia E. Butler

The story of the girl who grew up in Pasadena, took the bus, loved her mom and grandmother, and wrote herself into the world.
Rob McKuen infront of a background composed of spines of his books.

Fifty Years Ago, He Was America’s Most Famous Writer. Why Haven’t You Ever Heard of Him?

He sold 60 million books and 100 million records. Then he disappeared.
Edna St. Vincent Millay poses for a portrait among magnolia blossoms.

The Wondrous and Mundane Diaries of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Her private writing offers another, more idiosyncratic angle to understand the famed poet.
Charles Chesnutt portrait

The Atlantic Writers Project: Charles Chesnutt

A contemporary Atlantic writer reflects on one of the voices from the magazine's archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.
Invisible Man book cover with Ralph Ellison on the back

Broke and Blowing Deadlines

How Ralph Ellison got Invisible Man into the canon.
Watercolor portrait of Bronson Alcott, a 19th century American philosopher and educator.

New England Ecstasies

The transcendentalists thought all human inspiration was divine, all nature a miracle.
Zora Neale Hurston browsing books at a book fair, looking at a book called "American Stuff."

The Zora Neale Hurston We Don’t Talk About

In the new nonfiction collection “You Don’t Know Us Negroes,” what emerges is a writer who mastered a Black idiom but seldom championed race pride.
Handwritten magazine index

‘Index, A History of the’ Review: List-O-Mania

At the back of the book, the index provides a space for reference—and sometimes revenge.
Richard Wright.

Outcasts and Desperados

Reflections on Richard Wright’s recently published novel, "The Man Who Lived Underground."

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