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The Lost Giant of American Literature

A major black novelist made a remarkable début. How did he disappear?
by Kathryn Schulz via The New Yorker on January 29, 2018

Same As It Ever Was: Orientalism Forty Years Later

On Edward Said, othering, and the depictions of Arabs in America.
by Philip Metres via Literary Hub on January 23, 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

Borne Back Into the Past

Mike St. Thomas reviews ‘Paradise Lost: A Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald.'
by Mike St. Thomas via Commonweal on January 4, 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
Telephone from 1896

Want to Guess When the First Telephone Appeared in Literature?

It's probably further back than you think.
by Mark Lasswell via Weekly Standard on December 21, 2017
Title page and verso of the first edition of "A Christmas Carol."

A Plea to Resurrect the Christmas Tradition of Telling Ghost Stories

Though the practice is now more associated with Halloween, spooking out your family is well within the Christmas spirit.
by Colin Dickey via Smithsonian on December 15, 2017

Zora Neale Hurston: “A Genius of the South”

John W. W. Zeiser reviews Peter Bagge's graphic biography "Fire!! The Zora Neale Hurston Story."
by John W. W. Zeiser via Los Angeles Review of Books on November 13, 2017
A drawing of boats on the water, from the book "Homecoming at Twilight"

The Magic Mountain of Yiddish

Jacob Glatstein’s 1930s Yiddish novel ‘Homecoming at Twilight’ foresaw the coming doom.
by Dara Horn via Tablet on November 13, 2017

The Short, Sad Story of Stanwix Melville

Piecing back together the forgotten history of Herman Melville's second son.
by Christopher Benfey via New York Review of Books on October 30, 2017
Edgar Alan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe’s Hatchet Jobs

The great short story writer and poet wrote many a book review.
by Mark Athitakis via Humanities on October 20, 2017
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

The True American

A review on the many publications about Henry David Thoreau's life for the bicentennial anniversary of his birthday.
by Robert Pogue Harrison via New York Review of Books on August 17, 2017
Henry Adams writing.

The Miseducation of Henry Adams

Henry Adams's classic autobiography speaks to concerns of privilege, failure, and progress in his rapidly changing world.
by Michael Lindgren via The Millions on June 30, 2017
Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau: A Radical for All Seasons

The surprising persistence of Henry David Thoreau.
by Jedediah Britton-Purdy via The Nation on June 1, 2017
Detail from the Russian poster for the 1957 Polish film Kanal, directed by Andrzej Wajda and set during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Photo by Getty

The Strange Political History of The ‘Underground’

Subterranean metaphors have been a powerful tool of political resistance. Today, is there anywhere left to hide?
by Terence Renaud via Aeon on December 14, 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
CIA Director George Bush and President Gerald R. Ford during a Meeting in the Cabinet Room

The Art of Administration: On Greg Barnhisel’s “Cold War Modernists”

Cold War modernists of the title do not seem to be the painters, sculptors, poets, and novelists who produced the original works.
by Donal Harris via Los Angeles Review of Books on February 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
Painting of a mutiny aboard a ship.

Reading Melville in Post-9/11 America

The author's half-forgotten masterpiece, Benito Cereno, provides fascinating insight into issues of slavery, freedom, individualism—and Islamophobia.
by Greg Grandin via The Nation on January 7, 2014
Portrait of Ambrose Bierce with skull

One of America's Best

Ambrose Bierce deviated from the refined eeriness of English-style ghost stories for his haunting descriptions of fateful coincidence and horrific revelation.
by Michael Dirda via New York Review of Books on May 10, 2012
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
Chart describing links between writers, painters, muses, and more in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Friends, Lovers, and Family

The interconnected circles of writers, painters, muses, and more.
via Lapham’s Quarterly on April 1, 2010
A cream colored map depicting the Middle Passage and trade routes between North America, South America, Africa, and Europe.

What Was Africa to Them?

How historians have understood Africa and the Black diaspora in global conversations about race and identity.
by Kwame Anthony Appiah via New York Review of Books on September 27, 2007
Jack Kerouac looking into a shop window, photo by Allen Ginsberg.

Drive, Jack Kerouac Wrote

"On the Road" is a sad and somewhat self-consciously lyrical story about loneliness, insecurity, and failure. It’s also a story about guys who want to be with other guys.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on September 24, 2007
Theodore Roosevelt

The Progressive President and the AHA

Theodore Roosevelt and the historical discipline.
by Bruce W. Dearstyne via Perspectives on History on October 14, 2025
Covers of editions of "The Best American Poetry."

Good Riddance To ‘The Best American Poetry’

As "The Best American Poetry" anthology ends after nearly forty years, the contradictions of its influence stand out.
by Nick Sturm via Defector on September 30, 2025
UC Berkeley's Campus Women's Forum poster

The History of Women’s Studies Is a History of Conflict

How the first Women's Studies department was developed at U.C. Berkeley in the 1970s.
by Annabel Barry, Caroline Godard, Anna Park via Public Books on September 10, 2025
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