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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

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
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
Photograph of Jack Kerouac looking into a shop window, 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

Eco-Terrorists Aren't What They Used to Be

Fifty years on, "The Monkey Wrench Gang" remains a problematic text for environmental activists, who are inclined to endorse its violent tendencies.
by John Bicknell via Law & Liberty on June 13, 2025
Irving Thalberg and his wife, with Louis Mayer.

The Wizard Behind Hollywood’s Golden Age

How Irving Thalberg helped turn M-G-M into the world’s most famous movie studio—and gave the film business a new sense of artistry and scale.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on June 9, 2025
Drawing of an early baseball game.

If You Print It, They Will Come

Baseball’s early years.
by Patrick Hastings via Library of Congress Blog on May 28, 2025
Illustration of characters from "The Great Gatsby."

How “The Great Gatsby” Took Over High School

The classroom staple turns a hundred.
by Alexander Manshel via The New Yorker on April 29, 2025
Green light in a dark sky.

On My Grandfather’s Novel: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby" at 100

Reflections on the literary legacy of a timeless American novel.
by Eleanor Lanahan via Literary Hub on April 7, 2025
Henry James.

Henry James’s American Journey

Why his turn-of-the-century travelogue still resonates.
by Anthony Domestico via The Chronicle of Higher Education on March 28, 2025
“Jeffries Knock-Out,” photograph of the Jack Johnson vs. Jim Jeffries during the World Heavyweight Championship of 1910..

Jack London, Jack Johnson, and the Fight of the Century

In the 1910 World Heavyweight Championship, London cheered on Jim Jeffries as he faced off with Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight champion.
by Andrew Rihn via The Public Domain Review on March 26, 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
Floyd’s rowboat used for gathering passengers offshore at Jaffa. Barque et Bateliers de Jaffa.

An American Dragoman in Palestine—and in Print

Floyd’s unusual visibility gives rare insight into how the largely-invisible dragomen shaped travelers’ understandings of the Bible and the Holy Land.
by Walker Robins via Commonplace on March 5, 2025
Robert Frost.

Chapters and Verse

Looking for the poet between the lines.
by Jay Parini via The American Scholar on March 3, 2025
Man holding The New Yorker magazine like a telescope.

Onward and Upward

Harold Ross founded The New Yorker as a comic weekly. A hundred years later, we’re doubling down on our commitment to the much richer publication it became.
by David Remnick via The New Yorker on February 10, 2025
Chinese workers standing in the streets.

The Long Shadow of the Chinese Exclusion Act

The true cost of the immigration policy can be measured in the generations of Chinese Americans who were never born.
by Jane C. Hu via The New Yorker on January 23, 2025

Infectious Diseases Killed Victorian Children at Alarming Rates. Novels Show the Fragility of Health

Between 40% and 50% of children didn’t live past 5 in the US during the 19th century. Authors documented the common but no less gutting grief of losing a child.
by Andrea Kaston Tange via The Conversation on December 11, 2024
Sketch of Mother and Infant, by J. Alden Weir, 1888.
partner

Keep Her Body from Pain and Her Mind from Worry

A reading list tracing the history of the birth control movement through novels.
by Stephanie Gorton via HNN on November 19, 2024
Photo by Ralph Ellison of men standing by a street in New York City.

Ralph Ellison’s Alchemical Camera

The novelist's aestheticizing impulse contrasts with the relentless seriousness of his observations and critiques of American society.
by Jed Perl via New York Review of Books on October 17, 2024
Autumn, an 1856 sunset landscape painting by Frederic Church.

The Sound of the Picturesque

Charles Ives and the visual.
by Tim Barringer via The American Scholar on September 13, 2024
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