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Book cover of the novel Trinity, depicting a man in a business suit casting a long shadow.

On Oppenheimer

A conversation with Louisa Hall about her novel, “Trinity.”
Jill Lepore

'The Academy Is Largely Itself Responsible for Its Own Peril'

On writing the story of America, the rise and fall of the fact, and how women’s intellectual authority is undermined.
The Writing Master, by Thomas Eakins, 1882. Painting of a man wearing glasses and writing with a pen.

Yawns Innumerable

The story of John Quincy Adams’ forgotten epic poem—and its most critical reader.
Photographs of Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman.

When Wilde Met Whitman

As he told a friend years later, "the kiss of Walt Whitman is still on my lips."
Charles Dickens writing at his table, 1858.

Charles Dickens, America, & The Civil War

What might Charles Dickens have thought about the American Civil War and the American struggle for abolition and social reforms?
Cartoon drawing of Francis Pharcellus Church.

The Journalist Who Understood The True Meaning Of Christmas

“Yes, Virginia” is the most reprinted newspaper piece in American history, and this guy wrote it.
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.
Looping sky writing from an airplane above a city.

Notes Toward a History of Skywriting

A language of the air.
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.
James Baldwin

The Many Lives of James Baldwin

A new biography shows that his life was more complex than his viral fame suggests.
James Baldwin and Lucien Happersberger in bed.

The Lives and Loves of James Baldwin

Once dismissed as passé, since recast as a secular saint, Baldwin’s true message remains more unsettling than readers in either camp recognize.
Black and white photograph of Claude McKay

Letters from Claude McKay

Correspondence about writing, travel, and friendship, from 1926 through 1929.
Composite Curtis Yarvin, a crown, an atom diagram, and a cathedral.

Curtis Yarvin’s Cranky Yearnings

He didn’t give the tech right new ideas—not really. What he gave them was permission.
Still frame from the film Inherit the Wind depicts a legal team sitting in a packed courtroom.
partner

How Theater Helps Us Remember the Scopes Trial 100 Years Later

'Inherit the Wind' changed how people understand, and remember, the legendary Scopes trial.
Painting of the Bay of San Francisco, by Eduard Hildebrandt.

Mark Twain, the Californian

In 1864 San Francisco, Twain found hardship, Bohemia, and his voice—transforming from local reporter to rising literary force.
Lionel Trilling photographed by Walker Evans in the 1950s.

Colony, Aviary and Zoo: New York Intellectuals

A new book examines the aggressive masculinity that the editors of the Partisan Review brought to their art and literary criticism.
Kurt Vonnegut portrait composed of dots.

The Making of Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Cat’s Cradle’

How the novelist turned the violence and randomness of war into a cosmic joke.
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.
Abstract painting depicts faces staring at each other from either end of the canvas.

Bridging the Gap

A new book portrays five American historians who published popular books that sacrificed neither intellectual depth nor political bite.
Drawings of women authors

How Margaret Fuller Set Minds on Fire

High-minded and scandal-prone, a foe of marriage who dreamed of domesticity, Fuller radiated a charisma that helped ignite the fight for women’s rights.
William F. Buckley Jr. surrounded by piles of books in his office.

What Made William F. Buckley So Unusual

The author of a new biography talks about the conservative journalist’s life and legacy.
Walt Whitman

Brag and Humblebrag: Walt Whitman’s Encounters

Walt Whitman was a champion self-advertiser, maven of the brag and the humblebrag.
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.
An illustration depicts Dorothy holding her dog Toto while interacting with an Ozian.

L. Frank Baum’s Literary Vision of an American Century: "The Wizard of Oz" at 125 Years

On grifters, the Chicago World Fair, and Oz as symbol of a modern USA.
Mark Twain

Mark Twain and the Limits of Biography

The great American writer witnessed the forging of his nation – but Ron Chernow’s portrait cannot see beyond its subject.
Lin Taiyi takes dictation from her father, Dr. Lin Yutang, on a typewriter he invented.

Lost and Found: The Unexpected Journey of the MingKwai Typewriter

Its ingenious design inspired generations of language-processing technology, but only one prototype was made and had long been assumed lost.
Mark Twain sits in thought on stone steps surrounded by nature while holding papers

Twain Dreams

The enigma of Samuel Clemens.
Science fiction landscape.

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

On Ray Bradbury’s underappreciated classic.
Mark Twain

The Impossible Contradictions of Mark Twain

Populist and patrician, hustler and moralist, salesman and satirist, he embodied the tensions within his America, and ours.
Mary MacLane.

“I Am Making the World My Confessor”: Mary MacLane, the Wild Woman from Butte

In 1902, a woman named Mary MacLane from Butte, Montana, became an international sensation after publishing a scandalous journal at the age of 19.

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