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Literature

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

"García Márquez is a towering figure of 20th-century Latin America and beyond, profoundly influential as a novelist and a key figure in journalism, politics, film and cultural production," said Charles Hale, director of LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections,in a statement about the new archive at the Ransom Center.

The Magical Mind of Gabriel García Márquez Shines Through His Newly Digitized Archive

The University of Texas has digitized some 27,000 documents from the collection of the acclaimed author

A pod of dolphins swim along a boat in the Channel Islands National Park, California

What Archaeologists and Historians Are Finding About the Heroine of a Beloved Young Adult Novel

New scholarship reveals details about the Native American at the center of the classic Island of the Blue Dolphins

The Ten Best Travel Books of 2017

These reads will remedy even the direst cases of wanderlust

Gotcha!

Gulliver’s Travels Wasn’t Meant to Be a Children’s Book And More Things You Didn’t Know About the Literary Classic

Even now, 350 years after his birth, the great Irish satirist Jonathan Swift remains as sharp and relevant as ever

Dave Malloy & Rachel Chavkin

American Ingenuity Awards

These Shooting Stars of Broadway Staged the Impossible: A Musical About ‘War and Peace’

Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin brought the Tolstoy epic to life with Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812

Yarr! Actor Robert Newton, whose portrayal of Long John Silver became famous, also played Blackbeard in a 1952 film.

This Film Version of ‘Treasure Island’ Gave Us Our Image of Pirates

Avast, you lubbers!

Robin Hood in a modern production of a play.

Students Allied Themselves With Robin Hood During This Anti-McCarthyism Movement

The students of the Green Feather Movement caused an on-campus controversy at Indiana University

Christopher Robin Milne (1920-1996) son of author A.A. Milne photographed in 1928 with the bear who became Winnie the Pooh

How Winnie-the-Pooh Became a Household Name

The true story behind the new movie, “Goodbye Christopher Robin”

"Black Bart" robbed at least 28 stagecoaches in his lifetime. He left poems at two of them.

The Poetic Tale of Literary Outlaw Black Bart

Stagecoach robber Charles Bole took the inspiration for his pseudonym from pulp fiction

How a Ripped-Off Sequel of Don Quixote Predicted Piracy in the Digital Age

An anonymous writer’s spinoff of Cervantes’ masterpiece showed the peril and potential of new printing technology

The Mysterious Murder Case That Inspired Margaret Atwood’s ‘Alias Grace’

At the center of the case was a beautiful young woman named Grace Marks. But was she really responsible for the crime?

The new edition of Vita Sackville-West's story features art deco-style illustrations

Now You Can Read the Stamp-Sized Story That May Have Inspired Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando”

Vita Sackville-West’s hero predates and mirrors Woolf’s androgynous time-traveler

Holmes and Watson have had years of adventures together, but the first time they ever appeared in print was in a story Arthur Conan Doyle set in Utah.

The Creator of Sherlock Holmes Was, Like Many Victorians, Fascinated by Mormons

The first story featuring iconic detective Sherlock Holmes, ‘A Study in Scarlet,’ was published on this day in 1887—and set in Mormon Utah

A shot from the famed 1965 film version of Boris Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago"

How Boris Pasternak Won and Lost the Nobel Prize

Today in 1958, the “Doctor Zhivago” author won the Nobel Prize, but the Soviets made sure he never got it

George Saunders poses with his book Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

Five Things to Know About 2017 Man Booker Prize Winner George Saunders

He becomes the second America to win for his book “Lincoln in the Bardo,” an experimental ghost story that explores the grief of the 16th president

Mark Twain's love of cats pervaded his literature as well as his writing habits.

Mark Twain Liked Cats Better Than People

Who wouldn’t?

British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro during a press conference at his home in London, Thursday Oct. 5, 2017.

Trending Today

What to Know About Literature’s Newest Nobel Winner British Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro

The author of The Remains of the Day and seven other books explores themes of memory, time and self-deception

Portrait of a Civil War soldier group, circa 1861-65.

The Most ‘Realistic’ Civil War Novel Was Written Three Decades After It Ended

By an author who wasn’t even alive when it occurred

Kurt Vonnegut in a 1990 portrait

You Can Now Read Five Newly Discovered Kurt Vonnegut Short Stories

Written early in the author’s careers, the works were recently unearthed in his archives

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