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Patience Worth: Author From the Great Beyond
Pearl Curran, a St. Louis housewife, channeled a 17th-century spirit to the heights of 20th-century literary stardom
September 2010 |
By Gioia Diliberto
From the Editor: Curveballs at the Un-Magazine
From the first issue 40 years ago, Smithsonian has blazed its own path through the media landscape
August 2010 |
By Carey Winfrey
Carl Hiaasen on Human Weirdness
The satirist talks about the "curve of human weirdness" and the need for public outrage in the political arena
August 2010 |
By T. A. Frail
Reading in a Whole New Way
As digital screens proliferate and people move from print to pixel, how will the act of reading change?
August 2010 |
By Kevin Kelly
To Be...Or Not: The Greatest Shakespeare Forgery
William-Henry Ireland committed a scheme so grand that he fooled even himself into believing he was William Shakespeare's true literary heir
June 2010 |
By Doug Stewart
Harper Lee's Novel Achievement
With To Kill a Mockingbird, published 50 years ago, Lee gave America a story for the ages. Just don't ask her about it
June 2010 |
By Charles Leerhsen
Vermont's Venerable Byway
The state's Route 100 offers an unparalleled access to old New England, from wandering moose to Robert Frost's hideaway cabin
May 2010 |
By Jonathan Kandell
Mark Twain in Love
A chance encounter on a New Orleans dock in 1858 haunted the writer for the rest of his life
May 2010 |
By Ron Powers
Lewis Carroll's Shifting Reputation
Why has popular opinion of the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland undergone such a dramatic reversal?
April 2010 |
By Jenny Woolf
Joyce Carol Oates Goes Home Again
The celebrated writer returns to the town of her birth to revisit the places that haunt her memory and her extraordinary fiction
March 2010 |
By Joyce Carol Oates
A Forgotten Tennessee Williams Work Now a Motion Picture
Written in the 1950s, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond was forgotten until it was recently adapted into a major motion picture
January 04, 2010 |
By Chloë Schama
Sherlock Holmes' London
As the detective stalks movie theaters, our reporter tracks down the favorite haunts of Arthur Conan Doyle and his famous sleuth
January 2010 |
By Joshua Hammer
Buckhannon, West Virginia: The Perfect Birthplace
A community in the Allegheny foothills nurtured novelist Jayne Anne Phillips' talent for storytelling
January 2010 |
By Jayne Anne Phillips
Memoirs of a World War II Buffalo Soldier
In a recently published memoir written over 60 years ago, veteran James Daugherty details his experiences as an African-American in combat
November 06, 2009 |
By Abby Callard
The Full Brontë
The British countryside is home to the real sites behind Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and other works by the literary sisters
September 03, 2009 |
By William Ecenbarger
A Whirlwind Tour Around Poland
The memoirist trades Tuscany for the northern light and unexpected pleasures of Krakow and Gdansk
September 2009 |
By Frances Mayes
The Allure of Travel Writing
Jan Morris, one of the world's leading travel writers, introduces six essays and describes the challenges of modern travel writing
September 2009 |
By Jan Morris
Great Road Trips in American Literature
From Twain to Kerouac to Bryson, writers have found inspiration in hitting the road and traveling the United States
August 20, 2009 |
By Abby Callard
A New Taste of Hemingway’s Moveable Feast
The re-edited version of Ernest Hemingway’s Paris-based memoir sheds new light on the heartbreaking breakup of his first marriage
July 27, 2009 |
By Chloë Schama
Thornton Wilder's Desert Oasis
For the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Douglas, Arizona was a place to "refresh the wells" and drive into the sunset
July 2009 |
By Tom Miller
