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Literature

Just call it "the house on Pooh corner."

Cool Finds

The House Where ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ Was Written Is for Sale

The 9.5-acre estate was once home to Christopher Robin and A.A. Milne

Beatrix Potter Books

How Beatrix Potter Invented Character Merchandising

Faced with rejection, the author found her own path to fame and fortune

Margaret at Stafford House on Cumberland Island, holding her first copy of Fox Eyes, illustrated by Jean Charlot. This story was inspired by her time on Cumberland as a teenager.

The Surprising Ingenuity Behind “Goodnight Moon”

Author Margaret Wise Brown used new theories in childhood education to write the classic children’s book

Samuel Clemens often told stories to his children, but only one has survived.

Cool Finds

New Mark Twain Fairy Tale Unearthed

The previously unknown—and unfinished—story was hiding in plain sight

Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michael Basquiat won the 2017 Randolph Caldecott Medal.

Trending Today

American Librarians Just Chose 2017’s Best Books for Children and Young Adults

Meet the 2017 Newbery, Caldecott and Printz award winners

Edgar Allan Poe as imagined in an 1895 image by Swiss/French printmaker Félix Valloton.

Who Was the Poe Toaster? We Still Have No Idea

In Baltimore, they’re keeping the tradition of visiting Edgar Allan Poe’s grave for his birthday—but without the mystery

Now, writers can find inspiration in the historic library of one of America's most famous authors.

Cool Finds

You Can Write Inside Mark Twain’s Library

Commune with Clemens in his historic home

House and Cedar-Lined Walk in Mist, October 2003

American South

Get Lost in the Landscape That Inspired William Faulkner’s Greatest Novels

A new book of photography brings the late author’s Mississippi homestead to life

Mount McKinley

Visit These Ten Sites Celebrating Major Anniversaries in 2017

From Jane Austen’s 200th anniversary to the founding of Denali National Park, there are plenty of events to fill your calendar

Cherry-Garrard during the Scott expedition

This Catastrophic Polar Journey Resulted in One of the Best Adventure Books Ever Written

Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s travel memoir is still the one to beat, and not only because it features penguins

Decoder glasses help visitors view both utopian and dystopian angles to the exhibition

Cool Finds

This Art Show Looks at 500 Years of Failed Utopias

So far, the ideal has yet to work out

The old county courthouse in Monroeville, Alabama will soon be just one of the town's many To Kill a Mockingbird-themed attractions.

Trending Today

Lawyer Wants to Make Harper Lee’s Hometown a Haven for Tourists

Monroeville, Alabama, could change with a proposed Harper Lee Trail

Boo! Telling ghost stories on Christmas was a tradition for hundreds of years. Here, Marley's ghost surprises Ebenezer Scrooge in an illustration from the first edition of the classic tale.

Why Do People Tell Ghost Stories on Christmas?

Christmas ghost stories are a tradition going back much farther than “A Christmas Carol”

Photo of Olivia de Havilland (left), Leslie Howard (center) and Vivien Leigh (right) from Gone With The Wind.

Why Do We Love Period Dramas So Much?

Gone With The Wind, the highest-grossing period drama ever, premiered on this day in 1939

Some of the performers are circus-trained, adding authenticity to the aerial acrobatics displayed.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

“Call Me Ishmael” Is the Only Melville Tradition in This Innovative Presentation of “Moby Dick”

Visceral, kinesthetic, cinematic, aural and psychological, Arena Stage’s new show about the 19th-century novel is a 21st-century experience

Abraham Ortelius created the world's first modern atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, or "Theater of the World," in 1570. Shakespeare, who famously wrote that "all the world's a stage," was doubtless influenced by the maps that flourished during his lifetime.

Cool Finds

How Maps Shaped Shakespeare

An exhibition in Boston delves into historical maps to show how the Bard saw the wider world

The Best Books About Science of 2016

Take a journey to the edge of human knowledge and beyond with one of these mind-boggling page-turners

The Typos on This Dead Sea Scroll Don’t Mean It’s Fake

When the Dead Sea copper scroll was unveiled, doubts were quickly raised about its authenticity. For one thing, it was riddled with spelling errors

Caedmon’s lofty slogan was “A third dimension for the printed page.”

The Christmas Tale Spoken Record That Launched the Audiobook

Narrated by Dylan Thomas, the album would go on to sell 400,000 copies

James Welch is featured on today's Google home page in honor of his birthday.

Google Makes Ledger Art to Celebrate Legendary Native American Author James Welch

In an exclusive interview with Smithsonian.com, artist Sophie Diao talks about what inspired today’s Google Doodle

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