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Literature

This book of Grimm's Fairy Tales is entirely written using words with one syllable.

Cool Finds

Channel Childhoods Gone By With This Digital Archive of Victorian Children’s Books

From nursery rhymes to religious lectures, this digital archive shows how kids read in a bygone age

H.G. Wells was one of the first science fiction writers.

The Many Futuristic Predictions of H.G. Wells That Came True

Born 150 years ago, H.G. Wells predicted, and inspired, inventions from the laser to email

Oscar Wilde spent two years in what was then called Reading Gaol.

Cool Finds

A British Jail Is Paying Artistic Tribute to Oscar Wilde, its Most Famous Inmate

Patti Smith, Ai Weiwei and others envision what it’s like to be Inside

George Richmond made this chalk portrait of Brontë when she was 34 years old.

Cool Finds

Visit the Manuscript of ‘Jane Eyre’ in New York

The handwritten novel is in the United States for the first time—along with an exhibition of artifacts from Charlotte Brontë’s brief and brilliant life

For sale: a home with a bookish past.

Cool Finds

You Could Own F. Scott Fitzgerald’s House

Live in the Victorian rowhouse where a career was born

"Shotgun Seamstress"

Cool Finds

The New York Public Library’s Radical Zine Collection Is Now on Display

Check out pamphlets from people like Noam Chomsky and Mumia Abu-Jamal

Celebrate 50 Years of International Literacy Day With the British Library

Butterflies, rabbits and Shakespeare: there’s something for everybody

The Chandos portrait is the only-known painting of Shakespeare made during his lifetime.

Cool Finds

Cleaning This Portrait Could Change the Way Historians See Shakespeare

The only portrait of the Bard made while he was alive might be getting touch-ups

Is it disrespectful to sell a literary great’s remains—or is the stunt worthy of Capote himself?

Trending Today

Love Truman Capote? Buy His Ashes

Is the sale of Capote’s earthy remains a gauche publicity stunt or an act worthy of the audacious author?

The lone Lorax tree in Scripps Park, La Jolla.

Visit the Original Lorax Tree in Dr. Seuss’s San Diego

Check out these Seuss-related sites in Theodore Geisel’s adopted hometown

This musical score, in Jane Austen's handwriting, is one of nearly 600 Austen family musical treasures available in an online archive.

Cool Finds

Jane Austen’s Music Collection Is Now Online

Play piano like a Darcy with nearly 600 Austen-approved tunes

A fireplace at Melford Hall.

Cool Finds

These Beatrix Potter Illustrations Were Found Tucked Inside a Mansion’s Books

The children’s book author found inspiration on vacation

Edna O’Brien pictured in late 2013

Novelist Edna O’Brien Explores the True Nature of Evil

Celebrated for her books about love, the writer might finally win a Nobel Prize for something darker

The Fantastic Mr. Dahl

The British author’s world—antic, subversive, wildly inventive and monstrously humane—returns to the screen in Steven Spielberg’s The BFG

Tucked inside the campus of Indiana University, the Lilly Library is your one-stop shop for rare cultural treasures

See the Gutenberg Bible, 32,000 3D Mechanical Puzzles and a Lock of Edgar Allen Poe’s Hair at This Rare Library

Curiosity is a credential at Indiana University Library’s Lilly Library

"Beach at Bologne" by Edouard Manet

Inventing the Beach: The Unnatural History of a Natural Place

The seashore used to be a scary place, then it became a place of respite and vacation. What happened?

The Consuegra Windmills.

Relive ‘Don Quixote’ With a Trip Through Miguel de Cervantes’ Spain

Tilt at windmills for the 400th anniversary of the author’s death

Hemingway made this airy estate his Cuban home away from home—and wrote some of his most famous novels here.

Cool Finds

As U.S.-Cuba Relations Warm, This Long-Dead Author Benefits

A new conservation facility is on its way to Hemingway’s home near Havana

Tolkien relied on maps to write his books—and cared a lot about how his fans saw Middle-earth.

Cool Finds

One Day Only: A Chance to View One Map to Rule Them All

A rare Tolkien-annotated map goes on display June 23

A sketch of a Lycaeides melissa samuelis butterfly.

Art Meets Science

Vladimir Nabokov’s Butterfly Drawings Take Flight in This New Book

A little-known fact: The author of “Lolita” was also an avid lepidopterist

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