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Writers

The Charles Dickens Museum Acquires ‘Lost’ Portrait of the Author as a Young Man

The 1843 painting by Margaret Gillies surfaced at an auction in South Africa in 2017

Trending Today

La Jolla’s ‘Lorax’ Tree Has Fallen

The Monterey cypress believed to have partially inspired Dr. Seuss’s 1971 classic enviromental tale toppled last week for unknown reasons

Walt Whitman in 1869, as photographed by William Kurtz

Rare Walt Whitman Artifacts Go on View at Library of Congress for Poet’s 200th Birthday

The library holds the world’s largest collection of Whitman-related items

Susan Sontag photographed in 1972.

Did Susan Sontag Write the Seminal Book Attributed to Her Husband?

An upcoming biography claims that before she became a towering literary figure, Sontag was the true author of Freud: The Mind of the Moralist

The indecipherable text carved in a rock found in the Brittany village of Plougastel-Daoulas.

Cool Finds

A French Town Is Offering $2,250 Reward to Anyone Who Can Decipher This Mysterious Inscription

The inscription was probably made during the 18th century

Cool Finds

‘A Clockwork Orange’ Follow-Up Found in Burgess Archives

‘The Clockwork Condition’ was intended to be a philosophical examination of themes raised in his most popular and problematic novel

Cool Finds

Ring Containing Charlotte Brontë’s Hair Discovered in Attic

The piece of mourning jewelry includes an inscription and a little door covering a plaited lock of the Jane Eyre author’s hair

New Research

Computer Analysis Says ‘Beowulf’ Is the Work of a Single Author

Academics have argued about the origins of the Old English epic for two centuries

Facebook staff would only later learn of the unintended consequences of the "Like" button

Understanding the Mind of the Coder and How It Shapes the World Around Us

Clive Thompson’s new book takes readers deep into the history and culture of computer programming

Virginia Woolf (pictured above), Margaret Kennedy, Rebecca West, Stella Benson and Hilaire Belloc are amongst the writers who answered the survey

Literary Confessions Penned by Virginia Woolf, Margaret Kennedy Unearthed

10 prominent English writers answered a 39-question survey detailing their opinions of literary predecessors and peers

Ponden Hall near Haworth, West Yorkshire, England.

The House That May Have Inspired ‘Wuthering Heights’ Is Up for Sale

A chamber in Ponden Hall bears similarity to the room where the narrator Lockwood passes a fitful night of sleep—and dreams of an ‘ice-cold’ ghost

Mr. Greedy received a "readability" score of 4.4, while Of Mice and Men received a rating of 4.6

Study Suggests ‘Mr. Greedy’ Children’s Book Is Almost as Hard to Read as Steinbeck Classics

The analysis judged texts’ complexity based on sentence length, average word length, vocabulary level, but did not look at reading comprehension

Salinger’s son and widow first started preparing the works for publication in 2011.

J.D. Salinger’s Unpublished Works Will Be Released to the Public Over the Next Decade

The author produced a trove of unseen writings over a nearly 50-year period prior to his death in 2010

Mary Oliver, a Poet Whose Simple Turns of Phrase Held Mass Appeal, Dies at 83

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer was known for her straightforward meditations on nature, spirituality and the human experience

Cool Finds

Egyptian Schoolboy’s 1,800-Year-Old Lesson to Go on Display

The British Library took the exercise out of storage as part of an upcoming exhibition on the history of writing

Founded in 1975, the space boasts a collection of some 7,000 books, 1,500 periodicals, and reams of pamphlets and assorted ephemera

London’s Feminist Library Lives

A successful crowdfunding campaign saved the institution from closure and is financing its move to a new space

Poe coined the phrase “the imp of the perverse” in an 1845 story of that title about an almost perfect murder.

How Edgar Allan Poe Became Our Era’s Premier Storyteller

Fans of the mystery writer have no shortage of ways to pay homage to the scribe behind “The Raven” and so much more

For the First Time in More Than 20 Years, Copyrighted Works Will Enter the Public Domain

A beloved Robert Frost poem is among the many creations that are (finally) losing their protections in 2019

Only one of the letters included in the scrapbook has been previously published

Kurt Vonnegut’s Unpublished World War II Scrapbook Reveals Origins of ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’

Volume features 22 letters from author to his family, photographs of the razed city of Dresden, telegrams and news clippings

Frederic Leighton, "The Music Lesson," 1877

Connie Gilchrist Was the Shirley Temple of Victorian London

The child star captivated audiences and artists alike, served as muse for Lewis Carroll, James McNeill Whistler

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