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Writers

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How to Tour Jane Austen’s English Countryside

Follow in the footsteps of Mr. Darcy and the Bennet sisters and take in the manors and gardens of rural England

It was at the La Comédie-Française where Hugo brought his controversial new play, “Hernani,” that became a spark plug for Paris’s greater societal and political tensions

Take a Tour of Victor Hugo’s Paris

As a film version of his Les Miserables hits theaters, consider traveling in the French writer’s footsteps

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Contributors

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Contributors

Lewis Lapham, the legendary former editor of Harper's, who, beginning in the 1970s, helped change the face of American nonfiction, has a new mission: taking on the Great Paradox of the digital age.

Lewis Lapham’s Antidote to the Age of BuzzFeed

With his erudite Quarterly, the legendary Harper’s editor aims for an antidote to digital-age ignorance

Henry Wiencek, far left, (clockwise from upper right) Ken Jennings, Michael Dobbs, Abigail Tucker and David Wise all contributed to the October issue of Smithsonian.

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Martin Amis, England's most famous living novelist, has just moved from London to the United States.

Martin Amis Contemplates Evil

England’s most famous living novelist has moved to America—and tilted the literary world

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Benjamin Walker as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Movie Mash-ups That Beat Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

Mixing movie genres, from Abbott and Costello to SCTV

Palace of the Winds in Jaipur, India

Jaipur via The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

A delightful new film takes viewers to India’s picturesque western state of Rajasthan

Girls eating apples on a field in Castleton, Derbyshire on May 26, 1937.

Contributors

From the 1920s on, major figures in American arts and letters—Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Tennessee Williams and E.E. Cummings—gravitated toward Provincetown.

What Do Jackson Pollock, Tennessee Williams and Norman Mailer Have in Common?

Cape Cod’s dune shacks are American culture’s home away from home

For the traveler to India: film and literary preparation

The Great Books and Movies to Read and Watch Before Visiting India

A list of some of the best books and films about the subcontinent to take in before you go

Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen are the stars of HBO's fictionalization of the relationship between Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway.

Danger and Romance from HBO’s “Hemingway & Gellhorn”

A new made-for-television movie airing May 28 recounts the stormy love affair between the writer and the war correspondent

A crowd of people cheering and waving at a parade, circa 1955.

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Contributors

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Dear Science Fiction Writers: Stop Being So Pessimistic!

Neal Stephenson created the Hieroglyph Project to convince sci-fi writers to stop worrying and learn to love the future

The little death in Venice: Casanova was forced to flee his beloved home town twice (the San Cassiano Canal).

Who Was Casanova?

The personal memoir of history’s most famous lover reveals a misunderstood intellectual who befriended the likes of Ben Franklin

American soldiers in Paris right after the armistice of World War I.

An American Library in Paris

Founded after World War I, the City of Light’s English-language library has long been a haven for expats, including Hemingway

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