The Enigma of Emily Brontë
Since the moment Emily Brontë died we have tried – and failed – to understand who she was.
Literature
The Medieval Invention of Fiction
What goes on in other people’s minds? The idea of writing about what we can never know – the interior lives of others – was born in the fertile hybrid culture of 12th-century England and made possible by the pursuit of romantic love.
Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover
The Parisian pornographer who modernised literature.
The Best History Books 2017
From ancient Greece to the Second World War, from the papacy to the Antichrist, from Byzantium to China and the story of the Jewish people, historians select their favourite books of the past year.
Sarah Bernhardt, Divine Salomé
Wild yet chaste, impudent and ageless, Sarah Bernhardt was inescapably Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, ‘the most splendid creation’.
Death of Walt Whitman
American poet Walt Whitman died on March 26th, 1892 after completing his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, a year earlier.
Order from Chaos
Despite its popularity in France, the political memoir took a while to get going in Britain. It was Lord Clarendon’s epic attempt to make sense of the turbulent 17th century that slowly set the ball rolling.
Chaucer's Post-Truth World
If you believe the neologism 'post-truth' describes a new phenomenon, think again. Geoffrey Chaucer diagnosed the problem at the end of the 14th century.
The Merry Dance of the Highwayman
Along with Robin Hood, the romantic highwayman is one of the great myths of English outlawry. But the model for this most gallant of rogues was a Frenchman name Claude Duval, who carried out audacious robberies with a touch of Parisian flair.
Portrait of the Author as a Historian: Imre Kertész
Struggling to make sense of the Holocaust, one Hungarian novelist came to the startling realisation that the 20th century’s darkest moment might not yield any lessons for posterity.