Birth of Lewis Carroll
The author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was born on January 27th, 1832.
Literature
From Walpole's Bottom to Major's Underpants
Kenneth Baker argues that cartoonists have let recent Prime Ministers off lightly compared with their eighteenth-century predecessors.
Maxim Gorky and the Russian Revolution
Maxim Gorky was revered over the lifetime of the Soviet Union as the leading artist and intellectual associated with the 1917 Revolution. But did he really approve of Lenin and the Bolshevik experiment?
Fenimore Cooper's America
Alan Taylor examines how the social concerns and ambitions of the new republic and those of the author of Last of the Mohicans intertwined - and how they gave him the canvas to become the United States' first great novelist.
Walt Whitman's Different Lights
Robert Martin places the great American radical writer in the philosophical and sexual context of his time.
Dickens and the Construction of Christmas
The best-loved of Britain's novelists penned a tale that struck a potent chord in the popular revival of the season of goodwill. Geoffrey Rowell explains its appeal and its powerful religious and social overtones.
First World War Literature
A.D. Harvey reflects on why the Great War captured the literary imagination.
Fear of Flying: The Fiction of War 1886-1916
Michael Paris looks at how science fiction and popular literature shaped personal prejudices and political agendas about 'destruction from the skies'.
The Death of Don Juan: Murder, Myth and Mayhem in Madrid
Robert Stradling presents an intriguing new interpretation as to who the legendary Lothario actually was, and lifts the lid on questions of conspiracy and sexual identity in 17th-century Spain.
America's Black Press, 1914-1918
Our boys over there? Mark Ellis looks at how America's black newspapers and population reacted to US involvement in the First World War and at the steps the government took to try and ensure a favourable press.