Literature

Interior view of the Victoria theatre, then known as the Coburg, c. 1819. Smithsonian Design Museum. Public Domain.

Jane Eyre Goes to the Theatre

When it arrived on the Victorian stage, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre had a cast of new characters and a new social order.

Achilles tending Patroclus wounded by an arrow, identified by inscriptions on the upper part of the vase.

Homer and His Iliad by Robin Lane Fox review

Homer and His Iliad by Robin Lane Fox is a masterly survey of the Iliad, its majesty, its pathos and its unparalleled progression from wrath to pity.

Daniel J. Boorstin, Librarian of Congress, speaking outside the Mary Pickford Theater, James Madison Building, Library of Congress during the opening ceremony, 1983

Popularizing the Past by Nick Witham review

Popularizing the Past: Historians, Publishers, and Readers in Postwar America by Nick Witham explores the industry of popular history from Daniel Boorstin to Howard Zinn.

Harp of Erin: Frances Browne, late 19th century. The History Collection / Alamy Stock Photo

Writing Wrongs

The anti-Russian poetry of Frances Browne, the ‘Blind Poetess of Ulster’.

Adam protecting a child from the snake, identified as Lilith. Fresco in Strozzi Chapel by Filippino Lippi, Florence, 15th century.

The Liberation of Lilith

Remembered as Adam’s first wife, a child-killing demon and a feminist hero, who was Lilith?

Charles Dickens with family and friends on the porch of Gad’s Hill. Georgina Hogarth is on the bottom right, c.1865.

The Wing of Friendship

Charles Dickens’ most enduring friendship was with his sister-in-law, who has been remembered as his housekeeper.

Shakespeare’s First Folio in the library of Durham University, 1950s.

William Shakespeare’s First Folio

The stage has a short memory, print a long one: 400 years since its first publication, Shakespeare’s First Folio is the reason we remember him.

Marija Jurić Zagorka, mid-20th century.

Literary Heroine

One of Croatia’s most-read authors, Marija Jurić Zagorka spent her life in defiance of convention.

William McGonagall, 19th century.

Vile Verse and Desperate Doggerel

Was the worst poet in history a hidden visionary?

the Wife of Bath, the Ellesmere Manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, c.1410.

Are you Experienced?

Not a queen or a saint, witch or idealised lady-love, the Wife of Bath is a much-married working woman and an enthusiastic traveller.