Portal:Literature
The Literature Portal
Introduction
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Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment. It can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.
Literary criticism is one of the oldest academic disciplines, and is concerned with the literary merit or intellectual significance of specific texts. The study of books and other texts as artifacts or traditions is instead encompassed by textual criticism or the history of the book. "Literature", as an art form, is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction, fiction written with the goal of artistic merit, but can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoirs, letters, and essays. Within this broader definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles, or other written information on a particular subject. (Full article...)
General images -
The following are images from various literature-related articles on Wikipedia.
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Author Margaret Atwood has suggested that during the 1970s Canadian literature was still looking for a national identity.. (from Canadian literature) -
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An author portrait of Jean Miélot writing his compilation of the Miracles of Our Lady, one of his many popular works. (from History of books) -
The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) (from History of books) -
European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books) -
The Swedish Academy's permanent secretary Peter Englund at the announcement of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. (from Nobel Prize in Literature) -
Jikji, Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Seon Masters, the earliest known book printed with movable metal type, 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. (from History of books) -
A Tagore illustration of a Hindu myth (from Children's literature) -
The Nobel diploma awarded to Hermann Hesse in 1946. (from Nobel Prize in Literature) -
The Crescent Moon by Rabindranath Tagore illus. by Nandalal Bose, Macmillan 1913 (from Children's literature) -
The philosopher Confucius was influential in the developed approach to poetry and ancient music theory. (from History of poetry) -
Poet Charles G. D. Roberts belonged to an informal group known as the Confederation Poets. (from Canadian literature) -
Page 49 of the Dresden Codex (from History of books) -
Statuta Mutine Reformata, 1420–1485; parchment codex bound in wood and leather with brass plaques worked the corners and in the center, with clasps. (from Medieval literature) -
Goethe's Italian Journey between September 1786 and May 1788 (from Travel literature) -
The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) is a canonical piece of children's literature and one of the best-selling books ever published. (from Children's literature) -
Cover of the Argentine children's magazine Billiken N° 1 (1919) (from Children's literature) -
In 1901, French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme (1839–1907) was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection, and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect." (from Nobel Prize in Literature) -
Illustration from the Codex Manesse, a German book from the Middle Ages (from History of books) -
A mother reads to her children in a mid- to late 19th century lithograph by Jessie Willcox Smith. (from Children's literature) -
J. K. Rowling reads from her novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (from Children's literature) -
Ivan Bilibin (1876–1942)'s illustration of the Russian fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful (from Fairy tale) -
Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books) -
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The character which means "poetry", in the ancient Chinese Great Seal script style. The modern character is 詩/诗 (shī). (from History of poetry) -
Father Frost acts as a donor in the Russian fairy tale Father Frost, testing the heroine before bestowing riches upon her (from Fairy tale) -
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The oldest known love poem. Sumerian terracotta tablet#2461 from Nippur, Iraq. Ur III period, 2037–2029 BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul (from History of poetry) -
Two people in costumes inspired by Willy Wonka (from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and the Hatter (from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) in London (from Children's literature) -
The European fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in a painting by Carl Larsson in 1881. (from Fairy tale) -
Natias Neutert performing Diogenes Synopsis as at Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, 1986 (from Performance poetry) -
Gabrielle Roy was a notable French Canadian author. (from Canadian literature) -
Number of children's books titles published by the trade sector in 2020 (from Children's literature) -
Roberto Bolaño is considered to have had the greatest United States impact of any post-Boom author (from Latin American literature) -
A Chinese bamboo book, The Art of War, commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor in 18th-century China (from History of books) -
12-metre-high (40 ft) sculpture of a stack of books at the Berlin Walk of Ideas, commemorating the invention of modern book printing (from History of books) -
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Short story writer Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. (from Canadian literature) -
Handwritten notes by Christopher Columbus on a Latin edition of The Travels of Marco Polo (from Travel literature) -
Statue of Minnie the Minx, a character from The Beano. Launched in 1938, the comic is known for its anarchic humour, with Dennis the Menace appearing on the cover. (from Children's literature) -
Page from a Jain manuscript depicting the birth of Mahavira, c. 1400 (from History of books) -
Selma Lagerlöf, the first female author awarded the prize. (from Nobel Prize in Literature) -
John Bauer's illustration of trolls and a princess from a collection of Swedish fairy tales (from Fairy tale) -
A twentieth-century copyright imprint from McLoughlin Bros that features three rams and the copyright year, 1903 (from History of books) -
John Newbery's A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, originally published in 1744 (from Children's literature) -
Octavio Paz helped to define modern poetry and the Mexican personality. (from Latin American literature) -
An early Chinese poetics, the Kǒngzǐ Shīlùn (孔子詩論), discussing the Shijing (Classic of Poetry) (from History of poetry) -
European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books) -
Estimated medieval output of manuscripts in terms of copies (from Medieval literature) -
The scene in Botticelli's Madonna of the Book (1480) reflects the presence of books in the houses of richer people in his time. (from History of books) -
Pages from the 1819 edition of Kinder- und Haus-Märchen by the Brothers Grimm (from Children's literature) -
Kings' Fairy Tale, 1909, by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (from Fairy tale) -
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Walter Crane's chromolithograph illustration for The Frog Prince, 1874. (from Children's literature) -
Gabriel García Márquez, one of the most renowned Latin American writers (from Latin American literature) -
Cutlery for children. Detail showing fairy-tale scenes: Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel. (from Fairy tale) -
Wole Soyinka, the first African writer awarded the prize. (from Nobel Prize in Literature) -
A poet with a few enraptured fans (from Performance poetry) -
Chinese Bookseller, illustration, c. 1824 (from History of books) -
The New England Primer (from Children's literature) -
An early Mexican hornbook pictured in Tuer's History of the Horn-Book, 1896. (from Children's literature) -
Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books) -
The Violet Fairy Book (1906) -
The first page of Beowulf (from Medieval literature) -
Sculpture of Alfonso Reyes writer of influential pieces of Mexican surrealism. (from Latin American literature) -
Peruvian poet César Vallejo, considered by Thomas Merton "the greatest universal poet since Dante" (from Latin American literature) -
Illustration from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865 (from Children's literature) -
Hemingway's telegram in 1954 (The academy has alternately used for Literature and in Literature over the years, the latter becoming the norm today.) (from Nobel Prize in Literature) -
The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra from Tang dynasty China, i.e. 868 CE, the oldest known dated printed book in the world (British Library) (from History of books) -
Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books) -
H. O. Tanager performs at a bookstore in Boise, Idaho. (from Performance poetry) -
Postal stamp of Russia celebrating children's books. (from Children's literature) -
Illustration from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 coming-of-age pirate adventure Treasure Island (from Children's literature) -
Statue of C. S. Lewis in front of the wardrobe from his Narnia book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (from Children's literature) -
The Story of Mankind (1921) by Hendrik van Loon, 1st Newbery Award winner (from Children's literature) -
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A Sumerian clay tablet, currently housed in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, inscribed with the text of the poem Inanna and Ebih by the priestess Enheduanna, the first author whose name is known -
French author Albert Camus was the first African-born writer to receive the award. (from Nobel Prize in Literature) -
A late 18th-century reprint of Orbis Pictus by Comenius, the first children's picture book. (from Children's literature) -
Rudyard Kipling, the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. (from Nobel Prize in Literature) -
Children's books author Maria Elena Walsh in 1952. (from Children's literature) -
Hugo Ball performing at the Cabaret Voltaire (from Performance poetry) -
A 15th-century incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books) -
1900 edition of the controversial The Story of Little Black Sambo (from Children's literature) -
European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books)
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Selected work
Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
Selected biographies -
Featured articles are displayed here.
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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (UK: /ˈwʊlstənkrɑːft/ WUUL-stən-krahft, US: /-kræft/ -kraft; née Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.
Mary's mother died 11 days after giving birth to her. She was raised by her father, who provided her with a rich informal education, encouraging her to adhere to his own anarchist political theories. When she was four, her father married a neighbour, Mary Jane Clairmont, with whom Mary had a troubled relationship. (Full article...) -
Mary Wollstonecraft (UK: /ˈwʊlstənkrɑːft/ WUUL-stən-krahft, US: /-kræft/ -kraft; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was an English writer and philosopher best known for her advocacy of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional (at the time) personal relationships, received more attention than her writing. Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences.
During her brief career she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men but appeared to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason. (Full article...) -
Francis bin Fathallah bin Nasrallah Marrash (Arabic: فرنسيس بن فتح الله بن نصر الله مرّاش, ALA-LC: Fransīs bin Fatḥ Allāh bin Naṣr Allāh Marrāsh; 1835 or 29 June 1836 – 1874), also known as Francis al-Marrash or Francis Marrash al-Halabi, was a Syrian scholar, publicist, writer and poet of the Nahda or the Arab Renaissance, and a physician. Most of his works revolve around science, history and religion, analysed under an epistemological light. He traveled throughout West Asia and France in his youth, and after some medical training and a year of practice in his native Aleppo, during which he wrote several works, he enrolled in a medical school in Paris; yet, declining health and growing blindness forced him to return to Aleppo, where he produced more literary works until his early death.
Historian Matti Moosa considered Marrash to have been the first truly cosmopolitan Arab intellectual and writer of modern times. Marrash adhered to the principles of the French Revolution and defended them in his own works, implicitly criticizing Ottoman rule in West Asia and North Africa. He was also influential in introducing French romanticism in the Arab world, especially through his use of poetic prose and prose poetry, of which his writings were the first examples in modern Arabic literature, according to Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Shmuel Moreh. His modes of thinking and feeling, and ways of expressing them, have had a lasting influence on contemporary Arab thought and on the Mahjari poets. (Full article...) -
Walpole c. 1920–1925
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE (13 March 1884 – 1 June 1941) was an English novelist. He was the son of an Anglican clergyman, intended for a career in the church but drawn instead to writing. Among those who encouraged him were the authors Henry James and Arnold Bennett. His skill at scene-setting and vivid plots, as well as his high profile as a lecturer, brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s but has been largely neglected since his death.
After his first novel, The Wooden Horse, in 1909, Walpole wrote prolifically, producing at least one book every year. He was a spontaneous story-teller, writing quickly to get all his ideas on paper, seldom revising. His first novel to achieve major success was his third, Mr Perrin and Mr Traill, a tragicomic story of a fatal clash between two schoolmasters. During the First World War he served in the Red Cross on the Russian-Austrian front, and worked in British propaganda in Petrograd and London. In the 1920s and 1930s Walpole was much in demand not only as a novelist but also as a lecturer on literature, making four exceptionally well-paid tours of North America. (Full article...) -
Honoré de Balzac (/ˈbælzæk/ BAL-zak, more commonly US: /ˈbɔːl-/ BAWL-; French: [ɔnɔʁe d(ə) balzak]; born Honoré Balzac; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus.
Owing to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities. His writing influenced many famous writers, including the novelists Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert, and Henry James, and filmmakers François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. Many of Balzac's works have been made into films and continue to inspire other writers. James called him "really the father of us all." (Full article...) -
Kurt Vonnegut (/ˈvɒnəɡət/ VON-ə-gət; November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American author known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works over fifty-plus years; further works have been published since his death.
Born and raised in Indianapolis, Vonnegut attended Cornell University, but withdrew in January 1943 and enlisted in the U.S. Army. As part of his training, he studied mechanical engineering at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Tennessee. He was then deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was interned in Dresden, where he survived the Allied bombing of the city in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. After the war, he married Jane Marie Cox. He and his wife both attended the University of Chicago while he worked as a night reporter for the City News Bureau. (Full article...) -
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025) was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".
Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969/1975). He wrote prolifically across various literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. He won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize and the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award. Several of his works have been adopted as feature films, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982). Vargas Llosa's perception of Peruvian society and his experiences as a native Peruvian influenced many of his works. Increasingly, he expanded his range and tackled themes from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa criticized nationalism in different parts of the world. (Full article...) -
Sarah Trimmer (née Kirby; 6 January 1741 – 15 December 1810) was an English writer and critic of 18th-century British children's literature, as well as an educational reformer. Her periodical, The Guardian of Education, helped to define the emerging genre by seriously reviewing children's literature for the first time; it also provided the first history of children's literature, establishing a canon of the early landmarks of the genre that scholars still use today. Trimmer's most popular children's book, Fabulous Histories, inspired numerous children's animal stories and remained in print for over a century.
Trimmer was also an active philanthropist. She founded several Sunday schools and charity schools in her parish. To further these educational projects, she wrote textbooks and manuals for women interested in starting their own schools. Trimmer's efforts inspired other women, such as Hannah More, to establish Sunday school programmes and to write for children and the poor. (Full article...) -
Joanne Rowling (/ˈroʊlɪŋ/ ⓘ ROH-ling; born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She is the author of Harry Potter, a seven-volume fantasy novel series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, has been translated into 84 languages, and has spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.
Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series. The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, the birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997. Six sequels followed, concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). By 2008, Forbes had named her the world's highest-paid author. (Full article...) -
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (/ˈruːl ˈtɒlkiːn/, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
From 1925 to 1945 Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, and held these positions from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the Inklings, an informal literary discussion group. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972. (Full article...)
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Selected excerpt
| “ | I had begun life with benevolent intentions and thirsted for the moment when I should put them in practice and make myself useful to my fellow beings. Now all was blasted; instead of that serenity of conscience which allowed me to look back upon the past with self-satisfaction, and from thence to gather promise of new hopes, I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures such as no language can describe. | ” |
| — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein | ||
More Did you know
- ... that Mei Ze's forgery of Kong Anguo's compilation of the Book of Documents was officially recognized as a Confucian classic for over 1000 years?
- ... that, although Ernest Hemingway wrote many words, he probably didn't write "For sale: baby shoes, never worn"?
- ... that Goodnight Mister Tom, which is an adaptation of the children's novel of the same name, won the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment at the 2013 Olivier Awards?
- ... that the 17th-century English poet Thomas Jordan wrote one poem that was widely anthologized in the 20th century, even though his poetry had been disdained by his contemporaries?
- ... that in his book In Secret Tibet, author Theodore Illion relates how he twice saw what he called "flying lamas" who could supposedly sit on an ear of barley without bending its stalk?
Selected illustration
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Caterpillar, Alice's Adventures in WonderlandArtist: Sir John TennielSir John Tenniel's illustration of the Caterpillar for Lewis Carroll's classic children's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The illustration is noted for its ambiguous central figure, which can be viewed as having either a human male's face with pointed nose and protruding lower lip or as the head end of an actual caterpillar, with the right three "true" legs visible. The small symbol in the lower left is composed of Tenniel's initials, which was how he signed most of his work for the book. The partially obscured word in the lower left-center is the last name of Edward Dalziel, the engraver of the piece. -
Illustration: William Edward Frank Britten; restoration: Adam CuerdenŒnone is a poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in 1829. Inspired by the Greek mythological figure Oenone, first wife of Paris of Troy, the poem is a dramatic monologue following the lead-up to the Trojan War and the war itself. This illustration, by William Edward Frank Britten, is accompanied by the lines "O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, / Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die". -
Artist: Norman Mills Price; Restoration: Adam CuerdenA scene from Chapter XXVII of Guy Mannering, a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott that was originally published anonymously in 1815. It is set in the 1760s to 1780s, mostly in the Galloway area of southwest Scotland. The eponymous character of Guy Mannering is actually only a minor character in the story, the plot being mostly concerned with Harry Bertram, the son of the Laird of Ellangowan, who is kidnapped at the age of five by smugglers. It follows the fortunes and adventures of Harry and his family in subsequent years, and the struggle over the inheritance of Ellangowan. The novel also depicts the lawlessness that existed at the time, when smugglers operated along the coast and thieves frequented the country roads. The book was a huge success, selling out the day after its first edition. -
Illustration: Jessie Willcox Smith; Restoration: ErikTheBikeManAn illustration from a ca. 1916 edition of The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, a children's novel written by Charles Kingsley and originally serialised in 1862–63. The book, a didactic moral fable, tells the story of Tom (lower left), a young boy who drowns and is reincarnated as a "water-baby". He undergoes a series of adventures and eventually regains his human form. It was extremely popular during its day and through the 1920s, but has since fallen out of favour, perhaps due to Kingsley's expression of many of the common prejudices of that time period, such as against Americans, Jews, blacks, and Catholics, particularly the Irish. -
Illustration: William BlakeThe Song of Los is an epic poem by William Blake first published in 1795 and considered part of his prophetic books. The poem consists of two sections, "Africa" and "Asia": in the first section Blake catalogues the decline of morality in Europe, which he blames on both the African slave trade and enlightenment philosophers, whereas in the second section he describes a worldwide revolution, urged by the eponymous Los.
The illustration here is from the book's frontispiece and shows Urizen presiding over the decline of morality. -
Illustration: W. E. F. Britten; restoration: Adam Cuerden"The Sleeping Beauty" is a poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and published in 1830; it was later expanded and published in 1842 as "The Day-Dream". Based on the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, the poem (as with many of Tennyson's adaptations of existing literary works) focuses on a single aspect of the story, the appearance of the eponymous character as she sleeps.
This illustration by W. E. F. Britten was published in 1901 to accompany a reprinting of "The Sleeping Beauty". It accompanies the poem's final lines: "She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells / A perfect form in perfect rest." -
Artist: Francis S. Walker; Engraving: Brothers Dalziel
Restoration: Adam CuerdenHermann Vezin in the title role of Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith, an 1876 play by W. S. Gilbert. In the story, Druce begins as a miser and drunkard whose wife has left him. Two army deserters find shelter at his house, but they rob him and abandon a baby girl there. Many years later, Druce has become a blacksmith, and the two men return to try to claim the girl. The play was a success, running for about 100 performances and enjoying tours and several revivals. -
Artist: Walter Crane; Restoration: Lise BroerAn illustration from an 1893 version of A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which recounted the tale of King Midas. In Greek mythology, Midas was given ability to turn everything he touched into gold by the god Bacchus. However, he soon discovered that he was unable to even eat. Bacchus told him to wash in the river Pactolus, and the power flowed in the river, which was supposedly the reason for why the river was so rich in gold in later years. In Hawthorne's version, Midas' touch even turned his daughter to gold (pictured here). -
Illustration: George Cruikshank; Restoration: Adam CuerdenIn this scene from Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Uncle Toby's colonel invents a device for firing multiple miniature cannons at once, based on a hookah. Unfortunately, he and Toby find the puffing on the hookah pipe so enjoyable that they keep setting the cannons off. The novel was published in nine volumes over ten years, starting in 1759. Although it was not always held in high esteem by other writers, its bawdy humour was popular with London society, and it has come to be seen as one of the greatest comic novels in English, as well as a forerunner for many modern narrative devices and styles. -
Artist: Charles Robert Leslie; Engraver: J. Cooper
Restoration: Adam CuerdenA scene from an 1886 edition of Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor, originally published in 1819. Although fictional, the story is based on an actual incident of the family of James Dalrymple: Dalrymple's daughter Janet was betrothed to one man in an arranged marriage, but in love with another. On her wedding night, Janet stabbed her husband. She was judged to be insane and died within a month. The book is part of Scott's Tales of My Landlord series and is the basis for Gaetano Donizetti's 1835 opera Lucia di Lammermoor. -
Illustration: Maud and Miska Petersham; restoration: Adam CuerdenRootabaga Stories is a children's book of interrelated short stories by Carl Sandburg, written in 1922. The stories are whimsical and sometimes melancholy, making use of nonsense language. Rootabaga Stories was originally created for Sandburg's own daughters, Margaret, Janet and Helga—whom he nicknamed "Spink", "Skabootch", and "Swipes"—and those nicknames occur in some of the Rootabaga stories. The book was born of Sandburg's desire for fairy tales to which American children could relate, rather than the traditional European stories involving royalty and knights. He therefore set the book in a fictionalized American Midwest called the "Rootabaga country", in which fairy-tale concepts were mixed with trains, sidewalks, and skyscrapers.
This picture shows the frontispiece of the 1922 edition of the book. -
An illustration from the first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, depicting the scene where Dorothy meets the Cowardly Lion, the first time the four major characters of the novel come together. The book was originally published in 1900 and has since been reprinted countless times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of both the 1902 Broadway musical and the extremely popular, highly acclaimed 1939 film version. Thanks in part to the film it is one of the best-known stories in American popular culture and has been widely translated. Its initial success, and the success of the popular 1902 musical Baum adapted from his story, led to his writing and having published thirteen more Oz books. -
Illustration: John TennielThe Jabberwock, the titular creature of Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem "Jabberwocky". First included in Carroll's novel Through the Looking-Glass (1871), the poem was illustrated by John Tenniel, who gave the creature "the leathery wings of a pterodactyl and the long scaly neck and tail of a sauropod". "Jabberwocky" is considered one of the greatest nonsense poems written in English, and has contributed such nonsense words and neologisms as galumphing and chortle to the English lexicon. -
Artist: Wallace Goldsmith; Restoration: Adam CuerdenA scene from "The Canterville Ghost", Oscar Wilde's first published story, which is about an American family that moves into a haunted house in England. However, instead of being frightened of the eponymous ghost, they turn the tables and prank him, such as in this scene, where the twin boys have set up a butter-slide, causing the ghost to slip down the staircase. The story satirises both the unrefined tastes of Americans and the determination of the British to guard their traditions. -
The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania is an oil painting on canvas by the Scottish artist Joseph Noel Paton. Painted in 1849, it depicts the scene from William Shakespeare's comedy play A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which the fairy queen Titania and fairy king Oberon quarrel. When exhibited in Edinburgh in 1850, it was declared the "painting of the season". The painting was acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland in 1897, having initially been bought by the Royal Association for Promoting the Fine Arts.
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Romanian literary scholar Dan Simonescu, who edited a chronicle dealing with the reign of Michael the Brave, had to delete any mention of Michael having "all the Jews murdered"?
- ... that Sheila Egoff, Canada's first professor of children's literature, returned to her library work immediately after retirement?
- ... that The Man Without Talent is an I-novel, a genre of semi-autobiographical confessional literature that has been popular in Japan since the early twentieth century?
- ... that in the Forum of Augustus in Rome, elogia were hung on statues of commanders and Augustus's ancestors?
- ... that the poet Fernando Pessoa considered Alberto Caeiro, one of his own heteronyms, to be his master?
- ... that Manuel Carpio's 1849 poem is the earliest literary depiction of the weeping ghost La Llorona?
Today in literature
- 1774 - Tiphaigne de la Roche, French writer died
- 1892 - Eiji Yoshikawa, Japanese novelist born
- 1897 - Louise Bogan, American poet born
- 1897 - Enid Blyton, English author born
- 1913 - Angus Wilson, British novelist born
- 1921 - Alex Haley, American historian and novelist born
- 1932 - Fernando Arrabal, Spanish/French writer born
- 1937 - Edith Wharton, American author died
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