literature

Stories 61 - 80 | << Prev   Next >>

'Bad Handwriting' May Settle Shakespeare Mystery

Professor says it proves 'Spanish Tragedy' lines are by the Bard

(Newser) - It's been a nearly 200-year-long debate: Did William Shakespeare add 325 lines to Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy nearly a decade after Kyd's death? None other than Samuel Taylor Coleridge raised the question in 1833, and a 2012 computer analysis seemed to lend credence to the theory....

Inside Stephen King&rsquo;s Writing-Obsessed Family
Inside Stephen King’s
Writing-Obsessed Family
'nyt mag' profile
Jul 31, 2013 1:34 PM CDT

Inside Stephen King’s Writing-Obsessed Family

Just one member is not an author

(Newser) - In Stephen King's immediate family, just one member is not a professional writer. King's wife, both of his sons, and his daughter-in-law all have published books to their names; his daughter, the outlier, is a Unitarian Universalist minister. An extensive New York Times Magazine profile on the family...

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Handwritten Ledger Goes Online

'Gatsby' author apparently couldn't spell very well

(Newser) - F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby again hits the silver screen in a couple of weeks, and a rare look at some of the author's more mundane writings is getting aired. Fitzgerald's own financial ledger, a detailed handwritten account of his earnings for his various books and...

Scholar Finds 50 Lost Rudyard Kipling Poems

Set for publication next month

(Newser) - A literary scholar has unearthed more than 50 unpublished poems by Rudyard Kipling—and soon, the world will get to see them. They're set for release in March in the first complete collection of Kipling's poems, a hefty three-volume set containing more than 1,300 works, the Guardian...

The Ravens—Letting Edgar Allan Poe's Legacy Die?

The city closed Poe House, and the Ravens did nothing

(Newser) - The city of Baltimore and its high-flying football team rely heavily on Edgar Allen Poe's legacy—yet they're letting it fade away, writes A.N. Devers at Salon . City officials shut down the Edgar Allan Poe House last year, citing its $85,000 annual cost, even though it...

Big Find: Hans Christian Andersen's 'First Work'

'The Tallow Candle' likely written when writer was 18

(Newser) - A Danish historian has found what he believes is an early Hans Christian Anderson manuscript buried at the bottom of a box in the National Archives of Funen. "I was ecstatic," the historian says. "I had never imagined this." The handwritten story, titled "Tallow Candle,...

Cops Eye In Cold Blood Killers in Fla. Murder Mystery

Exhumation could provide missing link to '59 slayings

(Newser) - After sniffing out 587 suspects, police are edging closer to solving a 52-year-old Florida murder mystery. The likely culprits: the murderous duo featured in Truman Capote's landmark book, In Cold Blood, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports. Sarasota detective Kim McGath now believes Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, who notoriously killed...

National Book Award Goes to Louise Erdrich

Manhattan ceremony goes glam

(Newser) - Louise Erdrich's novel Round House won the National Book Award last night, beating out big-name contenders like Junot Diaz and Dave Eggers. Erdrich's book tells the story of a teenage boy's confrontation with violence on a North Dakota reservation, the New York Times reports. "This is...

Literary Nobel Goes to Chinese Author Mo Yan

Writer's work 'oft-banned, widely pirated'

(Newser) - Applauding the "hallucinatoric realism" of his work, the Swedish Academy has awarded China's Mo Yan the Nobel Prize for Literature. The author "merges folk tales, history, and the contemporary," judges said. Time magazine has called Mo "one of the most famous, oft-banned, and widely pirated...

JK Rowling's Latest Decidedly Not for Kids

But The Casual Vacancy has Potter-esque themes

(Newser) - In JK Rowling's estimation, just seven people read the final Harry Potter book before it was published. But the New Yorker has already managed a read of her first adult novel, out Thursday, and it's definitely for adults. One quotation, for instance: "The leathery skin of her...

2nd Known Photo of Emily Dickinson Surfaces

1859 daguerreotype believed to show the poet with her widowed friend

(Newser) - If you're a lover of poetry, history, and mystery, listen up: Amherst College believes a photo that first surfaced in 2007 is indeed one of Emily Dickinson—making it just the second known image of the poet in existence, reports the Guardian . The previously verified photo is one of...

Ayn Rand Wouldn&#39;t Love Paul Ryan
 Ayn Rand Wouldn't 
 Love Paul Ryan 
OPINION
Aug 13, 2012 10:06 AM CDT

Ayn Rand Wouldn't Love Paul Ryan

He's embraced policies antithetical to author's thinking: Conor Friedersdorf

(Newser) - Paul Ryan adores Atlas Shrugged author Ayn Rand, calling her "the reason I got involved in public service." But the feeling wouldn't be mutual, writes Conor Friedersdorf in the Atlantic . First off, the very idea of "public service" is pretty un-Randian: She calls the notion of...

Scribble Remover May Reveal Lost Dickens Work

Gadget shows what's behind crossed-out words

(Newser) - We could soon have some "new" Charles Dickens to peruse. Researchers are preparing to pore through the manuscripts of Dickens' novels using a device that reveals what the author crossed out, the Independent reports. That allows scholars to experience the novelist "almost thinking aloud on to paper,"...

Irish Author Maeve Binchy Dead at 72
 Irish Author 
 Maeve Binchy 
 Dead at 72 
obituary
Jul 31, 2012 6:25 AM CDT

Irish Author Maeve Binchy Dead at 72

Ireland mourns 'national treasure'

(Newser) - Beloved Irish writer Maeve Binchy has died at age 72 in Dublin, following a brief illness, the Irish Times reports. Binchy's books, among them short-story collections and the novel-turned-movie Circle of Friends, have sold more than 40 million copies, and addressed the tensions of a modernizing Irish society, the...

Thanks to 50 Shades , Now the Classics Get Sex Scenes
Thanks to 50 Shades, the Classics Get Sex Scenes
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jul 22, 2012 2:30 PM CDT

Thanks to 50 Shades, the Classics Get Sex Scenes

Introducing 'Clandestine Classics'

(Newser) - Jane Eyre is great and all, but wouldn't it be so much better if it featured tons of "explosive sex" scenes? Thanks to Clandestine Classics , it soon will. The company is publishing erotic versions of that and other tomes including Pride and Prejudice, 20,000 Leagues Under the ...

Garcia Marquez Foundation: Dementia Claim Is Fiction

'Gabo is not insane'

(Newser) - It's quite the plot twist: On the heels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's brother's revelation that the Nobel laureate is suffering from dementia, the Colombian author's foundation says it just isn't so—so stop with the bellyaching. "Please, enough messages of solidarity: Gabo is not...

Summer Reads That Won't Embarrass You

Literary types give their suggestions for beach books

(Newser) - Looking for a beach read that's not just fluff? The Atlantic Wire asked authors and other literati for "books that live up to the spirit of summer while still making us think"—or, in other words, "beach reads for smart people." Here's what they...

Farewell to Arms Reprinted —With 47 Alternate Endings

Ernest Hemingway classic republished, out next week

(Newser) - Good news for Ernest Hemingway fans: Next week, you can read A Farewell to Arms with its 47 alternate endings. The author said, in 1958, that he rewrote the final words of his classic "39 times before I was satisfied," and those endings were preserved at the JFK...

Are Classic Books Obsolete?
 Are Classic Books Obsolete? 
OPINION
May 31, 2012 2:52 PM CDT

Are Classic Books Obsolete?

Dartmouth researchers think so, but Laura Miller begs to differ

(Newser) - Take a gander at all the one-star Amazon reviews for classic works of literature, and you might think the canon is going out of style—and a new Dartmouth study thinks you're right. Researchers examined the language in a host of public domain digital texts published between 1550 and...

New Yorker Releasing Story in Tweets

Jennifer Egan's 'Black Box' serialized on Twitter

(Newser) - The latest story from a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer will appear in 140-character chunks. The New Yorker is publishing Jennifer Egan's "Black Box" in installments on Twitter, the New York Observer reports. The tweets, which began yesterday , will appear from 8pm to 9pm every day for nine days. They'...

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