In the letter below, Oscar Wilde writes to friend, mentor, and alleged lover Robert Baldwin Ross. After Wilde’s imprisonment, Ross went abroad for safety, but eventually returned to offer financial and emotional support to Wilde. [February 1899] My Dear … Continued
What do Michelle Obama and her soldiers have to do with this awards ceremony, this trifle, this broadly acknowledged irrelevancy?
The supreme task of the Poets is the filming of Agony itself, but their secondary task—seeking and refining The Peep-Hole’s glimpse into The Covered Wagons—is by no means unimportant or without significant challenges…
I can scarce bring myself to believe that I am admitted to a familiar correspondence, and all the licence of friendship, with a man who writes blank verse like Milton. Now, this is delicate flattery, indirect flattery. Go on with you Maid of Orleans, and be content to be second to yourself. I shall become a convert to it when ‘tis finished.
In this letter, a characteristically reclusive Søren Kierkegaard writes to Julie Thomsen, his cousin, about his tumultuous relationship with writing and his enslaving inability to leave “the pen” even if only to seek out the company of others. TO JULIE THOMSEN … Continued
How Publishing is Rigged is a now-defunct blog, penned by a literary industry outsider. Its goal: “Once you get familiar with what’s available at How Publishing Is Rigged, you’ll witness that publishing is controlled by a handful of individuals and … Continued
In this letter, renowned critic William Empson expounds upon the latent themes of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. TO ARTHUR EFRON Paunch [literary journal]Feb. 1966‘Wuthering Heights—II’ Dear Mr Efron, Mr Doheny is right I think to argue ‘The book is obviously … Continued
“Think! I have been allowed to survive up to this. Through everything. Miracle. Grace.—All in a few days. It was a hurricane, as at Duino that time: all that was fiber, fabric in me, framework, cracked and bent. Eating was not to be thought of.”
Katherine Mansfield writes effusively to Constance Garnett, one of the most important translators of Russian fiction in Mansfield’s time. To Constance Garnett [Villa Isola BellaGaravan] [8 February 1921] Dear Madam, As I laid down my copy of War … Continued
A Long Day’s Evening, a short novel by the late Turkish novelist Bilge Karasu (1930-1995), is the author’s first published work in English in more than eight years. Focused primarily on the tribulations of two Byzantine monks, the novel is preoccupied … Continued
