(Via Time Magazine.) In a 2001 study, Francis Thackeray, the director of the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, found cannabis and cocaine residue on fragments of… Read more »

According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago is, quite literally, about to cement its reputation as a hub for writing in the US. Irish engineer and businessman Malcolm O’Hagan plans to open… Read more »

After 145 years, France has given back to South Korea a substantial trove of its literary culture. The collection of nearly 300 ancient texts were looted by French soldiers and… Read more »

At The Rumpus, Nicholas Rombes discusses the titillating, gothic, sexploitative 19th-century bestseller, The Quaker City written by of Georges Lippard. Here’s Lippard introducing the novel in his preface: What shall I say? Shall I… Read more »

Have you been asking yourself, “Is it better to celebrate Alexander Pushkin’s birthday today, May 26th — or to wait until the Monday after next, June 6th ?” We’ve encountered… Read more »

At the BBC, Michael Goldfarb wonders why novels and films fail to address the economic realities of our current age. Read much about the unemployed, lately? Did you even know… 16 / Read more »

A new cache of Walt Whitman’s writing — literally, his handwriting — has been discovered in the National Archive. According to a report in the Washington Post, the National Archive… Read more »

In his most recent Vanity Fair column, Christopher Hitchens discusses “one of the greatest literary dissidents and subversives who ever lived,” the vicious saint he was up against, and the… Read more »

Despite the irrationally exuberant popularity of literary bloodsucking I have never been tempted by the original of the genre, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But, until now, I didn’t know that Stoker… 2 / Read more »

“A Dish of Tea with Dr Johnson,” a play about Samuel Johnson being staged in London in the actual garret where he compiled his famous dictionary, receives a big thumbs… Read more »