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A 2013 poll revealed that when it comes to seeing the glass as half-full, only half of Americans are prepared to admit they are optimists. Still, the number positively dwarfed those who consider their outlook to be outright pessimistic: a mere 3%...

The Short Stories of Patricia Highsmith is a collection of short stories written by Patricia Highsmith, a widely-respected American writer. Over the course of her writing career, Highsmith has published over 20 novels and even more short stories,...

While many poets can chart the trajectory of their success or recognition along a line leading directly to winning a prestigious literary prize or award, very few go on to have their name attached to such an honor. Among that select few is...

Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principles of Population proposed one of the most important economic core beliefs that we hold true even today: the Iron Law of Wages, which states that when population rises and subsequently so does workforce,...

One of the first noted lesbian literature novels, Nightwood is a book written by Djuna Barnes published in 1936. It was one of the first books to explore explicit themes of homosexuality between women, and is also known for its intense, gothic,...

Absurdism’s King of Comedy, Luigi Pirandello, adapted a 1915 short story he wrote titled “Signora Frola and Signor Ponza, Her Son-in-Law” into a play two years later. Right You Are (If You Think Are) was presented in dramatic form as a “A Parable...

Does My Head Look Big in This is a Young Adult Contemporary novel written by Randa Abdel-Fattah. It was published on August 1, 2005, by Pan MacMillan Australia. Randa is an Egyptian-Palestinian author who lives in Australia and has won Kathleen...

The Madonna of Excelsior is a novel by South African writer Zakes Mda that was published in 2005. Although a work of fiction, the book deepens the reader's understanding of the complex political situation under the shadow of apartheid and also the...

Cardenio is considered a lost play. The authors are believed to be John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. The attribution is based primarily upon two 1613 performances by the King’s Men acting troupe of a play listed by either the title Cardenno...

Henry James is a large figure in the development of culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. He stood at the origins of modernist literature and techniques of subjective writing which later developed into the well-known “stream of...

Dorothy Wordsworth is the sister of famous English poet William Wordsworth. The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals is exactly as titled, her two journals kept in the late 1700's through 1800's, documenting the aspects of her daily life including her...

When The Killing's Done is a novel by T.C. Boyle that is both a drama and a book about the environmental abuse within a national park in California. The book is mainly set around the Channel Islands, specifically Santa Cruz and Anacapa, and...

The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia was written by Sir Philip Sidney towards the end of the Sixteenth Century. It is a long work of prose that is sometimes known by the abbreviated name of Arcadia. After finishing the first draft of his original...

Charlie Chaplin took two years to produce The Gold Rush. During that time he got an underage girl pregnant and was forced into a marriage he didn’t want. That pregnancy incurred a change in leading ladies and by the time film was into full swing...

Born in the town of Rugby in 1887, the fun-loving, spirited, and handsome young poet Rupert Brooke would tragically be cut down in the very prime of life, and would become the patriotic hero for a generation of dead Britons. Brooke was sailing for...

Philip Freneau (1752–1832) was the premier American poet in aftermath of the American Revolution. One of his most well-known poems “The British Prison Ship” resulted from his capture and imprisonment aboard the title vessel. Freneau gained his...

The Vegetarian is a novella in three parts written by Korean author Han Kang. First time published in Korea in 2007, it received an uneasy reception and was thought to be both bizarre and extreme. The novella is based on a short story Han had...

Adelbert von Chamisso is a German writer born on January 30, 1781 in Ante, Champagne. As a child, his family was forced to migrate to Berlin as a consequence of the French Revolution. In his new home, Chamisso found a passion for the sciences,...

Leslie Marmon Silko is a writer and novelist born on March 5, 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is of Laguna ancestry, a Native American tribe based in New Mexico, and thus her literary works are heavily inspired by her culture. As a child, her...

William T. Vollmann is an American author and journalist born on July 28, 1959 in Los Angeles, California. As a child, he was raised in an academia-focused household considering his father was a professor of business at Indiana University....

1923. Germany. In the aftermath of the humiliating defeat in the War to End All Wars (later to be known as World War I) and the even more humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the German economy inspires a new definition for the term...

The Witch of Edmonton is a 1621 drama co-written by Thomas Dekker, William Rowley and John Ford. The inspiration for the drama was a popular pamphlet detailing the particulars of a witch hunt investigation conducted against Elizabeth Sawyer. The...

In the Pond is the first novel written by Chinese-American author Ha Jin. It tells the story of one man's struggle against the Chinese system of oppression; an episodic novel centering on one central character, Shao Bin, the novel expresses many...

All overly constrained eras have subversion, but there are few who outright rebels against the suffocating societal norms. Swinburne was one of the very few who did not let overly prudish and moralist ideals of Victorian era constrain and contain...