Books

The success of To Kill a Mockingbird overwhelmed Harper Lee.

Harper Lee's Novel Achievement

With To Kill a Mockingbird, published 50 years ago, Lee gave America a story for the ages. Just don't ask her about it

Allen Ginsberg, facing the camera, believed that both poetry and photography could reveal "the luminousness of the ordinary event."

Allen Ginsberg's Beat Family Album

The famous beat poet's photographs reveal an American counterculture at work and play

After Mark Twain first glimpsed the girl of his dreams, he never forgot Laura Wright's "frank and simple and winsome" charms.

Mark Twain in Love

A chance encounter on a New Orleans dock in 1858 haunted the writer for the rest of his life

Portrait of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain from 1867.

Mark Twain's "My Platonic Sweetheart"

In an essay published posthumously in 1912, Mark Twain recounts his dreams of a long-lost love

Biographers disagree over what kind of man Charles Dodgson really was.

Lewis Carroll's Shifting Reputation

Why has popular opinion of the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland undergone such a dramatic reversal?

Using his own capital, Allen Lane started the Penguin publishing house. His plan was to sell quality books for the price of a pack of cigarettes.

How the Paperback Novel Changed Popular Literature

Classic writers reached the masses when Penguin paperbacks began publishing great novels for the cost of a pack of cigarettes

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates on "Going Home Again"

Andrew Lawler is currently a freelancer living in the woods of Maine.

Arthur Lubow on "Painted Dreams"

Smithsonian magazine's 2009 Notable Books for Children.

Smithsonian Notable Books for Children 2009

Our annual list of children's books highlights the most fascinating titles published in the past year

Following the Brontë Trail across the moors, the Wayfarers group walked between eight and 10 miles a day in Yorkshire and Derbyshire.

The Full Brontë

The British countryside is home to the real sites behind Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and other works by the literary sisters

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson is considered by many to be the quintessential drug-induced book of the 1970s.

Great Road Trips in American Literature

From Twain to Kerouac to Bryson, writers have found inspiration in hitting the road and traveling the United States

The new edition of Ernest Hemingway's fictionalized memoir, A Moveable Feast, features adjustments made to the original text that was edited by Hemingway's fourth wife, Mary.

A New Taste of Hemingway’s Moveable Feast

The re-edited version of Ernest Hemingway’s Paris-based memoir sheds new light on the heartbreaking breakup of his first marriage

Originally buried in an unmarked grave in 1849, Edgar Allan Poe's remains were moved to this downtown Baltimore monument in 1875.

Forget Edgar Allan Poe? Nevermore!

Cities up and down the East Coast claim author Edgar Allan Poe as their own and and celebrate his 200th birthday

"Amanda McKittrick Ros, who died in 1939, abused the English language in three novels and dozens of poems."

Words to Remember

Amanda McKittrick Ros predicted she would achieve lasting fame as a novelist. Unfortunately, she did

After a year in graduate school in New York City, Eudora Welty returned to her native Mississippi and began taking pictures (Home by Dark).

Eudora Welty as Photographer

Photographs by Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Eudora Welty display the empathy that would later infuse her fiction

Andrew Lawler is currently a freelancer living in the woods of Maine.

Andrew Lawler on "Isfahan: Iran's Hidden Jewel"

The author of the magazine piece talks about his reporting

In the Spoken Word recording, John Steinbeck recounts how he came up with the idea for The Grapes of Wrath.

Voices from Literature’s Past

The British Library’s Spoken Word albums of recordings by British and American writers shed new light on the authors' work

Gertrude Stein is an American writer who made her home in Paris, France. Her first book was published in 1909 but her autobiography, titled The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, was the only one to reach a wide audience.

Literary Landmarks: A History of American Women Writers

Author Elaine Showalter discusses the lasting influence of Harriet Beecher Stowe and why Gertrude Stein is overrated

The New York Public Library maintains the world's largest collection of tobacciana, materials related in some way to tobacco's history, use, and mystique.

Libraries' Surprising Special Collections

Tucked away in libraries across the country are unexpected archives and world-class treasures

Scientist Joseph Priestly is best known for discovering oxygen but his contributions were much larger.

The Inventor of Air

Known for discovering oxygen, scientist Joseph Priestly also influenced the beliefs of our founding fathers

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