While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we\’ll spend the next two weekends revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published September 3, 2011.] We recently read an article over at We Made This in which Nick Hornby writes that “the days of the iconic jacket illustration, the image that […]
20 Of The Most Iconic Book Covers Ever Read More »
Watch the famous poet from the Harlem Renaissance read his poem \”The Weary Blues,\” while the Doug Parker Band plays jazz in the background.
Langston Hughes The Weary Blues on CBUT, 1958 Read More »
There may be no more a macabrely misogynistic sentence in English literature than Edgar Allan Poe’s contention that “the death… of a beautiful woman” is “unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.” (His perhaps ironic observation prompted Sylvia Plath to write, over a hundred years later, “The woman is perfected / Her dead /
7 Tips from Edgar Allan Poe on How to Write Vivid Stories and Poems Read More »
Shakespeare’s life is as full of fiction as his plays are. In fact, historians have taken decades to separate the legends and bawdy stories from fact. Some of the juiciest tales are now debunked, while others are new theories to fill in the holes in his biography. Here are five “to-be-or-not” stories of the bard.
The Bogus Bard: 5 Stories About Shakespeare We Wish Were True Read More »
In this short excerpt from a Q&A as University of Virginia’s first Writer-in-Residence, Faulkner talks about The Sound and the Fury, and why it was his favorite novel. Listen to the full recording here.
Faulkner on The Sound and the Fury Read More »
Here’s Flannery O’Connor reading her short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find\” at Vanderbilt University in 1959.
Flannery O\’ Connor reading A Good Man is Hard to Find part 3/3 Read More »
And here’s Jack Kerouac on the The Steve Allen Plymouth Show in 1959. After awkwardly answering questions while Steve Allen tinkles on the piano, he gives a terrific reading from On The Road and Visions of Cody while jazz plays in the background. You gotta love that ending: “I think of Dean Mor-i-ar-ty.”
Jack Kerouac on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show Read More »
Oodles of things have been written about Charles Dickens (1812-1870) and words are never enough. He was a wordsmith alright, something admitted by everyone who has read his masterpieces. When it comes to hardships, calamities and unfairness Dickens is the first one to come to mind. He is the only one whose name has
11 things you should know about Charles Dickens. Read More »
Like a ghost from the past, Tennyson reads his poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” Like the Whitman recording, it too was taken from a wax cylinder Thomas Edison made in 1890. Tennyson can be hard to understand at times, especially at the poem’s most famous
Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Charge of the Light BrigadeWax Cylinder Poem animation Read More »
Melissa Faithful for Art-Sheep If you\’re a fan of bookplates then you can\’t but appreciate this series of unique erotic bookplates. These decorative blends of details are often found on the inside front cover of books, to indicate the book\’s owner. We\’ve gathered a collection of vintage bookplates that features erotic ex libris (\”from/out of
A Series of Vintage Bookplates Illustrating the Erotic (NSFW) Read More »
