The History of Literature

It's a two-for-one special! First, Jacke talks to novelist Radha Vatsal about her new book, No. 10 Doyers Street, which tells the gripping story of an Indian woman journalist investigating a bloody shooting in New York's Chinatown circa 1907. Then podcaster Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen stops by to discuss her experience hosting The Five Books, which asks Jewish writers to list the five books that have influenced them. Enjoy!

Additional listening:

• 40 Radha Vatsal, Author of "A Front Page Affair"
• 90 History and Mystery (with Radha Vatsal)
• 512 Hannah Arendt (with Samantha Rose Hill)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Since her death, poet and novelist Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) has been an endless source of fascination for fans of her and her work. But while much attention has been paid to her tumultuous relationship with fellow poet Ted Hughes, we often overlook the influences that formed her, long before she traveled to England and met Hughes. What movies did she watch? Which books did she read? How did media shape her worldview? In this episode, Jacke talks to serial biographer Carl Rollyson about his new book The Making of Sylvia Plath, which takes a fresh approach to understanding Plath - and helps to revise and reposition Plath's legacy. PLUS Cheryl Hopson (Zora Neale Hurston: A Critical Life) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 675 Zora Neale Hurston (with Cheryl Hopson)
• 563 Sylvia Plath (with Carl Rollyson)
• 654 Loving (and Reclaiming) Sylvia Plath (with Emily Van Duyne)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode originally ran on July 18, 2016. It is presented here without commercial interruption.]

In 1797, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge took two grains of opium and fell into a stupor. When he awoke, he had in his head the remnants of a marvelous dream, a vivid train of images of the Chinese emperor Kubla Khan and his summer palace, Xanadu. The vision transformed itself into lines of poetry, but as he started writing, he was interrupted by a Person from Porlock, who arrived at Coleridge’s cottage on business and stayed for an hour. when Coleridge returned to his work, the vision had been lost, and the fragmentary nature of the poem Kubla Khan has haunted its admirers ever since. The resentment has centered around the bumbling Person from Porlock, whose visit remains shrouded in mystery. The scholar Jonathan Livingston Lowes put it bluntly: “If there is any man in the history of literature who should be hanged, drawn, and quartered,” he wrote, “it is the man on business from Porlock.”

Who was this Person from Porlock, and why was he knocking on the door of Coleridge’s cottage? How did Coleridge handle the interruption, and what did it mean for him and his art? And finally, what might we take from this vivid legend today?

Music Credits:

“Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the Free Music Archive / CC by SA).

“Piano Between” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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For centuries, the playwright Thomas Kyd has been best known as the author of The Spanish Tragedy, a terrific story of revenge believed to have strongly influenced Shakespeare's Hamlet. And yet, a contemporary referred to Kyd as "industrious Kyd." What happened to the rest of his plays? In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar Brian Vickers about his new book Thomas Kyd: A Dramatist Restored, the first full study of Kyd's life and works, in which Vickers discusses Kyd's accepted canon as well as three additional plays Vickers has newly identified as having been written by Kyd—exciting discoveries that establish him as a major dramatist. PLUS Jonathan D.S. Schroeder (editor of The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography, by John Swanson Jacobs) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 646 Discovering a Long Lost Slave Narrative (with Jonathan D.S. Schroeder)
• 48 Hamlet
• 332 Top 10 Things To Love About Hamlet (with Laurie Frankel)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The Belgian-born French writer Georges Simenon (1903-1989) was astonishing for his literary ambition and output. The author of something like 400 novels, which he wrote in 7-10 day bursts (after checking with his physician beforehand to ensure that he could handle the strain), he's perhaps best known for his creation of Chief Inspector Jules Maigret, who appeared in 75 novels or so. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Simenon's childhood and relationship with parents, his marriages and affairs (he once claimed to have slept with ten thousand women), and the approach to narrative and prose that continues to delight readers and critics alike.

Additional listening:

• 350 Mystery! (with Jonah Lehrer)
• 140 Pulp Fiction and the Hardboiled Crime Novel (with Charles Ardai)
• 420 Honoré de Balzac

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"I want to write something new," American author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a letter to his editor, "something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." Months later, he presented the results: the novel that would eventually be titled The Great Gatsby. Published in 1925 to middling success, the book has since become a candidate for the Great American Novel, selling more than copies in a month than the book sold during Fitzgerald's entire lifetime. In this episode, Jacke talks to Fitzgerald scholar James West about his work editing the Cambridge Centennial Edition of The Great Gatsby, which celebrates 100 years of this enduring tale of illicit desire, grand illusions, and lost dreams, delivered in lyric prose by an author writing at the peak of his powers.

Additional listening:

• 281 The Great Gatsby
• 167 F. Scott Fitzgerald
• 539 Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (with Mike Palindrome)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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For decades, the Soviet Union was unfriendly territory for poets and writers. But what happened when the wall fell? Emerging from the underground, the poets reacted with a creative outpouring that responded to a brave new world. In this episode, Jacke talks to Russian poetry scholar Stephanie Sandler about her new book The Freest Speech in Russia: Poetry Unbound, 1989-2022, which shows how contemporary Russian poetry both expressed and exemplified freedom - and how that initial burst of freedom has responded to subsequent geopolitical developments.

Additional listening:

• 130 The Poet and the Painter - The Great Love Affair of Anna Akhmatova and Amedeo Modigliani
• 479 Auden and the Muse of History (with Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb)
• 501 The Naked World (with Irina Mashinski)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Complex and talented, Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) was one of the first American authors to write for both Black and white readers. Born in Cleveland to "mixed race" parents, Chesnutt rejected the opportunity to "pass" as white, instead remaining in the Black community throughout his life. His life in the South during Reconstruction, and his knowledge of both Black and white communities, made him one of America's sharpest observers of race in America during the postwar years. In this episode, Jacke talks to Chesnutt scholar Tess Chakkalakal about her book A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt, which the New York Times Book Review says "asks the reader to see the 'First Negro Novelist' as he saw himself: a writer and student of American letters at a time when the literary marketplace struggled to take him seriously...a timely reminder of the influence of artists like Charles W. Chesnutt today, when perhaps only literature has the power to sustain us." PLUS: John Goodby (Dylan Thomas: A Critical Life) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 526 "The Wife of His Youth" by Charles Chesnutt
• 677 Dylan Thomas (with John Goodby)
• 94 Smoke, Dusk, and Fire - The Jean Toomer Story

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when a respected church leader shows up one day wearing a mysterious veil that conceals his eyes, offering no explanation - and keeps wearing it for decades? How will the community respond? What conspiracy theories will they develop? And how will an author like Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing a hundred years later, spin a New England sin-and-guilt anecdote into powerful literary gold? In this episode, Mike Palindrome, the President of the Literature Supporters Club, joins Jacke for a reading and discussion of Hawthorne's riveting short story "The Minister's Black Veil."

Additional listening:

• 660 "Wakefield" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• 461 The Peabody Sisters (with Megan Marshall)
• 297 The Scarlet Letter

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marianne Moore (1887-1972) achieved something rare in American letters: a modernist poet who was popular with both critics and the public. Famous for her formal innovation, precise diction, and wit - as well as her black tri-corner hat and cloak, which she wore as she dashed around Manhattan - she was lauded by T.S. Eliot (and numerous prize committees) and treated by the public as a true American poet. Muhammad Ali asked her to write the liner notes to his album notes; Ford Motor Company asked her to name their line of cars. In this episode, Jacke talks to Moore scholar Cristanne Miller about Moore's life, Moore's work, and a new digital archive project that unites the two.

Additional listening:

• 564 H.D. (with Lara Vetter)
• 56 Shelley, H.D., Yeats, Frost, Stevens (with Professor Bill Hogan)
• 176 William Carlos Williams's "The Use of Force" (with Mike Palindrome)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As America closes out this year's Black History Month, Jacke dives into the archives for one of his favorite episodes, which featured a conversation with Columbia University professor Farah Jasmine Griffin about her book Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature. PLUS friend of the show Scott Carter stops by to talk about the version of the gospels that Charles Dickens wrote.

This episode originally ran on November 15, 2021. It's presented here without the insertion of advertising.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the conclusion to "The Jolly Corner"! Spencer Brydon lived in Europe for 33 years (as did his creator, Henry James) before returning to his childhood home in New York City. Europe has changed him - and he can't help thinking, as he observes a highly transformed New York, that he'd have been a very different person had he stayed in America during those crucial decades at the end of the nineteenth century. He finds himself roaming his old deserted house on "the jolly corner" late at night, hunting for the phantom of the self that might-have-been, until he finally sees something that shocks him into unconsciousness. In this episode, Jacke presents the rousing conclusion to this fascinating story of nostalgia, regrets, wonder, selfhood, friendship, and terror. PLUS Irish novelist and essayist Colm Tóibín (The Master, On James Baldwin) stops by to discuss his selection for the last book he will ever read. Enjoy!

Additional listening:

• 679 The Jolly Corner by Henry James - Part 1
• 414 Henry James's Golden Bowl (with Dinitia Smith)
• 509 The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James - Part 1

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After spending decades in Europe, the American Henry James felt haunted by the idea that he'd given up something essential. Inspired by a trip home to New York City, the place of his birth, he wrote an astonishing story about a man who creeps through his childhood home late at night, searching for ghosts, and one in particular he's desperate to see: the American version of himself that didn't ever get a chance to live. In this episode, Jacke reads and analyzes the middle of Henry James's "The Jolly Corner."

Additional listening:

• 679 The Jolly Corner by Henry James - Part 1
• 340 Constance Fenimore Woolson
• 341 Constance and Henry - The Story of "Miss Grief"

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Although the writer Henry James (1843-1916) was born in New York City's Washington Square, he spent most of his adulthood in Europe, where he wrote such masterpieces as The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl. Late in life, he returned to New York after a thirty-three year absence to find the city much transformed, as skyscrapers and grand public buildings - museums and libraries and opera houses - now dominated the scene.

In this episode, Jacke reads and comments upon the opening of James's 1908 story "The Jolly Corner," in which a man revisits his childhood home in New York after a thirty-three year absence and finds himself chasing memories, ghosts, and other figments of his imagination.

Additional listening:

• 320 Henry James
• 509 The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James
• 414 Henry James's Golden Bowl (with Dinitia Smith)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke's been trying to come to grips with Portuguese modernist poet Fernando Pessoa ever since Harold Bloom named him one of the 26 most influential writers in the entire Western canon. But it's not easy! As a young man, Pessoa wanted to be, in his words, "plural like the universe," and he carried this out in his poetry: writing verse in the style of more than one hundred fictional alter-egos that he called heteronyms. In this episode, Pessoa expert Bartholomew Ryan, author of Fernando Pessoa: A Critical Life, joins Jacke for a discussion of Pessoa's profound, endlessly innovative ideas. PLUS renowned scholar Robin Waterfield (Aesop's Fables: A New Translation) joins Jacke for a discussion of the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 643 Aesop and His Fables (with Robin Waterfield)
• 398 Fernando Pessoa
• 138 Why Poetry (with Matthew Zapruder)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Dylan Thomas: brilliant poet or self-indulgent blowhard? In this episode, Jacke talks to John Goodby, co-author of the biography Dylan Thomas: A Critical Life, about the misconceptions swirling around the famous Welsh poet, and the approach that he and fellow author Chris Wigginton took in presenting a revealing and fresh introduction to Thomas's life and work. PLUS Jacke reads an essay by Emily Brontë in which she wades through deep currents of darkness and gloom to catch a glimpse of hope.

Additional listening:

• 408 Dylan Thomas (with Scott Carter)
• 647 The Brontës
• The Brontës' Secret Scandal (with Finola Austin)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Mike Palindrome, the President of the Literature Supporters Club, joins Jacke for a reading and discussion of "Mrs. Spring Fragrance" by Sui Sin Far. The story, which takes place against a backdrop of waves of immigration to America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (and the racist anti-Asian laws that followed), depicts an enterprising "Americanized" Chinese woman with a taste for matchmaking as she navigates the worlds of Seattle, San Francisco, and her own marriage. While acknowledging the achievement of the pioneering Sui Sin Far, Mike explores his personal reaction to the story, especially the highly patriarchal world of Asian immigrant communities.

Additional listening:

• 667 Sui Sin Far (with Victoria Namkung)
• 529 Ten Thousand Things and the Asian American Experience (with Shin Yu Pai)
• 410 What Is American Literature? (with Ilan Stavans)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was the most published African American woman writer of the first half of the twentieth century; her signature novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is still read by students, scholars, and literature lovers everywhere. In this episode, Jacke talks to Hurston biographer Cheryl R. Hopson (Zora Neale Hurston: A Critical Life) about the life and creativity of this remarkable figure. PLUS Jacke takes a look at some newly resurfaced works by Jack Kerouac, which shed light on his dalliance with Buddhism.

Additional listening:

• Zora Neale Houston and Langston Hughes (with Yuval Taylor)
• 431 Langston Hughes
• 644 Jack Kerouac (with Steven Belletto)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“I admire Freud greatly,” the novelist Vladimir Nabokov once said, “as a comic writer.” For Nabokov, Sigmund Freud was “the Viennese witch-doctor,” objectionable for “the vulgar, shabby, fundamentally medieval world” of his ideas. Author Joshua Ferris (The Dinner Party, Then We Came to the End) joins Jacke for a discussion of the author of Lolita and his special hatred for “the Austrian crank with a shabby umbrella.”

[This episode was originally released on September 30, 2017. It is presented here without commercial interruptions.]

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Novelist and playwright Edna Ferber (1885-1968) lived a wondrous life: residing in Manhattan as a member of the famed Algonquin Round Table, writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (So Big), and producing works that Hollywood turned into twentieth-century classics, including the Kern & Hammerstein musical Show Boat and George Stevens's Giant, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. Along the way, she also served as a caretaker and mentor for her grandniece, who was wowed by her great aunt's style, presence, and celebrity connections. In this episode, Jacke talks to Julie Gilbert, that little girl who grew up to become a writer herself, about her new book Giant Love: Edna Ferber, Her Best-Selling Novel of Texas, and the Making of a Classic American Film. PLUS Jacke talks to Yiddish literature expert Jessica Kirzane about her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 567 Your Dream Guest: Jessica Kirzane on Translating Yiddish Literature
• 316 Willa Cather (with Lauren Marino)
• 64 Dorothy Parker (with Mike Palindrome)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Founded in Chicago in 1914, the avant-garde journal the Little Review became a giant in the cause of modernism, publishing literature and art by luminaries such as T.S. Eliot, Djuna Barnes, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Gertrude Stein, Jean Toomer, William Carlos Williams, H.D., Amy Lowell, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Stella, Hans Arp, Mina Loy, Emma Goldman, Wyndham Lewis, Hart Crane, Sherwood Anderson, and more. Perhaps most famously, the magazine published Joyce's Ulysses in serial form, causing a scandal and leading to a censorship trial that changed the course of literature.

In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar Holly A. Baggett about her book Making No Compromise: Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, and the Little Review, which tells the story of the two Midwestern women behind the Little Review, who were themselves iconoclastic rebels, living openly as lesbians and advocating for causes like anarchy, feminism, free love, and of course, groundbreaking literature and art. PLUS Phil Jones (Reading Samuel Johnson: Reception and Representation, 1750-1970) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 600 Doctor Johnson! (with Phil Jones)
• 564 H.D. (with Lara Vetter)
• 165 Ezra Pound

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is a truth universally acknowledged that tragedy is one of the world's highest art forms, and that Shakespeare was one of the form's greatest practitioners. But how did he do it? What models did he have to draw upon, and where did he innovate? In this episode, Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar Rhodri Lewis about his new book Shakespeare's Tragic Art, a new account of Shakespearean tragedy as a response to life in an uncertain world. PLUS Joel Warner (The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 518 The Curse of the Marquis de Sade (with Joel Warner)
• 548 Shakespeare in a Divided America (with James Shapiro)
• Shakespeare's Best | Sonnet 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds")

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inspired by an email (from a listener?) with mysterious origins, Jacke takes a look at the brief narrative form the parable. How did parables get their name? What are their key features? Why did Jesus rely on them so heavily to communicate to his listeners? And what meaning does "A Parable" have for us today?

Additional listening:

• 634 The Bible: A Global History (with Bruce Gordon)
• 368 The Story of the Nativity (with Stephen Mitchell)
• 41 The New Testament (with Professor Kyle Keefer)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when a woman becomes obsessed with Herman Melville during the pandemic? What if the process of sorting fact from fiction in Melville's work inspires a midlife reckoning with her own marriage and ambition? And what if she (a poet) and her husband (a novelist, by the way) write a book about all of it? Well, the result would be something like Dayswork: A Novel, which has been called "a supremely literate achievement that wears its erudition lightly." In this episode, Jacke talks to the poet and her novelist husband, Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder, about what Melville means to them. PLUS Alexander Boots (The Strangers' House: Writing Northern Ireland) discusses his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening suggestions:

• 513 The Writers of Northern Ireland with Alexander Poots
• 481 Moby-Dick: 10 Essential Questions (Part One)
• 482 Moby-Dick: 10 Essential Questions (Part Two)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the U.S. joined the war in the 1940s, it had a problem: its military had virtually no intelligence service. Enter the librarians! In this episode, Jacke talks to Elyse Graham about her work Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II, which tells the story of the efforts to recruit academics and train them for espionage. PLUS a look at some of the upcoming festivities being planned for Jane Austen's 250th birthday.

Additional listening:

• 444 Thrillers on the Eve of War: Spy Novels in the 1930s (with Juliette Bretan)
• 380 Ian Fleming | PLUS The Black James Bond
• 114 Christopher Marlowe: What Happened and What If?

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Edith Maude Eaton (1865-1914) grew up in unusual circumstances: her father was an English merchant who traveled to China on business, and her mother was a formerly enslaved tightrope walker and human knife-throwing target who traveled all over the world with an acrobatic troupe. The eldest daughter among fourteen children, Eaton mostly grew up in Montreal, then relocated to America, where she became famous under the pen name Sui Sin Far. Today, her journalism and fiction, mostly chronicling the lives of Chinese men and women living in America, are impressive for their insight and humor. In this episode, Jacke talks to novelist and scholar Victoria Namkung about An Immortal Book: Selected Writings by Sui Sin Far, for which she wrote the forward. PLUS Samantha Rose Hill (Hannah Arendt: A Critical Life) discusses her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 512 Hannah Arendt (with Samantha Rose Hill)
• 529 Ten Thousand Things and the Asian American Experience (with Shin Yu Pai)
• 66 A Conversation with Novelist Shawna Yang Ryan

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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First published in December of 1922, "Winter Dreams" was one of the short stories known as the "Gatsby cluster," as F. Scott Fitzgerald worked out the characters, themes, and prose style that would later make his famous novel The Great Gatsby (1925) an American classic. Telling the story of Dexter Green, a Midwestern golf caddy who becomes a wealthy - but not wealthy enough - suitor to a rich young heiress Judy Jones, "Winter Dreams" works out some of Fitzgerald's own nostalgia and regret for his thwarted relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King. In this episode, Jacke and Mike introduce and comment upon the story, which is read in its entirety. PLUS Lev Grossman (The Bright Sword) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 659 The Legend of King Arthur (with Lev Grossman)
• 47 Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald
• 167 "Babylon Revisited" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• 550 F. Scott Fitzgerald (with Arthur Krystal)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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In 1819, John Keats quit his job as an assistant surgeon, abandoned an epic poem he was writing, and focused his poetic energies on shorter works. What followed was one of the most fertile periods in the history of poetry, as in a few months' time Keats completed six masterpieces, including such celebrated classics as "To Autumn," "Ode to a Nightingale," and "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Now, two hundred years later, an American scholar has written an exciting new book called Keats's Odes: A Lover's Discourse, in which she gathers and revisits the Great Odes, viewing them through a personal prism.

Anahid Nersessian was born and grew up in New York City. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and has taught at Columbia University and UCLA. Her first book, Utopia, Limited: Romanticism and Adjustment was published by Harvard University Press in 2015, and her second book, The Calamity Form: On Poetry and Social Life, by the University of Chicago in 2020. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.

[This episode, presented without commercial interruption, was originally released on February 8, 2021.]

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Happy holidays! In this episode, presented without commercial interruption, Jacke revisits the second half of the classic James Joyce short story "The Dead."

[This episode was originally released on December 22, 2017.]

Additional listening:

• 368 The Story of the Nativity (with Stephen Mitchell)
• 172 Holiday Movies (with Brian Price)
• 407 "The Old Nurse's Story" by Elizabeth Gaskell

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Happy holidays! In this episode, presented without commercial interruption, Jacke revisits the first part of the the classic James Joyce holiday story, "The Dead."

[The full version of this episode was originally released on December 19, 2017.]

Additional listening:

• 123 James Joyce's The Dead (Part 1) [Full Version]
• 72 The Best Christmas Stories in Literature
• 577 'Twas the Night Before Controversy - The Raging Dispute Over a Classic Christmas Poem
• 470 Two Christmas Days - A Holiday Story by Ida B. Wells

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Generally speaking, a common conception of U.S. race relations in the mid-twentieth century runs like this: segregation was racist and bad, the doctrine of "separate but equal" masked genuine inequality, and the racial integration brought about by the famous Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education was a long-awaited triumph. But is the story as neat as that? What did writers - and in particular Black women writers - think about segregation in the 1930s-1950s? Did they view racial integration as a path to the promised land? Or as yet another false and incomplete promise? How did their writings reflect a resistance to conventional liberal wisdom - and how might their narrative models speak to today's world? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Eve Dunbar about her book Monstrous Work and Radical Satisfaction: Black Women Writing Under Segregation. PLUS Deni Kasa (The Politics of Grace in Early Modern Literature) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 617 Politics and Grace in Early Modern Literature (with Deni Kasa) | Mike Recommends... James Baldwin! | My Last Book with Carlos Allende
• 358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) | Charles Dickens's Gospel (with Scott Carter)
• 485 Reading Pleasures - Everyday Black Living in Early America (with Tara A. Bynum)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Acclaimed Irish novelist Colm Tóibín first read James Baldwin just after turning eighteen. Inspired by the illumination and insight in Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, Tóibín would soon become a lifelong fan. In this episode, Tóibín tells Jacke about that original encounter, the qualities he most admires in Baldwin's work, Baldwin's spiritual relationship to the works of Henry James, and more. He also tells Jacke about his new book On James Baldwin, which the Sunday Independent calls "lucid, concise, unpretentious, emotionally engaging, and in some instances, deeply personal. [A] brilliant book."

Additional listening:

• Baldwin v. Faulkner
• James Baldwin - "Going To Meet the Man"
• 645 Richard Wright

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Before his marriage, before meeting Herman Melville, and before the publication of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne was living in near seclusion, writing the stories that formed his first collection Twice-Told Tales. Edgar Allan Poe was impressed: "His tone is singularly effective," he wrote, "wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his themes...We look upon him as one of the few men of indisputable genius to whom our country has as yet given birth."

In this episode, Jacke takes a look at one of these Twice-Told Tales, the short story "Wakefield," in which a Londoner abandons his wife, takes up residence one street away, then rejoins his family after twenty years as if he'd never left. The story is read in full by Emma Wilson, HOL producer. PLUS Amelia Possanza (Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 296 Nathaniel Hawthorne
• 461 The Peabody Sisters (with Megan Marshall)
• 297 The Scarlet Letter

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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A legendary king, knights of the round table, magic and myths and valiant quests - the stories of King Arthur (also known as the "Matter of Britain") have captivated readers since the Middle Ages. It's potentially rich material for a contemporary novelist, but as Lev Grossman found, some of the Arthurian world's lesser-known characters can be just as compelling. In this episode, the bestselling author of the Magicians Trilogy tells Jacke about his new take on an old legend in his novel The Bright Sword.

Additional listening:

• 286 JRR Tolkien
• 354 Treasure Island Remixed (with C.B. Lee)
• 175 Virgin Whore - The Virgin Mary in Medieval Literature and Culture (with Professor Emma Maggie Solberg)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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After taking a look at a wintry poem by Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay, Jacke talks to editor John McMurtrie about his new book Literary Journeys Mapping Fictional Travels Across the World of Literature, which celebrates passages of literature that have sent readers to the ends of the earth from Ancient Greece to today.

Additional listening:

• 157 Travel Books (with Mike Palindrome)
• 579 New Year New You! Conversations with Bethanne Patrick and Aislyn Greene
• 95 Runaway Poets: The Triumphant Love Story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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From the beginning of his career as a poet, W.H. Auden wrestled with the meaning of Englishness. He came out with a collection of poems entitled On This Island, but what exactly was this island? A world in ruins? A beautiful (if morally compromised) haven? In this episode, Jacke talks to Nicholas Jenkins (The Island: War and Belonging in Auden's England) about Auden's relationship with the land of his birth, including his preoccupations with the vicissitudes of war, the trials of love, and the problems of identity. PLUS Italian scholar Gabriele Pedullà (On Niccolò Machiavelli: The Bonds of Politics) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 595 Machiavelli (with Gabriele Pedulla)
• 479 Auden and the Muse of History (with Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb)
• 138 Why Poetry (with Matthew Zapruder)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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By listener request, Jacke presents a conversation with Nigerian-born novelist Chigozie Obioma (The Road to the Country, The Fishermen, An Orchestra of Minorities). Obioma, hailed by the New York Times as "the heir to Chinua Achebe," tells Jacke about his childhood in Nigeria, the moment he knew he wanted to be a storyteller, what he values in literature, and more. Special attention is paid to one of Obioma's favorite books, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

[This is an HOL Encore performance. The conversation with Chigozie Obioma originally aired on February 1, 2021.]

Additional listening:

• 552 Writing after Rushdie (with Shilpi Suneja)
• 557 Somerset Maugham (with Tan Twan Eng)
• 314 Gabriel García Márquez (with Patricia Engel)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Guilty pleasures! We use the phrase all the time, but what does it really mean? Can reading a book ever be a guilty pleasure? A listener suggests that it can - and Jacke invites two frequent History of Literature guests to test the theory. For this day-before-Thanksgiving special treat, Laurie Frankel (This Is How It Always Is, Family Family) and Mike Palindrome, the President of the Literature Supporters Club, help Jacke find some guilty pleasures, in literature and life. PLUS Jacke gives his own top ten guilty pleasures. AND Mary Flannery (Geoffrey Chaucer: Unveiling the Merry Bard) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read. Enjoy!

Additional listening:

• 640 Chaucer the Merry Bard (with Mary Flannery)
• 68 Thanksgiving Thoughts (with Mike Palindrome)
• 360 FMK Shakespeare! (with Laurie Frankel) | Tolstoy's Gospel (with Scott Carter)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Troubled patron saint of confessional poetry? Quintessential literary sad girl? Genius poet rightfully viewed as the heir to Emily Dickinson? In her tragically brief life, Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) somehow managed to inspire all of these images and more. In this episode, Jacke talks to Emily Van Duyne about her book Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation, which delivers a nuanced, passionate exploration of the life and work of one of the most misunderstood writers of the twentieth century.

Additional listening:

• Sylvia Plath (with Mike Palindrome)
• Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (with Heather Clark)
• Plath, Hughes, and the "Other Woman" - Assia Wevill and Her Writings (with Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick and Peter Steinberg)
• Sylvia Plath Day by Day (with Carl Rollyson)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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He's best known as the author of The Catcher in the Rye, one of the great publishing and cultural successes of the twentieth century. But there was more to the Jerome David Salinger (1919-2010) story than a single book. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Salinger's childhood and education, his youthful romance thwarted by an unlikely turn of events, his war and postwar experiences as a soldier and special intelligence investigator, his flurry of almost unbelievable success as a writer, and his years of self-imposed seclusion. PLUS an excerpt from the little-known story that first featured Holden Caulfield's first-person voice.

Additional listening:

• 119 The Catcher in the Rye (with Mike Palindrome)
• 32 The Best Debut Novels of All Time (with Mike Palindrome)
• 162 Ernest Hemingway

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to award-winning novelist and short story writer Charles Baxter about his new book, Blood Test: A Comedy, which the New York Times says "provides a snapshot of a troubled America, disguised as a speculative comedy...a quiet masterpiece." PLUS Bill Eville (Washed Ashore: Family, Fatherhood, and Finding Home on Martha's Vineyard) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 63 Chekhov, Bellow, Wright, and Fox (with Charles Baxter)
• 612 Family Matters (with Bill Eville)
• 429 Books I Have Loved (with Charles Baxter, Margot Livesey, and Jim Shepard)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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In 1949, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces posited the existence of a "monomyth," a universal pattern that formed the basis of heroic tales in every culture. But although he maintained that more often than not the young heroes followed an archetypal journey--which in addition to ancient myths can be seen in everything from Star Wars to Harry Potter--Campbell acknowledged that heroines seemed to have a different story arc, but not one that he had taxonomies. In other words, female heroes could go on the same journey that male heroes did--but often they seemed to be doing something different. They too had a narrative arc, but it didn't quite fit the typical storytelling pattern.

In this episode, Jacke talks to author Douglas Burton about his book The Heroine's Labyrinth: Archetypal Designs in Heroine-Led Fiction, which offers up a groundbreaking new paradigm for anyone interested in stories and how they're made. PLUS Doug sticks around to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Written in the early 1300s, Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy has been an essential component of Western literature for more than 700 years. In this episode, Jacke talks to Joseph Luzzi about his book, Dante's Divine Comedy: A Biography, which gives an intimate portrait of the work that has challenged and inspired generations of readers.

Additional listening:

• 131 Dante in Love (with Professor Ellen Nerenberg and Anthony Valerie)
• 589 Dante and Friendship (with Elizabeth Coggeshall)
• 327 Natalia Ginzburg

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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It's a Literary Feast Day at the History of Literature Podcast! First, Jacke talks to old friend Mike Palindrome about his love for A Moveable Feast, Hemingway's late-in-life recollection of his salad days (Pernod days?) in Paris. Then Collin Jennings (Enlightenment Links: Theories of Mind and Media in Eighteenth-Century Britain) explains how his application of computational methods to eighteenth-century fiction, history, and poetry shed new light on the Enlightenment - and what it means for readers in a digital age. And finally, David L. Cooper (The Czech Manuscripts: Forgery, Translation, and National Myth) discusses his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Additional listening suggestions:

• 355 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• 525 Don DeLillo (with Jesse Kavadlo)
• 586 The Czech Manuscripts Hoax (with David Cooper)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Throughout the 1930s, Ernest Hemingway was in the public eye as a journalist, short story writer, activist, and one of the most famous writers on the planet. But his 1937 novel To Have and Have Not fell flat, and critics wondered if the Hemingway who could write a novel on the level of The Sun Also Rises (1926) or A Farewell to Arms (1929) still existed.

All that changed with the publication in 1940 of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Widely read and widely acclaimed, the story of the idealist Robert Jordan in the Spanish Civil War has long been admired (and at times ridiculed) for its depiction of military heroism and wartime romance. But in spite of the criticism that continues to swirl around the novel, its prominence as one of the indispensable masterpieces of war literature has never been in doubt.

In this episode, Jacke talks to editor Alex Vernon about his line-by-line analysis of For Whom the Bell Tolls for the Reading Hemingway series. PLUS Sandra Spanier (series editor of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway project) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Additional listening:

• 633 Hemingway's Letters (with Sandra Spanier)
• 627 Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" (with Mark Cirino)
• 162 Ernest Hemingway

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Although their lives were filled with darkness and death, their love for stories and ideas led them into the bright realms of creative genius. They were the Brontes - Charlotte, Emily, and Anne - who lived with their brother Branwell in an unassuming 19th-century Yorkshire town called Haworth. Their house, a parsonage, sat on a hill, with the enticing but sometimes dangerous moors above and a cemetery, their father’s church, and the industrializing town below. It was a dark little home, with little more than a roof to keep out the rain, a fire to keep things warm at night, and books and periodicals arriving from Edinburgh and London to excite their imagination. And from this humble little town, these three sisters and their active, searching minds exerted an influence on English literature that can still be felt nearly two hundred years later.

[This is an ENCORE presentation of an episode from our archives. The episode originally ran on September 9, 2019.]

Additional listening:

• The Brontes' Secret Scandal (with Finola Austin)
• 508 Byron (with David Ellis)
• 78 Jane Eyre and Other Favorites (with Margot Livesey)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Music Credits:

“Ashton Manor" and "Piano Between" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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When he undertook his research on Harriet Jacobs and her brother John Swanson Jacobs, scholar Jonathan D.S. Schroeder wasn't expecting to find John's long lost autobiography. But there it was, buried in the archives of an Australian newspaper. Unknown for one hundred and sixty-nine years, the narrative bursts with fire and fury, filled with the energy (and intellectual freedom) of an ex-slave and ex-American writing from outside the United States. In this episode, Jacke talks to Jonathan about what it was like to make this incredible discovery - and what the narrative teaches us about the world of nineteenth-century literature and life.

Book link:

The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography (by John Swanson Jacobs (Author) and Jonathan D.S. Schroeder (Editor))

Additional listening suggestions:

• 300 Frederick Douglass
• 311 Frederick Douglass Learns to Read
• 485 Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America (with Dr Tara Bynum)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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"Wright was one of those people," said poet Amiri Baraka, "who made me conscious of the need to struggle."

In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of Black American novelist and poet Richard Wright (1908-1960), author of Uncle Tom's Children, Native Son, Black Boy, and thousands of haiku. Born in Mississippi in desperate poverty to a schoolteacher mother and a sharecropper father (who were themselves the free children of formerly enslaved peoples), Wright had little formal education until he was 12, when he quickly demonstrated his intelligence and passion for reading. After high school, Wright traveled north to Chicago, where he set his most famous work, the fiery Dostoevskyan novel Native Son. Quickly achieving celebrity as one of America's most famous and successful Black writers, Wright moved to Paris, where he lived the rest of his life - and where he met a young James Baldwin, who accepted Wright's help before writing a pair of essays that strongly criticized Wright's fiction.

Additional listening suggestions:

• Baldwin v. Faulkner
• James Baldwin, "Going to Meet the Man"
• 358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Critics didn't know quite what to make of twentieth-century American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), but readers had less difficulty. In spite of mixed reviews, On the Road (1957) quickly became a kind of bible for anyone hoping to squeeze more out of life. In this episode, Jacke talks to Steven Belletto, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Jack Kerouac, about the continuing fascination with the Beat Generation and its most famous avatar.

Additional listening:

• 339 Jack Kerouac
• 619 Novelist Fred Waitzkin Discusses Kerouac
• 283 Planes, Trains & Automobiles - Top 10 Literary Modes of Transportation (with Mike Palindrome)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Aesop's fables - including such classics as "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The Fox and the Grapes," and "The Ant and the Grasshopper" - are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. But who was Aesop? Why was he writing these stories - and what about the ones that weren't written for children? Renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, translator of Aesop's Fables: A New Translation, joins Jacke for a discussion of the legendary Aesop and his legendary tales. PLUS Tove Jansson biographer Boel Westin (Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Additional listening suggestions:

• 605 Tove Jansson, Creator of the Moomins (with Boel Westin)
• 377 The Brothers Grimm
• 531 Fairy Tales (with Jack Zipes)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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It's hard to imagine now, but the United States government wasn't always hostile or indifferent to the arts. In fact, from 1935 to 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal Government responded to the Great Depression by staging over a thousand theatrical productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. How did Roosevelt's administration come to hire over twelve thousand struggling artists, including Orson Welles and Arthur Miller? How successful were the plays? And what ultimately shut them down? James Shapiro (The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War) joins Jacke for a discussion of the Federal Theatre Project and its legacy.

Additional listening suggestions:

• 548 Shakespeare in a Divided America (with James Shapiro)
• 374 Ancient Plays and Contemporary Theater (with Bryan Doerries)
• 624 Top 10 Great Performances (with Laurie Frankel) | My Last Book with James Shapiro

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Medieval manuscripts are so wondrously beautiful they deserve comparison with the world's finest works of art. But what was behind the production of these books? We might think of rows of monks, patiently toiling away in a hushed chamber - but that would be to ignore the actual conditions of book production. In this episode, Sara Charles (The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages) takes Jacke into the dirty, smelly, boring, and back-breaking world of an actual medieval scriptorium. PLUS Dante scholar Elizabeth Coggeshall (On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante's Italy) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Additional listening suggestions:

• 589 Dante and Friendship (with Elizabeth Coggeshall)
• 613 Celebrating the Book-Makers (with Adam Smyth)
• 569 The Man with a Passion for Medieval Manuscripts (with Christopher de Hamel)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Yes, he's the father of English poetry, and yes, he's perhaps best known today for bawdy tales like the Wife of Bath. But who was Geoffrey Chaucer? How did he navigate life during one of the most turbulent periods of English history? And how did he become known as "the merry bard"? In this episode, Jacke talks to biographer Mary Flannery about her new book, Geoffrey Chaucer: Unveiling the Merry Bard.

Additional listening suggestions:

• 523 Geoffrey Chaucer (with Marion Turner)
• 496 The Wife of Bath (with Marion Turner)
• 589 Dante and Friendship (with Elizabeth Coggeshall)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Bibliophiles everywhere know the sweet feeling of getting lost in a book. And like all good literary snobs, we tend to think that full immersion requires a distraction-free relationship between reader and text. But was it always so? After examining early modern French literature, Geoffrey Turnovsky (Reading Typographically: Immersed in Print in Early Modern France) thinks that the answer might not be so simple. In this episode, Jacke and Geoffrey discuss the stereotypes and myths centering around the act of reading a print-based book - and what insights they might deliver to readers in an age of digitization. PLUS Liz Rosenberg (A Strange Life: Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Enjoy this episode? Looking for something else? Try these from our archives:

• 625 Louisa May Alcott - The Essays (with Liz Rosenberg)
• 355 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• 609 Swimming in Paris (with Colombe Schneck)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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For fifty years, Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann (1875-1955) lived his life as Germany's preeminent novelist and one of Europe's most respected intellectuals. In this episode, Jacke examines the truth behind the public image, as the author of Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain, and Mario and the Magician dealt with artistic triumphs, bitter defeats, repressed sexual desires, family turmoil, relentless tragedies, political dangers, exile to America, and ultimately, an uneasy literary legacy.

Looking for more? Try some of these:

• 200 The Magic Mountain
• 463 Friedrich Nietzsche (with Ritchie Robertson)
• 480 Goethe (with Ritchie Robertson)

The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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We asked, you answered! In response to a listener recommendation, we revisit a conversation from 2017 in which Mike and Jacke discuss Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, and Eleanor Coppola's Hearts of Darkness. PLUS novelist Fred Waitzkin (Searching for Bobby Fisher, Anything Is Good) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Enjoy this? Try these from our archive:

• 110 Heart of Darkness - Then and Now
• 619 Fred Waitzkin on Kerouac, Hemingway, and His New Novel
• 505 Ford Madox Ford (with Max Saunders)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Who was Emily Dickinson? We think we know her, or at least one side of her, from her poems. But what was she like when she wasn't writing poetry? What was she like with her friends and family? In this episode, we talk to editor Cristanne Miller about her book The Letters of Emily Dickinson, which presents all 1,304 of Dickinson's extant letters.

Enjoyed this episode? You might like to try some of these episodes:

• 120 The Astonishing Emily Dickinson
• 418 "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson
• 437 A Million Miracles Now - "A Bird, came down the Walk" by Emily Dickinson

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Dealing with reality can be difficult enough, but when the nature of that reality is completely overturned - as it is in a case like the climate crisis - we're left with a feeling of intense unease. What does this mean for us? How can we absorb a revelation that threatens to undermine everything we believe about ourselves and our place in the universe? In this episode, Jacke talks to Allen MacDuffie about his new book Climate of Denial: Darwin, Climate Change, and the Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century, which examines how writers like George Eliot and H.G. Wells dealt with a post-Darwinian world, and asks whether those examples might help readers cope with today's cataclysmic problems. PLUS novelist Adelle Waldman (Help Wanted) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Enjoy this episode? You might enjoy some of these from our archive:

• Upton Sinclair and the Muckraking Novelist (with Adelle Waldman)
• George Eliot
• 330 Middlemarch (with Yang Huang)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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For more than two thousand years, the Bible has been an essential part of the world's conception of humanity and its relationship to God. But although it is in some sense timeless and eternal - literally the word of God - the Bible has always meant different things to different people, as individual communities have regarded this sacred book through their own language and culture. In this episode, Jacke talks to Biblical scholar Bruce Gordon about his new book The Bible: A Global History, which tells the story of how the Bible has shaped - and been shaped by - changing beliefs and believers' radically different needs. PLUS University of London's Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies Michelle P. Brown (Bede and the Theory of Everything) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Enjoy this episode? You might like to try some of these others from our archive:

• 581 The Venerable Bede (with Michelle P Brown)
• 41 The New Testament (with Kyle Keefer)
• C.S. Lewis

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

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Discussions of Ernest Hemingway tend to focus on the peaks of his career, which are typically centered around his most famous novels. But Hemingway was busy in between those novels too, writing articles, short stories, and letters to friends and professional acquaintances. In this episode, Jacke talks to Sandra Spanier, general editor of the monumental Hemingway Letters project, about the lesser known (but eventful) period in Hemingway's life and career covered in The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume 6, 1934-1936. PLUS Byron scholar Andrew Stauffer (Byron: A Life in Ten Letters) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Enjoy this episode? Try some other Hemingway-based episodes in our archive:

• 162 Ernest Hemingway
• 47 Hemingway vs Fitzgerald
• 432 Hemingway's One True Sentence (with Mark Cirino)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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For almost sixty years, Norman Mailer was a fixture on the American literary scene, seemingly as well known for his feuds and personal exploits as he was for his prize-winning novels and groundbreaking journalism. But what was the man really like? As the Library of America commemorates the life and career of Norman Mailer with an edition of his early masterpiece The Naked and the Dead, Jacke talks to the editor of that book, J. Michael Lennon, who was intimately associated with Mailer as both friend and professional colleague.

Enjoyed this episode? You might also like to try some of these from our archive:

• 627 Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" (with Mark Cirino)
• 143 A Soldier's Heart - Teaching Literature at West Point (with Elizabeth Samet)
• Conflict Literature (with Matt Gallagher)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Recently, we talked to novelist Jodi Picoult about her contention that many of the works commonly attributed to Shakespeare were actually written by a woman named Emilia Bassano (a.k.a. Aemilia Lanyer). But even as that compelling theory awaits definitive proof, we already know of several women - Shakespeare's contemporaries - who overcame obstacles and wrote their way through a male-dominated literary world. In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar Ramie Targoff (Shakespeare's Sisters: How Women Wrote the Renaissance) about the women who defied the odds and defined themselves as writers at a time when women were legally the property of men. PLUS Jacke talks to Sarah Gristwood (Secret Voices: A Year of Women's Diaries) about her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Was Shakespeare gay? Will Tosh, head of research at Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London, says that question has an easy answer - but more importantly, when it comes to understanding Shakespeare's sexuality, it isn't really the right question to ask. In this episode, Jacke talks to Will about his book Straight Acting: The Hidden Queer Lives of William Shakespeare, which puts Shakespeare's artistry in the context of Elizabethan England's attitudes toward sex, intimacy, and identity. PLUS Jacke goes on the hunt for the mysterious carnival worker who inspired a young Ray Bradbury.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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For thousands of years, desperate writers have struggled with the condition known as writer's block. In this episode, Jacke talks to novelist Kate Feiffer about her book Morning Pages, in which a playwright on a tight deadline tries Julia Cameron's trick of starting her day with some stream-of-consciousness writing - with results that threaten to be more hilarious than productive.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

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Is it really true? Did the Elizabethan poet Emilia Bassano (sometimes known as Aemelia Lanyer) actually write Shakespeare's works? A bestselling novelist thinks so - and she's turned her research-based theories into an entertaining and thought-provoking work of fiction. In this episode, Jacke talks to Jodi Picoult about her new book BY ANY OTHER NAME, which tells the story of a modern-day playwright who discovers her ancestor Emilia Bassano's tantalizing connection to Shakespeare and the works traditionally ascribed to him. PLUS Allison Pataki (Finding Margaret Fuller) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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It's one of the most famous and admired short stories that Ernest Hemingway ever wrote - and also one of the most controversial. In this episode, Hemingway expert Mark Cirino (host of the One True Podcast) joins Jacke for a discussion of "Hills Like White Elephants," in which a terse exchange between two lovers in a remote Spanish train station reveals a profound moral and existential crisis. (NOTE: Never read the story? Or maybe it's been a while? Fear not! The episode also contains a reading of the story, to bring you back up to speed.)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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As fans of literature, we all know how powerful and effective storytelling can be. But can we harness that power to help us communicate in our daily lives? In this episode, Jacke talks to Matt Abrahams (Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You're Put on the Spot) about the lessons we can learn from literature - and how we can leverage an understanding of storytelling structure to help us succeed both personally and professionally. PLUS Mike Palindrome joins Jacke for a discussion of his longtime passion for the essays of French cultural critic and literary theorist Roland Barthes.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Since the publication of Little Women in 1868, millions of readers have gotten to know (and love) Louisa May Alcott through her fiction. But in her own day, Alcott was well known as an essayist who wrote on a wide range of subjects, including her father's failed utopian commune and her experience as a Civil War army nurse. In this episode, Jacke talks to Alcott biographer and editor Liz Rosenberg (Scribbles, Sorrows, and Russet Leather Boots: A Life of Louisa May Alcott) about her new book, A Strange Life: Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Theater is by nature ephemeral: even the greatest of performances are fleeting, thrilling a single audience before disappearing into history. But what if you could travel through time and space to be present at any production? Where would you go, and what would you see? In this episode, friend of the podcast Laurie Frankel (Family, Family) helps Jacke choose the ten best performances they wish they'd seen. PLUS theater expert James Shapiro stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The Hakkenden, or Eight Dogs is one of the classics of Japanese literature. In this episode, Jacke talks to translator Glynne Walley about this massive - and massively popular and influential - nineteenth-century novel about eight warriors who band together to defend a princess's clan. PLUS Jacke takes a look at the years when the Olympics awarded medals to artists as well as athletes - including the surprising winner of the first Olympic gold medal in literature.

Music Credits:

"Call to Adventure" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Lesbians have been around for thousands of years (at least!), but their voices have often fallen victim to censorship, oppression, and ostracization. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Amelia Possanza, whose new book Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives describes Possanza's research into seven love stories for the ages. What can these lesbians from the past, who persisted against numerous obstacles, teach us about love, care, and community? PLUS Jacke takes a look at Emily Dickinson's famous poem #314 ("'Hope' is the thing with feathers -").

Music Credits:

"Tango de Manzana" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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For Virginia Woolf, Leo Tolstoy was "the greatest of all novelists," and her argument was simple: "[W]hat else can we call the author of War and Peace?" In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Tolstoy's original plans for the novel; the unusual nature of the book, which Henry James called a "loose, baggy monster"; the contributions of Tolstoy's wife Sophia; the reception at the time (and ever since); how Tolstoy was both right and wrong about what the book ultimately accomplished; and more.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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What was the deal with the Victorians and their obsession with reanimating corpses? How did writers like Mary Shelley, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, W.B. Yeats, Bram Stoker, and others breathe life into the undead - and why did they do it? We can attribute their efforts to the present's desire to remake the past in its own image - but what does that mean exactly? In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Renée Fox about her book The Necromantics: Reanimation, the Historical Imagination, and Victorian British and Irish Literature. PLUS Jacke explores what notable German-Swiss author Herman Hesse learned from trees.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Novelist Fred Waitzkin (Searching for Bobby Fischer) stops by to discuss Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway, and his new novel Anything Is Good, which tells the story of a childhood friend who was a genius - and who ended up living among the unhoused for years. PLUS Michael Blanding (In Shakespeare's Shadow: A Rogue Scholar's Quest to Reveal the True Source Behind the World's Greatest Plays) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Women haven't always been given an equal chance to contribute to literature - but they were writing nevertheless, sometimes just for themselves. In this episode, Jacke talks to Sarah Gristwood (Secret Voices: A Year of Women's Diaries) about her new collection of extracts from four centuries of women's diaries. PLUS Jacke shares a poem by Sharon Olds and talks to Suzanne Scanlon (Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen) about her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Early modern poets - John Milton, Edmund Spenser, Aemilia Lanyer, Abraham Cowley - lived in a world where theological questions were as hotly contested as political struggles over issues like empire, gender, civil war, and poetic authority. In this episode, Jacke talks to Deni Kasa (The Politics of Grace in Early Modern Literature) about the ways poets used the theological concept of grace to reimagine their political communities. PLUS Mike Palindrome tells Jacke about his admiration for James Baldwin and his works. AND Carlos Allende (Coffee, Shopping, Murder, Love) tells Jacke about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The relationship between literature and "madwomen" has deep roots. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Suzanne Scanlon (Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen) about her efforts to reclaim the idea of the madwoman as a template for insight and transcendence. PLUS Jacke talks to Adhar Noor Desai (Blotted Lines: Early Modern English Literature and the Poetics of Discomposition) about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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What a treat! First, Jacke talks to Nicholson Baker, an author he's been reading for the past three decades, about Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art, Baker's deeply personal account of his journey learning how to paint for the first time, and a meditation on the power of art in times of crisis. Then Vera Kutizinski and Anthony Reed, editors of Langston Hughes in Context, stop by to discuss their choices for the last books they will ever read. Enjoy!

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Families can provide wonderful material for a writer, but they can also be tricky to navigate. How do you make your stories of home interesting to other people? What's too personal? What's not personal enough? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Bill Eville (Washed Ashore: Family, Fatherhood, and Finding Home on Martha's Vineyard) about his personal journey as a father, a husband, and a writer. PLUS Jacke celebrates Father's Day with three poems (by Ben Jonson, Sharon Olds, and Edgar Albert Guest) and an object lesson of his own ("The Burger Car").

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Books are beloved objects, earning lots of praise as amazing pieces of technology and essential contributors to a civilized society. And yet, we often take these cultural miracles for granted. Who's been making these things for the last several centuries? How have they influenced what we've been reading? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Adam Smyth, an Oxford professor of literature who opened up his own small press, about his new work The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives. Then medieval manuscript expert Christopher de Hamel (The Manuscripts Club: The People Behind a Thousand Years of Medieval Manuscripts) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Fearless and fiercely intelligent, the nineteenth-century American feminist Margaret Fuller was "the radiant genius and fiery heart" of the Transcendentalists, the group of New Englanders who helped launch a fledgling nation onto the world's cultural and literary stage. In this episode, bestselling historical novelist Allison Pataki, author of the new novel Finding Margaret Fuller, joins Jacke to discuss what it was like to bring this remarkable nineteenth-century woman to life. PLUS James Marcus (Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Scottish writer John Buchan is perhaps best known for his pioneering thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps, the source material for one of Alfred Hitchcock's first great films. But as his biographer (and granddaughter) Ursula Buchan tells Jacke, Buchan was far from a one-hit wonder. John Buchan wrote more than a hundred books of fiction and non-fiction and a thousand newspaper and magazine articles - and he was just getting started. Ursula's book Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John Buchan depicts the remarkable life of this twentieth-century writer (and scholar, antiquarian, barrister, journal editor, war correspondent, member of parliament, director of wartime propaganda, Governor-General of Canada, and more!).

PLUS Jacke reads a special letter by Ernest Hemingway, and Marsha Gordon (Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Why do we read John Keats and not one of his well-regarded peers? Why do some authors disappear into the sands of time - while others, virtually unknown in their day, become posthumous household names? In this episode, Jacke talks to Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein (How to Become Famous: Lost Einsteins, Forgotten Superstars, and How the Beatles Came to Be) about the phenomenon of fame, with a particular emphasis on how it affects the world of literature. PLUS author and TLS managing director James MacManus (Love in a Lost Land) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he'll ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Dear listeners: What kind of life are you living? What's your relationship between your body, mind, and soul? And what can you learn about your deepest self as you get older? In this episode, Jacke talks to award-winning French novelist Colombe Schneck about her new book, Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories, in which she dives into her past to understand her present and - maybe - finds the way to a new future. Then Professor Pardis Dabashi (Losing the Plot: Film and Feeling in the Modern Novel) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Colombe Schneck is documentary film director, a journalist, and the author of twelve books of fiction and nonfiction. She has received prizes from the Académie française, Madame Figaro, and the Société des gens de lettres. The recipient of a scholarship from the Villa Medici in Rome as well as a Stendhal grant from the Institut français, she was born and educated in Paris, where she still lives.

Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories, Schneck's twelfth book, tells the story of a woman’s personal journey through abortion, sex, friendship, love, and swimming.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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First published in 1980, Between Dog and Wolf by Sasha Sokolov is one of the most acclaimed Russian novels of the twentieth century. But the book, with its dazzling wordplay, shifting-sand narration, and other literary pyrotechnics, has been tough for English-speaking audiences to appreciate. In this episode, Jacke talks to Jose Vergara about his new project, The Encyclopedia of the Dog, an online bilingual digital version of Sokolov's novel, which seeks to make a literary masterwork accessible to new audiences. Then Jacke talks to Gareth Russell (The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of British History at Hampton Court) about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Find Encyclopedia of the Dog at https://encyclopediaofthedog.com/.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Can novelists make a difference in the world? Of course we know they can - we've seen plenty of examples. But how does it happen? And what are the challenges a twenty-first century novelist might face when hoping to bring about social change? In this episode, Jacke looks at the example of Upton Sinclair, whose famous novel The Jungle shone a spotlight on the immigrants working in Chicago's meatpacking plants and led to key social reforms. Then Jacke talks to Adelle Waldman (The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.), whose new novel Help Wanted is set in the world of workers at a big box store. And finally, Professor Edward Chamberlin (Storylines: How Words Shape Our World) returns to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Why do we fall in love? Why do we fall out of love? And how can literature shape the way we travel these emotional and romantic landscapes? In this episode, Jacke talks to University of Oxford professor Sophie Ratcliffe about her work of creative criticism, Loss, A Love Story: Imagined Histories and Brief Encounters.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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She's been called Scandinavia's best loved author - but "author" only begins to describe Tove Jansson's genius. Famous worldwide as the creator of the Moomin stories, she balanced her talents as a painter, cartoonist, illustrator, and writer with an unusual lifestyle and an insistence on personal freedom. In this episode, Jacke talks to biographer Boel Westin (Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words) about the joyful and uncompromising approach that Tove Jansson brought to life, love, and her many creative pursuits.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov... the familiar Russian names are at the pinnacle of world literature. How did this happen? Was it merely a happy accident? Did events conspire to bring it about? In this episode, Jacke talks to Rolf Hellebust, author of How Russian Literature Became Great, about a golden age of historiography and nation-building - and the consequences for the history of literature.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Born more than two centuries ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson has long been recognized as a giant of nineteenth-century American letters. But what can he offer readers today? In this episode, Jacke talks to author James Marcus, author of the new book Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which reconsiders Emerson's reputation as a "starry-eyed prophet of self-reliance" in favor of a more complicated figure who spent a lifetime wrestling with injustice, philosophy, art, desire, and suffering.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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We humans imprint ourselves on our surroundings - and they, in turn, have the power to affect us. In this episode, Jacke talks to Gareth Russell (The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of History at Hampton Court) about the building that Thomas Hardy famously called a "Spellbound Palace" in one of his finest poems. We'll hear about the building's history and why it holds a special place in literary history, including the planning of the King James Bible and as a site for early Shakespeare performances. PLUS Jess Cotton (John Ashbery: A Critical Life) selects her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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It's the start of a new hundred episodes! Fresh off her tour for her new novel The Road from Belhaven, superguest Margot Livesey joins Jacke for a discussion of mistakes in the novels of Thomas Hardy. Then Jacke tells Margot the heartrending story of Hardy's fraught relationship with his first wife Emma - and how Emma's death unlocked some of his greatest poetry.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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It's another milestone for the History of Literature Podcast! Jacke celebrates the six hundredth episode of the podcast with a return to one of his old favorites, the "harmless drudge" himself, Dr. Johnson, with the help of Johnsonian expert Phil Jones (Reading Samuel Johnson: Reception and Representation, 1750-1970). PLUS Rupert Holmes (Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide) shares his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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While avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky might be most famous for the wildly ambitious version of Dune that never got made - in spite of having actors and artists like Orson Welles, Salvador Dalí, Mick Jagger, Pink Floyd, H.R. Giger, and Mœbius attached to the project - he was also the creative force behind several dynamic and influential films. In this episode, William Egginton (The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Kant, Heisenberg, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality) returns to discuss his new book, Alejandro Jodorowsky: Filmmaker and Philosopher. PLUS David Sterling Brown (Shakespeare's White Others) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Charmian Kittredge London (1871-1955) may be best known as the wife of the famous American writer Jack London, but she was herself a literary trailblazer - and the epitome of a modern woman. In this episode, Jacke talks to biographer Iris Jamahl Dunkle (Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer) about the intriguing life and inspirational career of an underappreciated literary figure. PLUS Mike Palindrome, President of the Literature Supporters Club, makes the case for the greatness of Christopher Isherwood, and Duncan Yoon (China in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century African Literature) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard (b. 1968) became known in his home country - or at least its literary circles - when he put out two well-received novels in the late 1990s. But it was the publication of his six-volume autobiographical series Min Kamp, or My Struggle, that turned him into a household name - and when the books were translated into English in 2012, he became a worldwide publishing phenomenon. In this episode, Jacke talks to editor Bob Blaisdell about his own reading of Knausgaard, the experience of interviewing him, and the editing of the new book Conversations with Karl Ove Knausgaard, which collects twenty-two interviews with Knausgaard, all conducted as this curious and controversial writer was gaining worldwide attention. PLUS author Nicholas Dames (The Chapter: A Segmented History from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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It's a literary smorgasbord! First, Jacke dives into the recent news of the surprising connection between Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson. Next, he welcomes Mike Palindrome, President of the Literature Supporters Club, for a discussion of why Mike has been reading Flannery O'Connor for so many years. Then storytelling expert J. Edward Chamberlin stops by to discuss his new book, Storylines: How Words Shape Our Worlds, which explores the power of stories to transform despair and disillusionment into hope and possibility. And finally, poet and podcaster Shin Yu Pai (Ten Thousand Things) selects the last book she will ever read. Smaklig måltid!

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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For centuries, Machiavelli has been viewed as everything from an insightful pragmatist to the mouthpiece of Satan. In this episode, Jacke talks to Italian scholar Gabriele Pedullà about his book On Niccolò Machiavelli: The Bonds of Politics, which offers a surprising new take on a 500-year-old literary and political giant. PLUS Vergil translator and biographer Sarah Ruden (Vergil: The Poet's Life) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) has been called the last person to have read everything. He is also one of the greatest poet-critics in the history of literature, known for works like "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Kubla Khan," "Frost at Midnight," and the Biographia Literaria. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of this highly influential figure.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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It's a multi-course literary feast at the History of Literature Podcast! Today we serve up some thoughts on books and the arts from Galileo Galilei; Mike Palindrome and his decades of reading Russian folktale theorist Vladimir Propp; Professor Valeria Sobol (Haunted Empire) and her inquiry into Russian Gothic literature and the "imperial uncanny"; and Vanessa Riley (Island Queen, Queen of Exiles), the Queen of Black Historical Fiction, stops by to tell us about her selection of the last book she will ever read. Bon appétit!!

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Virgil (or Vergil) was the most celebrated poet of Ancient Rome - and also one of the most enigmatic. In this episode, Jacke talks to biographer and translator Sarah Ruden about her book Vergil: A Poet's Life. PLUS some thoughts on Charles Darwin's last book, and a chat with acclaimed historian Tom Holland (Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age) about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke takes a look at the life and works of Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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How do geniuses compose their poetry and prose? Do they carefully and laboriously revise until they achieve perfection? Or does perfection just flow out of them - as it reportedly did for Shakespeare? In this episode, Adhaar Noor Desai (Blotted Lines: Early Modern English Literature and the Poetics of Discomposition) tells Jacke about the discoveries he made when analyzing the manuscripts of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. PLUS Lara Vetter (H.D. (Hilda Dolittle): A Critical Life) discusses her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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We know - or we think we know - what friendship is today, but what did it mean to Dante? In this episode, Jacke travels back to the Middle Ages with Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall (On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante's Italy) to discuss how Dante and his contemporaries understood the concept of friendship. PLUS Dr. Tara Bynum (Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Many readers today are familiar with the impact that Western countries have had on Africa, as told through the eyes of writers in both Africa and the West. But what about China and its growing influence in Africa? How have twentieth- and twenty-first-century African writers viewed the impact of Chinese businesses and culture on their homeland? In this episode, Jacke talks to NYU professor Duncan M. Yoon about his book China in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century African Literature, which unpacks the long-standing complexity of exchanges between Africans and Chinese as far back as the Cold War and beyond. PLUS Katherine Howe (The Penguin Book of Witches, The Penguin Book of Pirates, A True Account: Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself) discusses her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Few writers have achieved the celebrity of the notorious Romantic poet Lord Byron. But what was he like in private? In this episode, Jacke talks to Andrew Stauffer about his new book, Byron: A Life in Ten Letters. PLUS Jonathan van Belle (Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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In 1817 and 1818, the discovery of two sets of Czech manuscripts helped fuel the Czech National Revival, as promoters of Czech nationalism trumpeted these centuries-old works as foundational texts of a national mythology. There was only one problem: they were completely forged. In this episode, Jacke talks to David Cooper about his new book, The Czech Manuscripts: Forgery, Translation, and National Myth, which looks at why people were so eager to fall for this hoax - and what happened when the truth was learned. PLUS Jesse Kavadlo, President of the Don DeLillo Society and editor of Don DeLillo in Context, discusses his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

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As far back as Aristotle, plots have been viewed as essential components of long-form narratives. So what happened when Modern novelists like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and Djuna Barnes began turning away from conventional plots? Why did they do this and what were the consequences for their art? In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Pardis Dabashi about her new book, Losing the Plot: Film and Feeling in the Modern Novel. PLUS Booker Prize-winning author Anne Enright (The Wren, The Wren) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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James MacManus was a foreign correspondent for The Guardian during a golden era of covering wars in faroff places. In this episode, Jacke talks to James about his career as a journalist, his transition to becoming the managing director of the Times Literary Supplement, and his new novel, Love in a Lost Land, which recalls his experiences covering the war in 1970s Rhodesia. PLUS Peter K. Andersson (Fool: In Search of Henry VIII's Closest Man) discusses his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Philosopher, poet, playwright, science fiction writer, scientist, and celebrity Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was a public and publishing sensation. In this episode, Jacke talks to biographer Francesca Peacock about her new book, Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish. PLUS Patrick Whitmarsh (Writing Our Extinction: Anthropocene Fiction and Vertical Science) selects his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Superguest Mike Palindrome joins Jacke for a reading and discussion of D.H. Lawrence's short story "Tickets, Please" (1918), a "war of the sexes" modernist story in which some innocent flirtation turns to revenge and violence. PLUS literature aficionado Myron Tuman returns to the podcast to discuss his selection for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to author Michelle P. Brown about her new book, Bede and the Theory of Everything, which investigates the life and world of Bede (c. 673-735), the foremost scholar of the Middle Ages and the "father of English history." PLUS Adrian Edwards, Head of Printed Heritage Collections at the British Library, stops by to select his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The evidence is clear: Henry David Thoreau was an industrious person who worked hard throughout his life. And yet, he's often viewed as a kind of dreamy layabout who dropped out of society so he could sit by his pond and think his thoughts. Can we reconcile these two figures? What did work mean to Thoreau? And what advice did he have for the rest of us? In this episode, Jacke talks to Thoreau scholar Jonathan van Belle about the new book he's co-authored, Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living. PLUS Andrew Pettegree (The Book at War: How Reading Shaped Conflict and Conflict Shaped Reading) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Music Credits:

“Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the Free Music Archive / CC by SA).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Happy New Year! Jacke kicks off 2024 with two of his favorite subjects: Books and Travel. First, Bethanne Patrick stops by to talk about the new season of Missing Pages, the Signal Award-winning, Webby Award-nominated, and chart-topping podcast about the world of books and book culture. Next, Aislyn Greene, host of the podcast Travel Tales by AFAR, joins Jacke for a discussion of conscientious travel, reading while traveling, and the pleasures of discovering bookstores in new places. Enjoy!

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Nicholas Dames (The Chapter: A Segmented History from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century) started his latest project with a seemingly simple question: Why do books have chapters? In this episode, as we turn from one year to the next, Jacke talks to an expert in segmentation. PLUS Hamid Dabashi (The Persian Prince: The Rise and Resurrection of an Imperial Archetype) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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What books to buy for others? What books to read? In this guest episode from FT Weekend's Life and Art podcast, members of the Financial Times books team answer listener questions and share their personal recommendations from 2023.

Follow the Life and Art podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

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'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house / Not a creature was stirring, not even a...FRAUD!?

In this episode, Jacke dives into the dispute over one of the most famous Christmas poems of all time, "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "The Night Before Christmas" or "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"). Long attributed to the somewhat curmudgeonly figure Clement C. Moore, new research has called that authorship into question. Does ANOTHER Christmas poem by Moore unlock the mystery? PLUS History of Literature superguest Marion Turner (Chaucer, a European Life; The Wife of Bath: A Biography) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Zelda and Scott, Henry and June and Anaïs, Jean-Paul and Simone, Vladimir and Vera... the names that ring out from the 1930s are those of some of the most famous artists and intellectuals of the twentieth century. Everyone who was everyone, it seemed, was in Europe, but as the Roaring Twenties faded, a new political reality took hold. The winds of war were once again stirring - how would these artists adapt? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Florian Illies about his new book, Love in a Time of Hate: Art and Passion in the Shadow of War, about the way figures like Pablo Picasso, Marlene Dietrich, Thomas Mann, and Walter Benjamin pursued their art - and often their passionate romances - in the shadow of political uncertainty. PLUS Jacke takes a look at some famous holiday songwriters.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Shakespeare helped to make the Fool a common literary character. But what about the real-life fools who served in actual courts? Who were they and what kind of lives did they lead? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Peter K. Andersson about his book Fool: In Search of Henry VIII's Closest Man, which tells the story of Will Somer, an unusual man with a very strange job. PLUS Milton expert Ed Simon (Heaven, Hell, and Paradise Lost) selects his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Books are often viewed as the pinnacle of civilization; war, on the other hand, is where civilization breaks down. What happens when these two forces encounter one another? In this episode, Jacke talks to esteemed literary historian Andrew Pettegree about his new book, The Book at War: How Reading Shaped Conflict and Conflict Shaped Reading. PLUS Robin Lane Fox (Homer and His Iliad) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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After taking a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #269 ("Wild Nights - wild nights!"), Jacke talks to novelist Anne Enright about growing up in Ireland, her writing career, and her new book The Wren, The Wren. PLUS Dublin literary historian Christopher Morash (Dublin: A Writer's City) stops by to select the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke reads "Odour of Chrysanthemums," D.H. Lawrence's story about a woman waiting for her husband, a coal miner, to come home. Then Mike Palindrome, the President of the Literature Supporters Club, stops by to discuss his trip to the Proust Conference and his thoughts on Lawrence's classic short story.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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After discussing Emily Dickinson's Poem #259 ("A Clock stopped -"), Jacke talks to author David Sterling Brown about his new book Shakespeare's White Others. PLUS novelist Shilpi Suneja (House of Caravans) selects the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to bestselling author Katharine Howe (editor of The Penguin Book of Pirates) about her new novel, A True Account: Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pirates, Written by Herself. PLUS an analysis of Emily Dickinson's Poem #256 ("The Robin's my Criterion for Tune-")

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to British academic librarian Christopher de Hamel about his passion for medieval manuscripts and his new book The Manuscripts Club: The People Behind a Thousand Years of Medieval Manuscripts. PLUS Maaheen Ahmed, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Comics, stops by to select the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke celebrates autumn with a look at Shakespeare's Sonnet #73 ("That time of year thou mayst in me behold"), then welcomes novelist Laurie Frankel (Family Family, One Two Three) for a Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving discussion of one of Shakespeare's last works, The Tempest.

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Your wish is our command! Jacke talks to listener-nominated "dream guest" Dr. Jessica Kirzane about her work with Yiddish literature, including her recent translations of early twentieth-century writer Miriam Karpilove, Diary of a Lonely Girl and A Provincial Newspaper and Other Stories. PLUS fairy-tale expert Jack Zipes (Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion) returns to the show to select his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to Adrian Edwards, the lead curator of the British Library's Printed Heritage Collections, about the new book Shakespeare's First Folio: 400th Anniversary Facsimile Edition: Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, Published According to the Original Copies. PLUS Jacke takes a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #243 ("That after Horror - that 'twas us -")

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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It was an era known as the Golden Age of Rome, when the republic-turned-empire became the wealthiest and most formidable state in the history of humankind. In this episode, Jacke talks to novelist-turned-historian Tom Holland (Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic, Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar) about his new book Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age. PLUS fellow historian Honor Cargill-Martin (Messalina: Empress, Adultress, Libertine: The Story of the Most Notorious Woman of the Roman World) returns to the show to select her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to scholar and biographer Lara Vetter (H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)) about the life and works of modernist poet and avant-garde woman Hilda Dolittle, better known by her nom de plume H.D.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to "serial biographer" Carl Rollyson (The Last Days of Sylvia Plath, The Life of William Faulkner) about his new book, Sylvia Plath: Day by Day: Volume 1: 1932-1955, which draws upon Plath's diaries and other writings to present Plath's life from her birth in Boston, through her elementary, high school, and college years, to her acceptance of admission at Cambridge University. PLUS Jacke takes a look at Emily Dickinson Poem #240 ("Bound a Trouble - and Lives will bear it").

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke starts the show with a listener email and a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #238 ("How many times these low feet staggered - "). THEN author Myron Tuman (The Stuttering Son in Literature and Psychology: Boys and Their Fathers, Don Juan and His Daughter: The Incestuous Lover in the Female Literary Imagination, stops by for a discussion of his early career, his rediscovery of his passion for nineteenth-century narratives, and the slew of books about literature he's written since then.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Who was Homer? And why, all these years later, do we still read his Iliad? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Robin Lane Fox (Homer and His Iliad) about his lifelong passion for this classic ancient text. PLUS Katherine Howe, editor of The Penguin Book of Witches, stops by to deliver a Halloween-themed dose of witches in literature.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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It's the early nineteenth century, and the moon is bright, the Hudson Valley forests are full of shadows, and a lonely schoolteacher heads home on his rickety horse. All those stories he's heard about a headless horseman are just stuff and nonsense...aren't they?

In this episode, Jacke continues his look at early American writer Washington Irving (1783-1859) with a reading of Irving's classic 1820 Halloween story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

PLUS a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #236 ("Some - keep the Sabbath - going to church - ")

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke takes a look at "America's first Man of Letters," Washington Irving (1783-1859), most famous for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle." PLUS Joe Skinner of American Masters: Creative Spark chooses the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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How do we humans experience nature? And how might we experience nature differently from one another? In this episode, Jacke talks to writer, film producer, arts and abolition organizer, cultural worker, and educator Erin Sharkey about a new book of essays she edited, A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars, in which "a constellation of luminary writers reflect on the significance of nature in their lived experience and on the role of nature in the lives of Black folks in the United States." PLUS Jacke continues his journey through the poetry of Emily Dickinson with a look at Poem 232 ("He forgot - and I - remembered -").

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The English novelist, playwright, and short story writer Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) lived a life as eventful as his prodigious literary output. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Maugham's travels and travails, following Maugham across numerous continents as he sought material for his writing - and a safe resting place for himself and his various male companions. Then Jacke is joined by novelist Tan Twan Eng (The Gift of Rain, The Garden of Evening Mists) to discuss his new novel The House of Doors, which is based in part on Maugham's experiences on the Malay Peninsula.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Born in 1820, the devout Quaker Anna Sewell was in her fifties - and terminally ill - when she decided to write a book that would change the way the public viewed and treated animals. Although her novel Black Beauty has since become a familiar classic, Sewell did not live to see its success, dying just five months after its publication. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Celia Brayfield (Writing Black Beauty: Anna Sewell and the Story of Animal Rights) about a remarkable book and its remarkable author. PLUS Jacke continues his stroll through the selected poems of Emily Dickinson with a look at Poem 224 ("An awful Tempest mashed the air -").

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Shakespeare's plays and poetry are some of the most towering achievements in the history of humankind. What was Shakespeare the person like? How did he work? What made him laugh? In this episode, Jacke talks to Sir Stanley Wells about his new book What Was Shakespeare Really Like? Then David Ellis (Byron: A Critical Life) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. PLUS Jacke continues his journey through the selected poetry of Emily Dickinson, with a look at Poem 204 ("I'll tell you how the Sun rose -").

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! After taking a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #1 94 ("Title divine - is mine!"), Jacke talks to Cambridge University's Jess Cotton, whose biography of John Ashbery (John Ashbery: A Critical Life) charts Ashbery's rise from a minor avant-garde figure to the most important poet of his generation. PLUS contemporary poet David van den Berg (Love Letters from an Arsonist) stops by to offer his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke takes a look at "A Haunted House," Virginia Woolf's modernist ghost story. PLUS Ford Madox Ford biographer Max Saunders (Ford Madox Ford: A Critical Life) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to novelist Shilpi Suneja about her childhood in India, her discovery of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, and her new novel House of Caravans, which offers its own fresh look at Indian Independence and its aftermath.

Shilpi Suneja is the author of House of Caravans. Born in India, her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in Guernica, McSweeney’s, Cognoscenti, and the Michigan Quarterly Review. Her writing has been supported by a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship, a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship, a Grub Street Novel Incubator Scholarship, and she was the Desai fellow at the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat. She holds an MA in English from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from Boston University, where she was awarded the Saul Bellow Prize. She lives in Cambridge, MA.

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke takes a look at the life and works of eighteenth-century novelist Charlotte Lennox, whose poetry, plays, novels, and criticism earned her the approbation of the best literary minds of her day. Best known for The Female Quixote, a parody of Cervantes that later inspired Jane Austen, and Shakespear Illustrated, a pioneering feminist critique of Shakespeare's use of his sources (and frequent diminishment of his female characters), Lennox combined an active intelligence with an unusual fearlessness. PLUS Jacke talks to Camus scholars Laura Marris and Alice Kaplan, co-authors of States of Plague: Reading Camus in a Pandemic, about their choices for the last book they will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Just who was F. Scott Fitzgerald? How do we make sense of his many different sides? In this episode, Jacke talks to biographer Arthur Krystal about his new book Some Unfinished Chaos: The Lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald. PLUS Jed Rasula (What the Thunder Said: How The Waste Land Made Poetry Modern) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Hardly anyone knows Ursula Parrott today, but not long ago she was close to being a household name. As a bestselling novelist of the Roaring Twenties and beyond, Parrott's life was filled with literature, celebrity, and scandal. In this episode, Jacke talks to Parrott's biographer Marsha Gordon (Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life & Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott) about this fascinating figure, whose racy novel Ex-Wife reads like a Jazz Age forerunner to Bridget Jones, Sex and the City, and the works of authors like Erica Jong and Nora Ephron.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro about his new book, Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future, which looks at eight contentious periods in American history to see how Shakespeare plays and performances illuminated the concerns of each era. PLUS Jacke continues his journey through Emily Dickinson's poems with Poem 165 ("I have never seen 'Volcanoes' - ").

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to author William Egginton about his new book Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality, which uses the examples of three profound thinkers to explore the differences between reality "out there" and reality as we experience it. PLUS Jacke continues his journey through the poetry of Emily Dickinson with a look at Poem 138 ("To fight aloud is very brave - ").

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to Professor Maaheen Ahmed, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Comics, about the popular, multifaceted, and dynamic art form of manga, graphic novels, and other comics. PLUS Elizabeth Winkler (Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature) selects her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to author Ed Simon about his new book Heaven, Hell, and Paradise Lost, which considers Paradise Lost within the scope of Simon's alcoholism and recovery. PLUS Jacke continues his journey through the poetry of Emily Dickinson with a look at Poem 134 ("Did the Harebell loose her girdle").

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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In this episode, Jacke and Mike discuss Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee's stunning 1999 novel about sex, violence, salvation, and ruin in post-apartheid South Africa. Telling the story of David Lurie, a fiftysomething professor who has fallen from grace after a sexual misconduct case involving one of his students, the novel explores themes of guilt, isolation, and the inescapability of history. PLUS a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #129 ("Our lives are Swiss").

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Rome! The Eternal City! It's a place for celebrating lives both present and past - and in addition to all the art and culture and architecture and food, it's a place to think deeply about the meaning of life. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Scott Samuelson about his new book Rome as a Guide to the Good Life: A Philosophical Grand Tour, which offers a thinking person's guide to the pleasures of Rome.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke begins with a look at Emily Dickinson's poem #122, then continues (and concludes) his reading and analysis of the Henry James masterpiece, "The Altar of the Dead."

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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During a horrible period of grief, literary failure, and general bewilderment, Henry James turned to art - and created some of his greatest masterpieces. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at one of James's best (and most underappreciated) stories, "The Altar of the Dead."

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke kicks things off with a look at Emily Dickinson's Poem #90, then welcomes author Vanessa Riley for a discussion of her new historical novel Queen of Exiles, which tells the story of Haiti's Queen Marie-Louise Christophe. PLUS author Jolene Hubbs selects her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke and Mike take a look at the stormy Fitzgerald marriage and F. Scott Fitzgerald's fourth novel, Tender Is the Night, which many consider to be his masterpiece. (Yes, even better than Gatsby!)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke continues his Emily Dickinson series with a reading of Poem #32. Then Professor Patrick Whitmarsh stops by for a discussion of his new book Writing Our Extinction: Anthropocene Fiction and Vertical Science, which examines works by Don DeLillo, Karen Tei Yamashita, Reza Negarestani, and Colson Whitehead (among others) to see how post-Oppenheimer authors have responded to the existential crises of climate change and the nuclear age. And finally, Kurt Vonnegut's biographer Christina Jarvis selects two books to be the last ones she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to Professor Hamid Dabashi about his new book The Persian Prince: The Rise and Resurrection of an Imperial Archetype, which replaces Machiavelli's Il Principe with a bold new figurative ideal. Drawing on works from Classical Antiquity to postcolonial literature, Dabashi reveals an archetype of a Persian Prince - leader, rebel, prophet, and poet - deeply rooted in the collective memories of multiple nations, Muslim empires, and the wider Mediterranean world. PLUS Jacke starts a new series reading his way through the poems of Emily Dickinson, beginning with Poem #23.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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It's a trip to the Big Easy! The city of New Orleans is so famous for its music, its food, and its Mardi Gras mentality that it's sometimes overlooked as a magnet for writers like Walt Whitman, Zora Neale Hurston, and William Faulkner. In this episode, Jacke talks to New Orleans scholar T.R. Johnson, author of the new book New Orleans: A Writer's City, about the neighborhoods of New Orleans and the writers who've been inspired by them. PLUS Len Webb and Vincent Williams, hosts of the podcasts The Class of 1989 and The Micheaux Mission, stop by to select the last book they will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Australia! After promising listeners an episode about Australia for years, Jacke FINALLY gets his act together - and luckily he has the perfect guest to help him out. In this episode, Australian novelist Pip Williams, who achieved international bestsellerdom with her debut novel The Dictionary of Lost Words, joins Jacke for a discussion of literary culture in Australia, her life as a reader and writer, and her new novel The Bookbinder.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The hits keep coming at the History of Literature Podcast! In this episode, Jacke follows up on last week's episode on Crime and Punishment with a look at the short story that literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin called "practically a complete encyclopedia of Dostoevsky's most important themes." (Don't worry if you haven't read "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" before - we read the short story as part of the episode.)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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It's another packed episode! First, Jacke talks to Langston Hughes scholars Vera Kutzinski and Anthony Reed about their new book, Langston Hughes in Context, which shows how Hughes was much more than just a poet of the Harlem Renaissance. PLUS Melissa Homestead, who last joined us for a look at Willa Cather and her creative partnership with Edith Lewis, selects the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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"It is directly obvious," said Virginia Woolf after reading Crime and Punishment, "that [Dostoevsky] is the greatest writer ever born." In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the classic novel of murder, guilt, and redemption, including the letter Dostoevsky wrote proposing his book, a likely source for inspiration, and the two young men in Chicago who set out to prove themselves worthy of one of the novel's more nefarious propositions.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke and Mike discuss the life and works of novelist Martin Amis (1949-2023), who recently died of esophageal cancer. The son of writer Kingsley Amis, Martin forged his own path, writing fifteen novels and several other works of essays and memoirs, with a devotion to style that earned him comparisons with Joyce and Flaubert. For decades, Amis was a fixture on the Anglo-American literary scene, dominating the landscape even as his books were famously snubbed by critics and prize committees.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to Shin Yu Pai, currently the Civic Poet of Seattle, about her career as an artist and her podcast Ten Thousand Things, which explores a collection of objects and artifacts that tell us something about Asian American life. PLUS Ross Benjamin (translator of The Diaries of Franz Kafka) selects the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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"The words of its writers are part of the texture of Dublin, an invisible counterpart to the bricks and pavement we see around us." Exploring this synergy - between a city and its chief cultural export - is the promise of a new book called Dublin: A Writer's City (part of the Imagining Cities series). In this episode, Jacke talks to author and series editor Christopher Morash about his step-by-step examination of the stomping grounds of Joyce, Yeats, Beckett, Heaney, and many others. AND THEN Jacke talks to author John Higgs (Love and Let Die: James Bond, The Beatles, and the British Psyche; William Blake vs. the World) about his choice for the last book he will ever read. PLUS Shin Yu Pai, the Civic Poet of Seattle and host of the podcast Ten Thousand Things, previews her appearance on the History of Literature Podcast with a reading of her poem "Virga."

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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In 2019, journalist Elizabeth Winkler wrote an article for the Atlantic, in which she asked whether Shakespeare's plays might have been written by someone other than the man born in Stratford-upon-Avon. The backlash to her article raised a new set of questions: Why are academics - even those who acknowledge the relative lack of evidence for the Stratford man writing the plays - so reluctant to explore this question? Who gets to decide how literature is discussed and debated? And what does this need for certainty say about us as a society? In this episode, Jacke talks to Elizabeth Winkler (Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature) about how an inquiry and its backlash turned into an inquiry OF the backlash. PLUS Jacke talks to Pulitzer-winning literary biographer Megan Marshall (Margaret Fuller: A New American Life; Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast) about her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) was an American author who was, by his reckoning, seven-eighths white, though he identified as black. Rejecting the opportunity to "pass," he instead devoted his life to improving race relations through the medium of fiction. Known for his complex portrayals of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South, he has gone from being admired by his fellow writers to appreciated and studied by scholars interested in the African American experience in the decades following emancipation. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at one of his most popular stories, "The Wife of His Youth" (1898).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Don DeLillo (White Noise, Underworld) is a writer's writer's writer. Often called one of the most important novelists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, his themes and style have made him one of the most highly regarded and influential writers of our time. In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Jesse Kavadlo, the President of the Don DeLillo Society, about the new book he has edited, Don DeLillo in Context, which examines how geography, biography, history, media studies, culture, philosophy, and the writing process provide critical frameworks and ways of reading and understanding DeLillo's prodigious body of work.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The Graduate, a 1967 film directed by Mike Nichols and based on a novel by Charles Webb, introduced the world to actor Dustin Hoffman and became one of the most beloved Hollywood comedies ever made. Telling the story of a disaffected college graduate who has an affair with an older woman and then falls in love with her daughter, the movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards (with Nichols winning for Best Director) and soon became a favorite of critics and college campuses everywhere. How does the movie hold up? Is the novel any good? Why did Roger Ebert fall out of love with it, finding it to be much less worthy at age 55 than he had thought thirty years earlier? And why did the author Charles Webb, together with the real-life inspiration for the movie's Elaine, end up destitute and living out of a VW bus? In this episode, Jacke takes a look at a classic film and what it means to grow old as art grows old too (or does it?).

Music Credits:

"Quirky Dog" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Thanks mostly to the achievement and success of his Canterbury Tales, poet Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s-1400) has been called "the Father of English literature" for more than 500 years. In this episode, Jacke talks to University of Oxford Professor Marion Turner (Chaucer: A European Life; The Wife of Bath: A Biography) about what made Chaucer so special - and why his poetry is still vibrant today. PLUS Jacke talks to Lee Saunders, President of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, about a new podcast I Am Story, which retells the story of the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968, a labor struggle that rocked a city and altered our history.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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In the late nineteenth century, a popular magazine ran a cartoon with what it called "a race problem." Tensions between black and white Americans in the postwar era? Nope. It was referring to a poor white southerner - shabby, slouching, lazy, and dumb - the kind of good-for-nothing layabout who would bring down the striving white middle class. (Think: Huck Finn's father Pap.) In this episode, Jacke talks to author Jolene Hubbs about her new book Class, Whiteness, and Southern Literature, which looks at twentieth-century middle-class white anxieties about poor whites - and how authors like Charles Chesnutt, William Faulkner, and Flannery O'Connor worked within and against this tradition. PLUS Hemingway expert Mark Cirino of the One True Podcast joins Jacke to select the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The empress Messalina, third wife of the Roman emperor Claudius, was a ruthless, sexually insatiable schemer - or was she? But while the stories about her are wild (nightly visits to a brothel, a 24-hour sex competition), the real story is much more complex. In this episode, Jacke talks to historian Honor Cargill-Martin about her new book Messalina: Empress, Adulteress, Libertine: The Story of the Most Notorious Woman of the Roman World. PLUS Jacke talks to author Robert Chandler (translator of Alexander Pushkin) about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. called it, simply, the greatest American short story. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Ambrose Bierce and his masterpiece, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The compilation of Shakespeare's plays known as the First Folio is one of the most important books in the history of literature. In this episode, Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar and First Folio expert Emma Smith about the origins, importance, status, and legacy of this essential work, which celebrates its 400th birthday this year. PLUS Jacke asks Nabokov scholar Luke Parker for his choice of the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Not even imprisonment could stop the Marquis de Sade from writing his insanely intense, unrelenting erotica - and not even Sade's eventual death could stop his secret manuscript, temporarily hidden in a Bastille wall to protect it from looters and revolutionaries, from haunting its owners as though possessed by a demonic force. Now one of the most valuable manuscripts in the world and viewed as a French national treasure, Sade's novel 120 Days of Sodom has been fascinating and repelling readers for more than two hundred years. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Joel Warner about his new book The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History. PLUS Diane Rayor, expert and translator of Sappho, joins Jacke for a discussion of the last book she would like to read.

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) was more than just a rake or a cad - based on his egregious conduct, he clearly belonged in prison, and one sympathizes with the father who aimed a pistol at Sade's chest and pulled the trigger, hoping to end the demon's life. (The gun misfired.) But what about Sade's novels? Are those out of bounds as well? In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of the notorious French libertine, who left behind a legacy of erotic and philosophical writings that two hundred years of cultural scrubbing has still not managed to erase.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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When Diane Rayor was in college, a professor recommended a work by a 2600-year-old poet that changed her life. Now, after years of studying and translating the works of Sappho, the greatest woman poet in Ancient Greece, she joins Jacke for a conversation about her book Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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What were you doing when the pandemic arose? And did you turn to The Plague by Albert Camus to help you make sense of it all? For two Camus scholars, the pandemic resonated in unexpected ways - and shed new light on a work they'd been studying for years. In this episode, Jacke talks to authors Alice Kaplan and Laura Marris about their book States of Plague: Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic. PLUS Jacke talks to Alison Strayer, translator of French Nobel Laureate Annie Ernaux, about her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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In the aftermath of a Civil War loss that shattered the region and exposed the moral and cultural fault lines in the populace, writers in the American South responded with stories filled with grotesque, macabre, and shockingly violent elements, developing a genre that came to be known as Southern Gothic. In this episode, Jacke talks to poet David van den Berg (Love Letters from an Arsonist) about growing up in Florida, his relationship with twentieth-century Southern Gothic literature, and how the elements of Southern Gothic have played out in his poetry. PLUS Jacke talks to entrepreneur and futurist Jason Feifer about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The literary world has long celebrated the incredible contributions of Ireland and its writers, with a special focus on Dublin-centric writers like James Joyce and W.B. Yeats. Meanwhile, Northern Ireland has been quietly turning out some excellent work as well, thanks to figures like C.S. Lewis and Seamus Heaney, among many others. Are there common themes uniting the Irish writers - and the Northern Irish writers in particular? How has the tumultuous history of Northern Ireland worked its way into the writings of its best novelists and poets? In this episode, Jacke talks to Alexander Poots about his new book The Strangers' House: Writing Northern Ireland. PLUS Jacke talks to author Laura Lee (Wilde Nights & Robber Barons) about her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Born to a German-Jewish family in 1906, Hannah Arendt became one of the most renowned political thinkers of the twentieth century. Her works, including The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, and Eichmann in Jerusalem, have never been more relevant than they are today. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Samantha Rose Hill about her biography Hannah Arendt, part of the Critical Lives series by Reaktion Books. PLUS Jacke talks to producer, playwright, and podcast host Scott Carter about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Samantha Rose Hill is a senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities and associate faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

Scott Carter is an award-winning television producer (HBO, PBS) and playwright. His podcast Ye Gods discusses personal faith and ethics with a diverse roster of interfaith and non-faith celebrity guests to uncover what we believe and what we don't.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Jacke talks to Alison Strayer, translator of several books by French author Annie Ernaux, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022. PLUS he talks to author and Chekhov expert Bob Blaisdell about his choice for the last book he will ever read.

ANNIE ERNAUX (The Years, Getting Lost) has written some twenty works of fiction and memoir. She is considered by many to be France's most important writer.

ALISON L. STRAYER is a Canadian writer and translator. She won the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and her work has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Literature and for Translation, the Grand Pix du live de Montreal, the Prix littéraire France-Québec, and the Man Booker International Prize.

BOB BLAISDELL (Chekhov Becomes Chekhov) is Professor of English at the City University of New York’s Kingsborough College and the author of Creating Anna Karenina.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Does a famous author's body of work contain a hidden meaning? Part Two of Jacke's look at the classic Henry James novella, "The Figure in the Carpet." 

Additional listening suggestions:

• 343 The Feast in the Jungle
• 341 Constance and Henry - The Story of "Miss Grief"
• 320 Henry James
• 414 Henry James's The Golden Bowl (with Dinitia Smith)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Does a famous author's body of work contain a hidden meaning? With an assist from Jorge Luis Borges, Jacke explores the classic Henry James novella, "The Figure in the Carpet."

Additional listening suggestions:

• 343 The Feast in the Jungle
• 341 Constance and Henry - The Story of "Miss Grief"
• 320 Henry James
• 414 Henry James's The Golden Bowl (with Dinitia Smith)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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The poet Lord Byron is well known as a passionate revolutionary and a brooding hero who harbors dark secrets. But what about his playful sense of humor? In this episode, Jacke talks to Byron biographer David Ellis (Byron) about the Romantic poet's flamboyant life and work. PLUS Ariel Lawhon, Susan Meissner, and Kristina McMorris, the bestselling authors of When We Had Wings, return for a discussion of the last books they will ever read.

Additional listening suggestions:

• 145 Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know - The Story of Lord Byron
• The Brontes
• 446 Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Early Years
• 471 Angels of War (with Ariel Lawon, Kristina McMorris, and Susan Meissner)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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For years, pop culture critics Len Webb and Vincent Williams have hosted the podcast The Micheaux Mission, which aims to watch and review every Black film ever released. In this episode, Jacke talks to Len and Vincent about their new limited-run series The Class of 1989, which focuses on six films (Harlem Nights, Lean on Me, Glory, A Dry White Season, Do the Right Thing, and Driving Miss Daisy) that helped spark a Black film renaissance.

Additional listening suggestions:

• 358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin)
• 94 Smoke, Dusk, and Fire - The Jean Toomer Story
• 485 Reading Pleasures - Everyday Black Living in Early America (with Dr Tara Bynum)
• 103 Literature Goes to the Movies Part 1 - Great Adaptations (with Mike Palindrome)

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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For centuries, Shakespeare's works have been scrutinized by scholars and fans eager to engage with and learn from the texts. And yet, in spite of the prominence of race in today's media headlines and public discourse, the questions of racialized blackness and whiteness raised by Shakespeare's plays are often resisted. In this episode, Jacke talks to Shakespeare scholar Ian Smith (Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race) about the role that systemic whiteness has played on the interpretation of Shakespeare's plays. PLUS authors David Castillo and William Egginton (What Would Cervantes Do? Navigating Post-Truth with Spanish Baroque Literature) select the last books they will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Ford Madox Ford lived a fascinating life, surrounded by some of the most famous writers of the era: Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, Henry James, Stephen Crane, D.H. Lawrence, Jean Rhys, Ernest Hemingway, and many others. Today, he's best known for his editing of others and for his modernist classics The Good Soldier (1915) and the Parade's End tetralogy (1924-8). Who was Ford Madox Ford? What was he like as a person? Just how complicated did his personal affairs get - and how did he manage to endure them? In this episode, Jacke talks to Max Saunders, "the doyen of Ford scholars," about his biography of Ford Madox Ford. PLUS Bethanne Patrick, aka the Book Maven, chooses the last book she will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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Persuaded by the well-meaning Lady Russell, Anne Elliot turns down prospective suitor Frederick Wentworth. Will life give her a second chance at love? And if so, can she persuade herself to take it? In this episode, Jacke talks to Mike Palindrome, President of the Literature Supporters Club, about the second half of Jane Austen's Persuasion (1817). PLUS Juliette Bretan, freelance journalist and specialist in Eastern European current affairs and culture, tells us her choice for the last book she will ever read.

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

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What happens when we let opportunities slip past us? And what if we let others talk us out of what looks like our best chance at love? In this episode, Jacke talks to historical romance novelist Gina Buonaguro (The Virgins of Venice) about the first half of Jane Austen's Persuasion (1817).

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Music Credits:

“⁠Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba⁠” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the ⁠Free Music Archive⁠ / ⁠CC by SA⁠).

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Harold Bloom called Persuasion "the perfect novel." Virginia Woolf said "In Persuasion, Jane Austen is beginning to discover that the world is larger, more mysterious, and more romantic than she supposed." In this episode, the first of three parts, Jacke takes a look at Jane Austen's novel of missed opportunities and second chances. PLUS Milton expert Stephen Dobranski (Reading Milton: How to Persist in Troubled Times) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.