Literature

A collateral relation of the famous diarist met with some alarming experiences in Dr. Johnson’s company during the 1780s, writes D. Pepys Whiteley.

Lionel Kochan writes how Turgenev's heroes serve to embody many different aspects of the rapidly changing scene in nineteenth century Russia.

The Grace Darling legend as an early manifestation of the terrifying power of sustained publicity; Richard Armstrong writes that she may well have been its first victim.

Unlike everybody else in his generation, writes Arnold Whitridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson understood, loved and castigated the two different, but closely related, strains in American life and represented the national conscience.

Though the Duke did not pretend to be a highly educated man, he had a real respect for books, and made resolute attempts to supervise the education of his son and heir. By Elizabeth Longford.

The newspaper was born when publishers in Protestant lands began to produce printed versions of the hand-written bulletins that had provided news for Europe’s elites. It was to prove a difficult birth, as Andrew Pettegree explains.

The playwright was baptised on February 26th, 1564.

Peter Stansky & William Abrahams describe how, after Tennyson’s death, the problem of finding a new Poet Laureate perturbed successive British governments.

Did the story of a stolen Roman ring provide the basis for one of the 20th century’s most popular works of fiction? Mark Horton and Lynn Forest-Hill tell the story of the archaeological dig which  fuelled the fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien.

The great poet passed away aged 73 on January 28th, 1939.