Literature

Cartoon historian Mark Bryant looks at the origins of the satirical magazine that has attracted a generation of outstanding cartoonists.

Mark Bryant describes how the Daily Mail nearly became the first national daily in Britain to feature large political cartoons on its front page, fifteen years before Dyson’s huge drawings appeared in the Daily Herald.

The famous French author Alexandre Dumas never let fact get in the way of a good story: his ability to spin a yarn made his books instant bestsellers. But, having unravelled the stories behind two of Dumas’ most famous works, Roger Macdonald presents a startling solution as to the true identity of the Man in the Iron Mask.

Peter Morton reminds us that, a century before Adrian Mole, there was Charles Pooter.

Robert Pearce gives a historian’s-eye view of George Orwell’s classic novel.

A Dictionary of the English Language was first published on 15 April 1755.

Dorothy Wordsworth died on January 25th, 1855, aged eighty-four.

Bill Putnam and John Edwin Wood peel away the evidence to find an extraordinary hoax at the heart of Dan Brown’s bestselling novel.

Following the publication of The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, Defoe was accused of seditious libel and put in the pillory on the last three days of July 1703.

Nigel Wilcockson explores the vast range of titles published over the years.