Classic articles on writing art some of the most interesting and telling works by past authors. Here you will find articles from the past by authors that range from the famous to the obscure.
A story is a fiction with a plot, as distinguished from a tale, which is a string of incidents that happened to happen to the characters. In the story the events are linked together by the natures of the people concerned; personality influences event and event influences personality Keep Reading
The reputation of the author of "Twice-Told Tales" has been confined, until very lately, to literary society; and I have not been wrong, perhaps, in citing him as the example, par excellence, in this country, Keep Reading
The intro to the book is a classic (the book is too of course), and it is filled with insights into the contemporary authors of that time, Poe, Hawthorne, Stevenson, and the like. Keep Reading
A large family supper party, a night or two ago, with voices and laughter of the young, mellow faces of the old, and a by-and-by pause in the general joviality. Keep Reading
Review of Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" by Willa Cather A Creole “Bovary” is this little novel of Miss Chopin’s. Not that the heroine is a creole exactly, or that Miss Chopin is a Flaubert— Keep Reading
The student may read Homer or Æschylus in the Greek without danger of dissipation or luxuriousness, for it implies that he in some measure emulates their heroes, and consecrates morning hours to their pages. The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to… Keep Reading
This is the first in a series of articles we are running On Writing. We thought it would be interesting to let authors from the past do the talking. This is Mark Twain’s words about the Humorous story On Writing. We hope you enjoy it. I do not claim that I can tell a story… Keep Reading
Christmas by Washington Irving But is old, old, good old Christmas gone? Nothing but the hair of his good, gray old head and beard left? Well, I will have that, seeing I cannot have more of him. HUE AND CRY AFTER CHRISTMAS. A man might then behold At Christmas, in each hall Good fires to… Keep Reading
n diagnosing this disease called humanity—to assume for the nonce what seems a chief mood of the personality and writings of my subject Keep Reading
This interview is from Hartford Daily Courant from May 30th 1888. Twain would have been 53 years old. He had just finished a new book. SHERIDAN’S MEMOIRS. Mark Twain Has the Book in the Works – The General Completed the Story Two Weeks Ago. AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW. A reporter for THE COURANT found Mark Twain… Keep Reading
My acquaintance with Stephen Crane was brought about by Mr. Pawling, partner in the publishing firm of Mr. William Heinemann. One day Mr. Pawling said to me: “Stephen Crane has arrived in England. I asked him if there was anybody he wanted to meet and he mentioned two names. One of them was yours.” I… Keep Reading
Born in 1770; died in 1850; graduated from Cambridge in 1791; traveled on the Continent in 1790-92; settled at Grasmere in 1799; married Mary Hutchinson in 1802; settled at Rydal Mount in 1813; traveled in Scotland Keep Reading
My First Reading by Walt Whitman From 1824 to ’28 our family lived in Brooklyn in Front, Cranberry and Johnson streets. In the latter my father built a nice house for a home, and afterwards another in Tillary street. We occupied them, one after the other, but they were mortgaged, and we lost them. I… Keep Reading
We once in awhile, these days, like to publish an historic piece of writing that we find interesting. Twain's take on writing a bicycle qualifies. We hope you enjoy this piece. It is in the public domain, and it made us laugh. Keep Reading
ABOUT once in so often you are due to lie awake at night. Why this is so I have never been able to discover. It apparently comes from no predisposing uneasiness of indigestion, no rashness in the matter of too much tea or tobacco, no excitation of unusual incident or stimulating conversation. Keep Reading
In 1909 Ambrose Bierce famous for many of his works including An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge wrote a piece of advice to writers titled "Write it Right." The piece starts with some words of wisdom to the writer and then is followed by a long " Keep Reading
The. time when the intellectual affairs of America could be conducted on a monolingual basis is over. It has been irksome for long. The intellectual life of London is dependent on people who understand the French language about as well as their own. America's part in contemporary culture is based chiefly Keep Reading
So much for the more civilized apple trees (urbaniores, as Pliny calls them). I love better to go through the old orchards of ungrafted apple trees, at what ever season of the year,—so irregularly planted: sometimes two trees standing close together; Keep Reading
Prices for the customary kinds of winter fuel having reached an altitude which puts them out of the reach of literary persons in straitened circumstances Keep Reading
The profession of letters has been lately debated in the public prints; and it has been debated, to put the matter mildly, from a point of view that was calculated to surprise Keep Reading
