Authors over the years have played a big role in creating the modern day Christmas. Some authors published and publicized Christmas, setting up traditions
Classic Articles on Writing
Advice on Writing a Novel by Joseph Conrad
Advice on Writing a Novel by Joseph Conrad “I have not read this author’s books, and if I have read them I have forgotten what they were about.” These words are reported as having been uttered in our midst not a hundred years ago, publicly, from the seat of justice, by a civic magistrate. The […]
Fenimore Cooper Sucks at Writing by Mark Twain
Fenimore Cooper Sucks at Writing by Mark Twain It seems to me that it was far from right for the Professor of English Literature in Yale, the Professor of English Literature in Columbia, and Wilkie Collins to deliver opinions on Cooper’s literature without having read some of it. It would have been much more […]
POETRY TO-DAY IN AMERICA by Walt Whitman
POETRY TO-DAY IN AMERICA SHAKSPERE—THE FUTURE by Walt Whitman Strange as it may seem, the topmost proof of a race is its own born poetry. The presence of that, or the absence, each tells its story. As the flowering rose or lily, as the ripened fruit to a tree, the apple or the peach, no […]
My First Typewriter Sucked by Mark Twain
THE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES (From My Unpublished Autobiography) by Mark Twain Some days ago a correspondent sent in an old typewritten sheet, faded by age, containing the following letter over the signature of Mark Twain: “Hartford, March 10, 1875. “Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even divulge that fact […]
On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain
On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain An Essay for Discussion, read at a meeting of the historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford, and offered for the Thirty-Dollar Prize. Now First Published [Did not take the prize] Observe, I do not mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered […]
Poetry as a Study by William Wordsworth
With the young of both sexes, Poetry is, like love, a passion; but, for much the greater part of those who have been proud of its power over their minds, a necessity soon arises of breaking the pleasing bondage; or it relaxes of itself;—the thoughts being occupied in domestic cares, or the time engrossed by […]
THE POETIC PRINCIPLE by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was born in Boston, the child of actors who died while he was very young. He was adopted by a Virginian gentleman, Mr. John Allan,
I Am Not An Animal Expert! by Jack London
I Am Not An Animal Expert! by Jack London This is one of our historical articles from writers that we just had to publish. Jack London, one of our most beloved American writer’s seems to have shared the modern day views of the media. Apparently news people of his day mixed London up with either […]
Mark Twain’s Meeting with Robert Louis Stevenson by Mark Twain
Mark Twain’s Meeting with Robert Louis Stevenson by Mark Twain … But it was on a bench in Washington Square that I saw the most of Louis Stevenson. It was an outing that lasted an hour or more, and was very pleasant and sociable. I had come with him from his house, where I […]