This essay is a fascinating piece of writing that takes a look, by one of histories great authors, at what it takes to write a novel. Robert Louis Stevenson of course wrote 12 novels over his life time. He wrote the great novels Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Treasure Island….
5 Reasons to get a Degree in English Language and Literature
English Language and Literature courses have always proved to be extremely popular and are offered as undergraduate programs by most universities
Build a Successful Writer’s Platform
Writers who are looking to be professional and successful in today’s world are learning that it takes much more than a book deal to get you writing for a living.
10 Great Horror Short Story Collections
Here is our list of 10 “Greatest” horror story collections. Please do not get hung up on the tile of the article, and remember we are writing this (as always) from the perspective of writers. We are not just talking
Oscar Wilde Reviews W.B. Yeats First Book of Poems
‘The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems is, I believe, the first volume of poems that Mr. Yeats has published, and it is certainly full of promise. It must be admitted that many of the poems are too fragmentary, too incomplete. They read like stray scenes out of unfinished plays, like things only half remembered,…
Free Writing, and How it Helps You Write Better
Stories only happen to people who can tell them. – Lou Willett Stanek Being a writer (a blogger, a copywriter, an academic writer, a poet – choose the right variant), you’ve heard about the phenomenon of free writing probably, even if you never used it yourself. Chances are, however, that you practice free writing quite…
THE POET AS PROPHET James Russell Lowell
The Poet as Prophet James Russell Lowell Poets are the forerunners and prophets of changes in the moral world. Driven by their fine nature to search into and reverently contemplate the universal laws of the soul, they find some fragment of the broken tables of God’s law, and interpret it, half-conscious of its mighty import….
Introduction to Wilfred Owen’s Poems by Siegfried Sassoon
This is a wonderful Intro to Wilfred Owens book of poems by Siegfried Sassoon. If you haven’t read it, you should. It is a awesome little piece of history between 2 poets that had the greatest impact on all poetry that has been written after the Great War. Introduction In writing an Introduction such as…
Robert Louis Stevenson on Style in Literature
“On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature” from The Art of Writing and Other Essays by Robert Louis Stevenson There is nothing more disenchanting to man than to be shown the springs and mechanism of any art. All our arts and occupations lie wholly on the surface; it is on the surface that we…
The Poet an Essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson
A moody child and wildly wise Pursued the game with joyful eyes, Which chose, like meteors, their way, And rived the dark with private ray: They overleapt the horizon’s edge, Searched with Apollo’s privilege; Through man, and woman, and sea, and star Saw the dance of nature forward far; Through worlds, and races, and terms,…
LITERARY JOURNALS 1881
Here is section on literary journal from the book Curiosities of Literature by Isaac Disraeli The earl of Beaconsfield. The book was published in 1881. We thought it might be interesting to get a 100 year old take on the state and purpose of literary journals. LITERARY JOURNALS. When writers were not numerous, and readers…
What I think of Henry James by Joseph Conrad (1905)
The critical faculty hesitates before the magnitude of Mr. Henry James’s work. His books stand on my shelves in a place whose accessibility proclaims the habit of frequent communion. But not all his books. There is no collected edition to date, such as some of “our masters” have been provided with; no neat rows of…
How to Make an Epic Poem by Alexander Pope
HOW TO MAKE AN EPIC POEM by Alexander Pope It is no small pleasure to me, who am zealous in the interests of learning, to think I may have the honor of leading the town into a very new and uncommon road of criticism. As that kind of literature is at present carried on, it…
How to Publish a Poem
This article, “How to Publish a Poem” is one of our old articles that was titled “How to Submit a Poem.” We have changed it somewhat, and changed the title, but most of the information is the same.
In Defence of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley
IN DEFENSE OF POETRY from The Best of the World’s Classics 1909. The functions of the poetical faculty are twofold; by one it creates new materials of knowledge, and power, and pleasure; by the other it engenders in the mind a desire to Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once the center and…