LITERATURE

Dickens’s unprecedented celebrity made him the most popular novelist of his century—but the author of Great Expectations, Bleak House, A Christmas Carol, and dozens of other works was more than just a writer.

Thomas Hardy’s memorable heroine was modeled after the last woman to be hanged in Dorset, England.

The Middle-earth author spent some imaginary time in the North Pole for an audience of just four people: his children.

Penguin Books commissioned the work in 1965, but the "A Clockwork Orange" author only completed several hundred entries before discarding the project.

‘Little Women’ author Louisa May Alcott was also an early suffragette who fought against slavery and registered women to vote.

Here’s how to pepper your next argument with Shakespearean insults.

The true facts surrounding the classic work are as mysterious and intriguing as the novel itself.

In true undead style, Dracula holds up well: He’s as creepy today as he was when Bram Stoker invented him in 1897.

From famous authors to a Roman emperor, these spirits sure had a lot to share.

Clichés are viewed as a sign of lazy writing, but they didn’t develop that reputation over night.

Precursors to the story about the girl with the green ribbon were written by Washington Irving, Alexandre Dumas, and more famous authors.

‘The Vampyre’ is largely forgotten today, but it upended centuries of vampiric lore 80 years before Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’—and from its spooky beginnings to its scandalous misattribution, its history was as dramatic as fiction.