Literature |

The Unlikely Friendship of Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla

J.R.R. Tolkien Expressed a “Heartfelt Loathing” for Walt Disney and Refused to Let Disney Studios Adapt His Work

Aleister Crowley Reads Occult Poetry in the Only Known Recordings of His Voice (1920)

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” Read by Christopher Walken, Christopher Lee & Vincent Price

74 Ways Characters Die in Shakespeare’s Plays Shown in a Handy Infographic: From Snakebites to Lack of Sleep

Aldous Huxley to George Orwell: My Hellish Vision of the Future is Better Than Yours (1949)

The Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe’s Death: 19 Theories on What Caused the Poet’s Demise

The 100 Greatest Novels of All Time, According to 750,000 Readers in the UK (2003)

Mark Twain Wrote the First Book Ever Written With a Typewriter

Mark Twain Makes a List of 60 American Comfort Foods He Missed While Traveling Abroad (1880)

Franz Kafka’s Anxious Letters to His Fiancée, Read Aloud by Richard Ayoade

Take a Virtual Tour of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London

Gustave Doré’s Haunting Illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy

W.H. Auden’s 1941 Syllabus Asked Students to Read 32 Great Literary Works, Totaling 6,000 Pages

The Nazis’ 10 Control-Freak Rules for Jazz Performers: A Strange List from World War II

The Real Science Experiments That Inspired Frankenstein

Stephen King’s Top 10 All-Time Favorite Books

Paradise Lost Explained: How John Milton Wrote His Epic Religious Poem from Satan’s Perspective

J. R. R. Tolkien Reads from The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings & Other Works

Iconic Animator Chuck Jones Creates an Oscar-Winning Animation About the Virtues of Universal Health Care (1949)

Hear the Letter of Gratitude That Albert Camus Wrote to His Teacher After Winning the Nobel Prize, as Read by Footballer Ian Wright

Everything You Thought Was Sci-Fi? The European Space Agency Is Building It

An Introduction to George Orwell’s 1984 and How Power Manufactures Truth

William Faulkner Resigns From His Post Office Job With a Spectacular Letter (1924)

George Orwell Reviews Salvador Dali’s Autobiography: “Dali is a Good Draughtsman and a Disgusting Human Being” (1944)

Leo Tolstoy’s Family Recipe for Mac and Cheese

George Orwell’s Rules for Making the Perfect Cup of Tea: A Short Animation

Was William Shakespeare’s Marriage Closer—and Less Estranged—Than We Thought?: A 17th-Century Letter Changes What We Know About the Bard’s Life.

James Joyce, With His Eyesight Failing, Draws a Sketch of Leopold Bloom (1926)

Why Most Ancient Civilizations Had No Word for the Color Blue

William Faulkner’s Review of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

What Is Kafkaesque?: The Philosophy of Franz Kafka

Dante’s Inferno: A Visitor’s Guide to Hell

The Great Gatsby: A Free Audio Book

Carl Jung’s Hand-Drawn, Rarely-Seen Manuscript The Red Book

When William Faulkner Set the World Record for Writing the Longest Sentence in Literature: Read the 1,288-Word Sentence from Absalom, Absalom!

When William S. Burroughs Appeared on Saturday Night Live: His First TV Appearance (1981)

Flannery O’Connor: Friends Don’t Let Friends Read Ayn Rand

Jane Austen Used Pins to Edit Her Manuscripts: Before the Word Processor & White-Out

Horrifying 1906 Illustrations of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds: Discover the Art of Henrique Alvim Corrêa

Behold Harry Clarke’s Hallucinatory Illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Story Collection, Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1923)

Hunter S. Thompson Remembers Jimmy Carter’s Captivating Bob Dylan Speech (1974)

Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Letter of Advice to People Living in the Year 2088

The New York Times Presents the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, Selected by 503 Novelists, Poets & Critics

Read J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Letter From Father Christmas” To His Young Children (1925)

Umberto Eco’s List of the 14 Common Features of Fascism

Hear Edgar Allan Poe’s Horror Stories Read by Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, James Earl Jones, William S. Burroughs & Others

Hear 2.5 Hours of the Classical Music in Haruki Murakami’s Novels: Liszt, Beethoven, Janáček, and More

Kurt Vonnegut’s Lost Board Game Is Finally for Sale

Thomas Edison’s Recordings of Leo Tolstoy: Hear the Voice of the Great Russian Novelist

Hear Moby Dick Read in Its Entirety by Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, John Waters, Stephen Fry & More

Orson Welles Narrates Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner in an Experimental Film Featuring the Art of Gustave Doré

Watch the Opening Credits of an Imaginary 70s Cop Show Starring Samuel Beckett

David Bowie Songs Reimagined as Pulp Fiction Book Covers: Space Oddity, Heroes, Life on Mars & More

James Earl Jones (RIP) Reads Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”

George Orwell Reviews Mein Kampf: “He Envisages a Horrible Brainless Empire” (1940)

When Samuel Beckett Drove Young André the Giant to School

Hear the Very First Adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 in a Radio Play Starring David Niven (1949)

Ray Bradbury Explains Why Literature is the Safety Valve of Civilization (in Which Case We Need More Literature!)

J. G. Ballard Demystifies Surrealist Paintings by Dalí, Magritte, de Chirico & More