By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘I See You Never’ is a short story by Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), published in 1947. One of Bradbury’s shortest stories, ‘I See You Never’ is about a Mexican man who, after two-and-a-half years living in the United States, is told he must leave the […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Black Walnut Tree’ is a poem by the American poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019), a poet who has perhaps not received as much attention from critics as she deserves. It’s been estimated that she was the bestselling poet in the United States at the […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Where did the word thoughtcrime originate? Most people, if asked, would probably shrug and say they don’t know. Of those people who feel confident enough to venture an answer, most of those would probably answer, ‘In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.’
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) The English writer Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916), who is better known under his pen name Saki, was a master of the short comic story and, in some ways, a missing link between Oscar Wilde and P. G. Wodehouse. What’s more, Saki was that rare […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) In 1890, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was serialised in Lippincott’s Magazine. The following year, when the novel was published in book form, Wilde added a famous ‘Preface’ which consisted of a series of statements and axioms about literature and art.