Fun Mark Twain facts, including his inventions, unusual lecture topics, and numerous pen names 1. Mark Twain wrote a pornographic story set during Elizabethan times. Titled ‘1601’, this bawdy tale – known as a ‘squib’ – was written in 1876 and purports to be the excerpt from a diary written […]
The top ten best Joseph Conrad books, selected by Dr Oliver Tearle Joseph Conrad wrote numerous full-length novels, but what were Conrad’s best books? From his debut in 1895, Almayer’s Folly, to his final novel, Suspense (which he left unfinished – aptly, given the novel’s title – upon his death in 1924), Conrad’s […]
Fun facts about Ian Fleming and his most famous creation, James Bond 1. Ian Fleming named James Bond after an ornithologist because it was the ‘dullest name’ he’d ever heard. The original name for James Bond was ‘James Secretan’; Ian Fleming took the eventual name from the author of a book […]
A short biography of Arnold Bennett, author of Anna of the Five Towns and Clayhanger 1. His first name was actually Enoch. Born in 1867 in Hanley, Staffordshire (part of the famous ‘Potteries’ and now a district of Stoke-on-Trent), Enoch Arnold Bennett was named after his father, a solicitor. Enoch Junior was […]
A short history of the sonnet form, with some fun facts about its development Writing an introduction to the sonnet throws out a number of questions, so in this post we will ask what might be considered the essential questions about the sonnet form, and provide some answers. Who invented […]