Today is the Sheridan Le Fanu bicentenary: this key figure in the Irish ghost story was born on 28 August 1814. We thought, then, this would be the perfect time to go all ghostly on you. The following facts about the history of the ghost story in the nineteenth century […]
Author: interestingliterature
Can You Solve the Sphinx’s Other Riddle?
One of the most celebrated tragedies of ancient Greece was Oedipus Rex, Sophocles’ play about the Theban king who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother. In order to become King of Thebes, Oedipus had had to solve a famous riddle – or should that be riddles? Oedipus was born […]
Guest Blog: Milorad Pavić, Dictionary of the Khazards – Keeping a Remembrance Alive
By Luna Gradinšćak Milorad Pavić (1929-2009) once said that in his life he experienced something which most famous writers get only after death. Certainly, he thought of glory and fame, which he lived to achieve. And it is true: his Dictionary of the Khazards (1984; English translation 1988) at the very beginning sold […]
10 Great (and Cute) Facts about Writers and Cats
It’s World Cat Day! The purr-fect opportunity (sorry – we couldn’t resist) to share 10 of our favourite writer-related facts about cats. Ernest Hemingway had over 30 pet cats, with names including Alley Cat, Crazy Christian, Ecstasy, F. Puss, Fats, Furhouse, Skunk, Thruster, and Willy. Many of them had six […]
Guest Blog: The House Where Virginia (Sometimes) Lived – 5 Anecdotes from Charleston Farmhouse
By Georgina Parfitt Charleston Farmhouse sits in a valley of the South Downs at the end of a long dirt road, marked private, which carves and winds around ditches of old trees. The house looks out upon farms and grazing, and just a little farther, the town of Lewes, East […]