Literature

Literature

10 Words Every Book-Lover Should Know

The word for a book-lover is a ‘bibliophile’, a word first recorded in print in 1824. Alternatively, there is the word ‘bookworm’, which is of an altogether more ancient pedigree: it first appears in 1580. But what words should every good bibliophile and bookworm know? Here are some of our […]

Literature

The First Gothic Novel

The early Gothic novelists are an interesting lot. Matthew Lewis, known for his 1796 novel The Monk, wrote his will on a servant’s hat while dying on board a ship from Jamaica to the UK. William Beckford wrote the bestselling Gothic novel Vathek in French in 1782, with the English version being translated by […]

Literature

Five Fascinating Facts about Shakespeare

Quick, fun William Shakespeare facts As William Shakespeare is the most famous poet and playwright in the English language, we thought we’d share five curious facts about him. We’ve tried to steer clear of the very obvious, partly because we’ve already written about Shakespeare several times before (see, for one […]