Interesting Literature

Surprising Facts about Aladdin and the Arabian Nights

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The story of Aladdin is one of the most familiar narratives in all of literature, a classic ‘rags to riches’ tale featuring a young hero who has to learn an important lesson; an exotic setting; a good healthy dose of magic; a beautiful heroine; and an evil villain (or two, depending on which version of the story you follow). We have analysed the story of Aladdin itself in detail here.

Interesting Facts about Robin Hood

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Robin Hood is first mentioned in print in the late fourteenth-century poem Piers Plowman, which is commonly attributed to William Langland, a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer.

The Word ‘Hobbit’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The word ‘hobbit’ was supposedly invented by J. R. R. Tolkien. This fact both is and is not true. To explain why this is the case (or isn’t the case) we must do a bit of delving into the world of witchcraft …

Nine Unusual Author Deaths

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Sometimes authors don’t shuffle off this mortal coil quietly or – for want of a better word – normally. Sometimes they meet a sticky and untimely end, and sometimes myths build up around an author’s demise and we come to accept legend as fact. So what follows is part blog post, part quiz: we present you with nine of the most unusual author deaths, and then underneath we tell you whether the nature of that death is factually correct or not.

The Stories behind Shakespeare’s Plays

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Since Twelfth Night is just round the corner (and remember, while we’re at it, that Twelfth Night is arguably the night before Epiphany, not the same day – i.e., Twelfth Night is January 5th), we thought we’d bring you some of the lesser-known facts about some of William Shakespeare‘s most popular plays. As we go, we’ll address and challenge some misconceptions, too.