Fun facts about the Victorian novelist 1. A novel written by Victorian author Wilkie Collins when he was 20, titled Iolani and set in Tahiti, was eventually published in 1999. Written in 1844 but not published until 110 years after his death, Iolani: Or, Tahiti as It Was was Collins’s […]
The interesting life of a pioneering French writer ‘George’ was the pseudonym of choice for nineteenth-century women writers: George Eliot (Marian Evans), George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne). But these women were following an unconventional French writer in choosing to Georgify themselves for publication. In this post, we offer a very […]
The mysterious life of an early English woman poet Isabella Whitney is not a familiar name to many readers of poetry, and in many ways this is hardly surprising. But here at Interesting Literature we like to keep one eye out for the curious but overlooked, the obscure but interesting […]
Interesting trivia about the original ‘Lesbian poet’ 1. Sappho has been credited with inventing the plectrum. An Athenian vase dating from the sixth century BC shows Sappho holding a lyre, which she is plucking with a small device that is recognisable as the forerunner to the modern plectrum. Did she […]
Interesting facts about a pioneering novelist 1. His first book was a guide for apprentices. The Apprentice’s Vade Mecum appeared in 1733 and offered advice for young apprentices of all trades, especially when it came to things like drinking and ‘wenching’. (Well, we all need a little guidance over such […]