Words You Need to Know for Easter

The Easter weekend is upon us, so we’ve turned our literary sights to those words which have an Easter connection. Got your eggs and your hot cross buns at the ready? Then why not sit back, have a bite to eat, and gorge yourself on these literary facts. If you like word facts, check out our compendium of great facts about the English language here.

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True or False? Take Our April Fools’ Literary Quiz

As today is April 1st, better known as April Fools’ Day, we thought we’d separate the truth from the tricks in a special quiz. Below are ten ‘facts’ about literary works or famous writers which may be true or may be utterly false (but often believed to be true). Can you tell the the facts from … Read more

10 Famous Quotes That Are Literary Misquotes

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

As Hesketh Pearson put it, ‘Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.’ To see if he’s right, we’ve compiled a Top Ten list containing what we think are the commonest expressions in English which are misquotes of their original literary idioms.

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Happy Tolkien Reading Day!

Today is Tolkien Reading Day, an annual event launched in 2003 by the Tolkien Society. (The date of 25 March was chosen in honour of the fall of Sauron in the Third Age, year 3019, in Tolkien’s fiction.) The reading day promotes the use of Tolkien’s writing in schools and library groups, and is celebrated in … Read more