In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle gives us a taste of the interesting trivia to be found in his new book… I spent a lot of time looking into treacle earlier this year. Not literally. But, as it were, literarily. You see, there’s more to […]
In this special guest post, Caroline Taggart offers some little-known facts about punctuation marks, to mark the publication of her new book, The Accidental Apostrophe: … And Other Misadventures in Punctuation Did you know 1. The Victorians were crazy about hyphens? Jane Austen’s nephew Edward Austen Leigh, composing a biography of […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reads The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities by Paul Anthony Jones I love books of language trivia, and learning new words is always a pleasure. One of the finest Twitter accounts to offer a ‘word of the day’ is @HaggardHawks, […]
In this special guest post, Ana Sampson offers some fascinating facts about classic poets Matthew Arnold struggled a bit with the ageing process At Oxford University, Matthew Arnold made a name for himself as something of a dandy. It was only when he fell in love, and needed to prove […]
What’s the most interesting trivia about writers in London? We’ve recently been enjoying the wonderful book, Literary London, by Eloise Millar and Sam Jordison. It’s that rare thing: a book that includes something interesting on every page. There are many good books available about London’s literary heritage and its connections […]