Fun facts about vampires in literature 1. Vampires began to appear in literature in a big way in the early eighteenth century, as a result of a real-life ‘vampire craze’. In the 1720s and 1730s, vampires became a big part of European culture, and even included the digging up of […]
Fun facts about Shakespeare’s play 1. Shakespeare is thought to have based his play The Tempest on a real-life shipwreck. William Strachey’s A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, an account of his experience during the wreck of the ship Sea Venture on the […]
Fun facts about Shakespeare’s classic tragedy 1. Othello has given us some very famous phrases. Whether we’re describing jealousy as ‘the green-eyed monster’, talking of sexual intercourse as ‘the beast with two backs’, or wearing our heart on our sleeve, we’re quoting Shakespeare’s Othello when we do so. 2. Quite […]
Fun facts about a classic play 1. The first recorded performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was on Candlemas, 1602. Candlemas is 2 February – better-known in the United States as Groundhog Day – and was the date on which Christmas decorations were often traditionally taken down in Shakespeare’s time (unlike these […]
Words that used to mean something very different We’ll own up right at the start: the ten words below were suggested to us by the latest book we’ve been reading, Paul Anthony Jones’s The Accidental Dictionary: The Remarkable Twists and Turns of English Words. Jones’s previous books – one of […]