Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was a pioneer of what we’d now call the ambiguous horror story, where the supernatural elements of the tale may actually be explained (or explained away) with a psychological explanation. He was also an accomplished poet and a pioneer of science fiction. His 1848 prose-poem Eureka even predicts the Big Bang theory by some eighty years. Poe considered this book his masterpiece, though it is among his least-read prose works today.
Writers
Five Fascinating Facts about Virginia Woolf’s ‘Flush’
By Viola van de Sandt Most people know that Flush is the title of Virginia Woolf’s biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s spaniel. Here are five things, however, you might not have known about this delightful book. 1. Woolf starting writing Flush after finishing her long novel The Years. In a letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell, … Read more
10 Great Quotes from Writers about Writing
Here are ten of our favourite quotes about writing, from those who should probably know the most about it – writers themselves. Some of them are witty quotes, others profound, some a mixture. We hope you enjoy them. ‘Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet … Read more
Five Fascinating Facts about The Hunger Games
1. The idea for The Hunger Games came to author Suzanne Collins while channel-hopping between coverage of the invasion of Iraq and a reality TV show. The idea began to form in her mind of a narrative which concerned a televised fight to the death. The theme of the series has led critics to draw comparisons with … Read more
10 Great Quotes from Simone de Beauvoir on her Birthday
Simone de Beauvoir (or, to give her full name, Simone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir), is perhaps best known as the author of the feminist treatise The Second Sex (1949) and as the long-term lover of Jean-Paul Sartre. Since she was born on this day in 1908 – at four in the morning, according to her memoirs – we thought … Read more