Portal:Literature

The Literature Portal

Introduction

The Library of the Palais Bourbon in Paris

Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment. It can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.

Literary criticism is one of the oldest academic disciplines, and is concerned with the literary merit or intellectual significance of specific texts. The study of books and other texts as artifacts or traditions is instead encompassed by textual criticism or the history of the book. "Literature", as an art form, is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction, fiction written with the goal of artistic merit, but can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoirs, letters, and essays. Within this broader definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles, or other written information on a particular subject. (Full article...)

General images -

The following are images from various literature-related articles on Wikipedia.

• 
  1900 edition of the controversial The Story of Little Black Sambo (from Children's literature)
• 
  John Bauer's illustration of trolls and a princess from a collection of Swedish fairy tales (from Fairy tale)
• 
  12-metre-high (40 ft) sculpture of a stack of books at the Berlin Walk of Ideas, commemorating the invention of modern book printing (from History of books)
• 
  Beauty and the Beast, illustration by Warwick Goble (from Fairy tale)
• 
  The European fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in a painting by Carl Larsson in 1881. (from Fairy tale)
• 
  European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books)
• 
  Estimated medieval output of manuscripts in terms of copies (from Medieval literature)
• 
  Gabriel García Márquez, one of the most renowned Latin American writers (from Latin American literature)
• 
  Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books)
• 
  The character which means "poetry", in the ancient Chinese Great Seal script style. The modern character is 詩/诗 (shī). (from History of poetry)
• 
  Statue of Minnie the Minx, a character from The Beano. Launched in 1938, the comic is known for its anarchic humour, with Dennis the Menace appearing on the cover. (from Children's literature)
• 
  The Violet Fairy Book (1906)
• 
  A Sumerian clay tablet, currently housed in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, inscribed with the text of the poem Inanna and Ebih by the priestess Enheduanna, the first author whose name is known
• 
  The New England Primer (from Children's literature)
• 
  A mother reads to her children in a mid- to late 19th century lithograph by Jessie Willcox Smith. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Cutlery for children. Detail showing fairy-tale scenes: Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel. (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Statuta Mutine Reformata, 1420–1485; parchment codex bound in wood and leather with brass plaques worked the corners and in the center, with clasps. (from Medieval literature)
• 
  A picture by Gustave Doré of Mother Goose reading written (literary) fairy tales (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Charles G. D. Roberts was a poet that belonged to an informal group known as the Confederation Poets. (from Canadian literature)
• 
  Octavio Paz helped to define modern poetry and the Mexican personality. (from Latin American literature)
• 
  An author portrait of Jean Miélot writing his compilation of the Miracles of Our Lady, one of his many popular works. (from History of books)
• 
  The scene in Botticelli's Madonna of the Book (1480) reflects the presence of books in the houses of richer people in his time. (from History of books)
• 
  Newbery's A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, originally published in 1744 (from Children's literature)
• 
  An early Chinese poetics, the Kǒngzǐ Shīlùn (孔子詩論), discussing the Shijing (Classic of Poetry) (from History of poetry)
• 
  Roberto Bolaño is considered to have had the greatest United States impact of any post-Boom author (from Latin American literature)
• 
  Short story writer Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. (from Canadian literature)
• 
  Sculpture of Alfonso Reyes writer of influential pieces of Mexican surrealism. (from Latin American literature)
• 
  An early Mexican hornbook pictured in Tuer's History of the Horn-Book, 1896. (from Children's literature)
• 
  French author Albert Camus was the first African-born writer to receive the award. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  The Story of Mankind (1921) by Hendrik van Loon, 1st Newbery Award winner (from Children's literature)
• 
  Gabrielle Roy was a notable French Canadian author. (from Canadian literature)
• 
  Peruvian poet César Vallejo, considered by Thomas Merton "the greatest universal poet since Dante" (from Latin American literature)
• 
  European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books)
• 
  A twentieth-century copyright imprint from McLoughlin Bros that features three rams and the copyright year, 1903 (from History of books)
• 
  Dresden Codex (page 49) (from History of books)
• 
  Hugo Ball performing at the Cabaret Voltaire (from Performance poetry)
• 
  Ivan Bilibin (1876–1942)'s illustration of the Russian fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful (from Fairy tale)
• 
  European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books)
• 
  A poet with a few enraptured fans (from Performance poetry)
• 
  Jikji, Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Seon Masters, the earliest known book printed with movable metal type, 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. (from History of books)
• 
  Hop-o'-My-Thumb and the ogre in an 1865 illustration (from Fairy tale)
• 
  The oldest known love poem. Sumerian terracotta tablet#2461 from Nippur, Iraq. Ur III period, 2037–2029 BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul (from History of poetry)
• 
  Page from a Jain manuscript depicting the birth of Mahavira, c. 1400 (from History of books)
• 
  Page from the Blue Quran manuscript, ca. 9th or 10th century CE (from History of books)
• 
  A Chinese bamboo book (from History of books)
• 
  Illustration from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865 (from Children's literature)
• 
  Statue of C. S. Lewis in front of the wardrobe from his Narnia book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (from Children's literature)
• 
  Walter Crane's chromolithograph illustration for The Frog Prince, 1874. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Galway Kinnell performing a poetic piece in Vermont (from Performance poetry)
• 
  Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, London (from Children's literature)
• 
  The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) (from History of books)
• 
  Father Frost acts as a donor in the Russian fairy tale Father Frost, testing the heroine before bestowing riches upon her (from Fairy tale)
• 
  The first page of Beowulf (from Medieval literature)
• 
  A late 18th-century reprint of Orbis Pictus by Comenius, the first children's picture book. (from Children's literature)
• 
  J. K. Rowling reads from her novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (from Children's literature)
• 
  Kings' Fairy Tale, 1909, by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Handwritten notes by Christopher Columbus on a Latin edition of The Travels of Marco Polo (from Travel literature)
• 
  Hemingway's telegram in 1954 (the academy has alternately used for Literature and in Literature over the years, the latter becoming the norm today) (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  H. O. Tanager performs at a bookstore in Boise, Idaho. (from Performance poetry)
• 
  Natias Neutert performing Diogenes Synopsis as at Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, 1986 (from Performance poetry)
• 
  Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books)
• 
  Chinese Bookseller, illustration, c. 1824 (from History of books)
• 
  In 1901, French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme (1839–1907) was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection, and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect." (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  Illustration from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 pirate adventure Treasure Island (from Children's literature)
• 
  Folio from a manuscript of the Shanamah (Book of Kings) (from History of books)
• 
  The former Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke (2015) (from Canadian literature)
• 
  A 15th-century Incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books)
• 
  The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) is a canonical piece of children's literature and one of the best-selling books ever published. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Postal stamp of Russia celebrating children's books. (from Children's literature)
• 
  The Codex Manesse, a German book from the Middle Ages (from History of books)
• 
  Number of children's books titles published by the trade sector in 2020 (from Children's literature)
• 
  Calliope, the muse of heroic poetry (from History of poetry)
• 
  The philosopher Confucius was influential in the developed approach to poetry and ancient music theory. (from History of poetry)
• 
  Goethe's Italian Journey between September 1786 and May 1788 (from Travel literature)
• 
  A Tagore illustration of a Hindu myth (from Children's literature)
• 
  The Crescent Moon by Rabindranath Tagore illus. by Nandalal Bose, Macmillan 1913 (from Children's literature)
• 
  Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books)
• 
  Pages from the 1819 edition of Kinder- und Haus-Märchen by the Brothers Grimm (from Children's literature)
• 
  Two people dressed up in costumes inspired by Willy Wonka (from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and the Hatter (from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) in London (from Children's literature)

Selected work

Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

---

The General in His Labyrinth is a novel by the Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. It is a fictionalized account of the last days of Simón Bolívar, liberator and leader of Gran Colombia. First published in 1989, the book traces Bolívar's final journey from Bogotá to the Caribbean coastline of Colombia in his attempt to leave South America for exile in Europe. In this dictator novel about a continental hero, "despair, sickness, and death inevitably win out over love, health, and life". Breaking with the traditional heroic portrayal of Bolívar El Libertador, García Márquez depicts a pathetic protagonist, a prematurely aged man who is physically ill and mentally exhausted. The story explores the labyrinth of Bolívar's life through the narrative of his memories.

García Márquez's insertion of interpretive and fictionalized elements—some dealing with Bolívar's most intimate moments—caused outrage in parts of Latin America when the book was released. Many prominent Latin American figures believed that the novel damaged the reputation of one of the region's most important historic figures and portrayed a negative image to the outside world. Others saw The General in His Labyrinth as a tonic for Latin American culture and a challenge to the region to deal with its problems.

Selected biographies -

Featured articles are displayed here.

---

• 
  
  

  

  Mario Vargas Llosa in 2016

  
  Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (born 28 March 1936), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (/ˌvɑːrɡəs ˈjoʊsə/; Spanish: [ˈmaɾjo ˈβaɾɣas ˈʎosa]), is a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and former politician. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat." He also won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize, the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award, the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes International Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie française.
  
  Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, literally The City and the Dogs, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969/1975). He writes, prolifically, across an array of literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. Several, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982), have been adapted as feature films. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Poe in 1849

  
  Edgar Allan Poe (né Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as one of the central figures of Romanticism and Gothic fiction in the United States, and of early American literature. Poe was one of the country's first successful practitioners of the short story, and is generally considered to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre. In addition, he is credited with contributing significantly to the emergence of science fiction. He is the first well-known American writer to earn a living by writing alone, which resulted in a financially difficult life and career.
  
  Poe was born in Boston. He was the second child of actors David and Elizabeth "Eliza" Poe. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and when Eliza died the following year, Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. They never formally adopted him, but he lived with them well into young adulthood. Poe attended the University of Virginia, but left after only a year due to a lack of money. He frequently quarreled with John Allan over the funds needed to continue his education as well as his gambling debts. In 1827, having enlisted in the United States Army under the assumed name of Edgar A. Perry, he published his first collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems, which was credited only to "a Bostonian". Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement after the death of Allan's wife Frances in 1829. However, Poe later failed as an officer cadet at West Point, declared his intention to become a writer, primarily of poems, and parted ways with Allan. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Angelou in 1993

  
  Maya Angelou (/ˈændʒəloʊ/ AN-jə-loh; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou's series of seven autobiographies focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
  
  She became a poet and writer after a string of odd jobs during her young adulthood. These included fry cook, sex worker, nightclub performer, Porgy and Bess cast member, Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator, and correspondent in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. Angelou was also an actress, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Angelou was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Beginning in the 1990s, she made approximately 80 appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" (1993) at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Title page of the first edition of Wright's Certaine Errors in Navigation (1599)

  
  Edward Wright (baptised 8 October 1561; died November 1615) was an English mathematician and cartographer noted for his book Certaine Errors in Navigation (1599; 2nd ed., 1610), which for the first time explained the mathematical basis of the Mercator projection by building on the works of Pedro Nunes, and set out a reference table giving the linear scale multiplication factor as a function of latitude, calculated for each minute of arc up to a latitude of 75°. This was in fact a table of values of the integral of the secant function, and was the essential step needed to make practical both the making and the navigational use of Mercator charts.
  
  Wright was born at Garveston in Norfolk and educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow from 1587 to 1596. In 1589 the college granted him leave after Elizabeth I requested that he carry out navigational studies with a raiding expedition organised by the Earl of Cumberland to the Azores to capture Spanish galleons. The expedition's route was the subject of the first map to be prepared according to Wright's projection, which was published in Certaine Errors in 1599. The same year, Wright created and published the first world map produced in England and the first to use the Mercator projection since Gerardus Mercator's original 1569 map. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Depiction of Murasaki Shikibu by Tosa Mitsuoki

  
  Murasaki Shikibu (紫式部, 'Lady Murasaki'; c. 973 – c. 1014 or 1025) was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period. She was best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, widely considered to be one of the world's first novels, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. Murasaki Shikibu is a descriptive name; her personal name is unknown, but she may have been Fujiwara no Kaoruko (藤原香子), who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady-in-waiting.
  
  Heian women were traditionally excluded from learning Chinese, the written language of government, but Murasaki, raised in her erudite father's household, showed a precocious aptitude for the Chinese classics and managed to acquire fluency. She married in her mid-to-late twenties and gave birth to a daughter, Daini no Sanmi. Her husband died after two years of marriage. It is uncertain when she began to write The Tale of Genji, but it was probably while she was married or shortly after she was widowed. In about 1005, she was invited to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi at the Imperial court by Fujiwara no Michinaga, probably because of her reputation as a writer. She continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work. After five or six years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the Lake Biwa region. Scholars differ on the year of her death; although most agree on 1014, others have suggested she was alive in 1025. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Rowling at the White House in 2010

  
  Joanne Rowling (/ˈroʊlɪŋ/ ROH-ling; born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She is the author of Harry Potter, a seven-volume fantasy novel series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.
  
  Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series. The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, the birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997. Six sequels followed, concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). By 2008, Forbes had named her the world's highest-paid author. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Meeker in 1921

  
  Ezra Morgan Meeker (December 29, 1830 – December 3, 1928) was an American pioneer who traveled the Oregon Trail by ox-drawn wagon as a young man, migrating from Iowa to the Pacific Coast. Later in life he worked to memorialize the Trail, repeatedly retracing the trip of his youth. Once known as the "Hop King of the World", he was the first mayor of Puyallup, Washington.
  
  Meeker was born in Butler County, Ohio, to Jacob and Phoebe Meeker. His family relocated to Indiana when he was a boy. He married Eliza Jane Sumner in 1851; the following year the couple, with their newborn son and Ezra's brother, set out for the Oregon Territory, where land could be claimed and settled on. Although they endured hardships on the Trail in the journey of nearly six months, the entire party survived the trek. Meeker and his family briefly stayed near Portland, then journeyed north to live in the Puget Sound region. They settled at what is now Puyallup in 1862, where Meeker grew hops for use in brewing beer. By 1887, his business had made him wealthy, and his wife built a large mansion for the family. In 1891, an infestation of hop aphids destroyed his crops and took much of his fortune. He later tried his hand at a number of ventures, and made four largely unsuccessful trips to the Klondike, taking groceries and hoping to profit from the gold rush. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Photo by Tee Corinne, 1983

  
  Ann Weldy (born September 15, 1932), better known by her pen name Ann Bannon, is an American author who, from 1957 to 1962, wrote six lesbian pulp fiction novels known as The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. The books' enduring popularity and impact on lesbian identity has earned her the title "Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction". Bannon was a young housewife trying to address her own issues of sexuality when she was inspired to write her first novel. Her subsequent books featured four characters who reappeared throughout the series, including her eponymous heroine, Beebo Brinker, who came to embody the archetype of a butch lesbian. The majority of her characters mirrored people she knew, but their stories reflected a life she did not feel she was able to live. Despite her traditional upbringing and role in married life, her novels defied conventions for romance stories and depictions of lesbians by addressing complex homosexual relationships.
  
  Her books shaped lesbian identity for lesbians and heterosexuals alike, but Bannon was mostly unaware of their impact. She stopped writing in 1962. Later, she earned a doctorate in linguistics and became an academic. She endured a difficult marriage for 27 years and, as she separated from her husband in the 1980s, her books were republished; she was stunned to learn of their influence on society. They were released again between 2001 and 2003 and were adapted as an award-winning Off-Broadway production. They are taught in women's and LGBT studies courses, and Bannon has received numerous awards for pioneering lesbian and gay literature. She has been described as "the premier fictional representation of US lesbian life in the fifties and sixties", and it has been said that her books "rest on the bookshelf of nearly every even faintly literate Lesbian". (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Daguerreotype taken at Mount Holyoke, December 1846 or early 1847; the only authenticated portrait of Dickinson after early childhood

  
  Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a prominent family with strong ties to its community. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's home in Amherst. Evidence suggests that Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a penchant for white clothing and was known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even to leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most of her friendships were based entirely upon correspondence.
  
  Although Dickinson was a prolific writer, her only publications during her lifetime were one letter and 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems. The poems published then were usually edited significantly to fit conventional poetic rules. Her poems were unique for her era; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality (two recurring topics in letters to her friends), aesthetics, society, nature, and spirituality. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (UK: /ˈwʊlstənkrɑːft/; née Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.
  
  Mary's mother died 11 days after giving birth to her. She was raised by her father, who provided her with a rich informal education, encouraging her to adhere to his own anarchist political theories. When she was four, her father married a neighbour, Mary Jane Clairmont, with whom Mary had a troubled relationship. (Full article...)

Selected excerpt

“ Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful in God’s sight. Even the sad, sour sisters should be kindly dealt with, because they have missed the sweetest part of life, if for no other reason. And looking at them with compassion, not contempt, girls in their bloom should remember that they too may miss the blossom time. That rosy cheeks don’t last forever, that silver threads will come in the bonnie brown hair, and that, by-and-by, kindness and respect will be as sweet as love and admiration now. ” — Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

More Did you know

• ... that though Amir Hamzah was a Muslim, analyses of his poem "Padamu Jua" have found Christian influences?
• ... that Claude Houghton's novel I Am Jonathan Scrivener may have influenced the film Citizen Kane?
• ... that in one of his 75 poems, Chairil Anwar predicted his place of burial?
• ... that the first edition of the Star Trek novel Killing Time included overtones of Kirk/Spock slash fiction?
• ... that publication of one of Adam Mickiewicz's first poems, "Ode to Youth", was delayed due to censorship?

Selected illustration

• 
  Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

  Engraving: I. H. Jones; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  The frontispiece to a c. 1825 edition of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, a lengthy narrative poem by Lord Byron. The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands. In a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. This poem proved to be quite popular upon its publication in 1812. Byron himself said of this, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous."
• 
  Puck of Pook's Hill

  Illustrator: Harold Robert Millar; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  An illustration from the story "Old Men at Pevensey" from the first printing of Rudyard Kipling's 1906 fantasy book Puck of Pook's Hill, featuring the legend "He drew his dagger on Jehan, who threw him down the stairway".
  
  The book consists of a number of stories, all narrated to two children living near Burwash, in the area of Kipling's own house Bateman's, by people magically plucked out of history by the elf Puck, or told by Puck himself.
  
  
• 
  Auld Lang Syne

  Engraving: John Masey Wright (artist) and John Rogers (engraver); restoration: Adam Cuerden

  A mid-19th century illustration for "Auld Lang Syne", a Scots poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to a traditional melody. It is traditionally used in the English-speaking world to bid farewell to the old year at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve; this has led to the song being used to close other activities as well.
• 
  Rob Roy

  Engraving: Dalziel Brothers; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  A scene from Sir Walter Scott's 1817 historical novel Rob Roy, which tells the story of Frank Osbaldistone, the son of an English merchant who travels to Scotland to collect a debt stolen from his father. On the way he encounters the larger-than-life title character of Robert Roy MacGregor. Though Rob Roy is not the lead character (in fact the narrative does not move to Scotland until halfway through the book) his personality and actions are key to the story's development. The novel is a brutally realistic depiction of the social conditions in Highland and Lowland Scotland in the early 18th century.
• 
  Scientific romance

  Artist: Albert Robida

  A typical 20th-century aerial rotating house, as drawn by Albert Robida. The drawing shows a dwelling structure in the scientific romance style elevated above rooftops and designed to revolve and adjust in various directions. An occupant in the lower right points to an airship with a fish-shaped balloon in the sky, while a woman rides a bucket elevator on the left. Meanwhile, children fly a kite from the balcony as a dog watches from its rooftop doghouse.
• 
  Humpty Dumpty

  Restoration: Jujutacular

  An illustration of Humpty Dumpty by American artist William Wallace Denslow, depicting the title character from the nursery rhyme of the same name. He is typically portrayed as an egg, although the rhyme never explicitly states that he is, possibly because it may have been originally posed as a riddle. The earliest known version is in a manuscript addition to a copy of Mother Goose's Melody published in 1803.
• 
  Illustration by John Bauer

  Painting: John Bauer

  A watercolor illustration by John Bauer (1882–1918) titled "Still, Tuvstarr sits and gazes down into the water", which accompanied Helge Kjellin's fairy tale "The Tale of the Moose Hop and the Little Princess Cotton Grass" in the 1913 edition of Among Gnomes and Trolls. In this scene, Tuvstarr looks for her lost heart in a tarn, symbolizing innocence lost.
  
  Born and raised in Jönköping, Sweden, Bauer moved to Stockholm at age 16 to study at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. He painted and illustrated in a romantic nationalistic style, in part influenced by the Italian Renaissance and Sami cultures. Most of his works are watercolors or prints in monochrome or muted colours; he also produced oil paintings and frescos.
• 
  Midas

  Artist: Walter Crane; Restoration: Lise Broer

  An illustration from an 1893 version of A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which recounted the tale of King Midas. In Greek mythology, Midas was given ability to turn everything he touched into gold by the god Bacchus. However, he soon discovered that he was unable to even eat. Bacchus told him to wash in the river Pactolus, and the power flowed in the river, which was supposedly the reason for why the river was so rich in gold in later years. In Hawthorne's version, Midas' touch even turned his daughter to gold (pictured here).
• 
  The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

  Illustration: George Cruikshank; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  In this scene from Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Uncle Toby's colonel invents a device for firing multiple miniature cannons at once, based on a hookah. Unfortunately, he and Toby find the puffing on the hookah pipe so enjoyable that they keep setting the cannons off. The novel was published in nine volumes over ten years, starting in 1759. Although it was not always held in high esteem by other writers, its bawdy humour was popular with London society, and it has come to be seen as one of the greatest comic novels in English, as well as a forerunner for many modern narrative devices and styles.
• 
  The Song of Los

  Illustration: William Blake

  The Song of Los is an epic poem by William Blake first published in 1795 and considered part of his prophetic books. The poem consists of two sections, "Africa" and "Asia": in the first section Blake catalogues the decline of morality in Europe, which he blames on both the African slave trade and enlightenment philosophers, whereas in the second section he describes a worldwide revolution, urged by the eponymous Los.
  
  The illustration here is from the book's frontispiece and shows Urizen presiding over the decline of morality.
• 
  Œnone

  Illustration: William Edward Frank Britten; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  Œnone is a poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in 1829. Inspired by the Greek mythological figure Oenone, first wife of Paris of Troy, the poem is a dramatic monologue following the lead-up to the Trojan War and the war itself. This illustration, by William Edward Frank Britten, is accompanied by the lines "O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, / Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die".
• 
  The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby

  Illustration: Jessie Willcox Smith; Restoration: ErikTheBikeMan

  An illustration from a ca. 1916 edition of The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, a children's novel written by Charles Kingsley and originally serialised in 1862–63. The book, a didactic moral fable, tells the story of Tom (lower left), a young boy who drowns and is reincarnated as a "water-baby". He undergoes a series of adventures and eventually regains his human form. It was extremely popular during its day and through the 1920s, but has since fallen out of favour, perhaps due to Kingsley's expression of many of the common prejudices of that time period, such as against Americans, Jews, blacks, and Catholics, particularly the Irish.
• 
  The Sleeping Beauty

  Illustration: W. E. F. Britten; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  "The Sleeping Beauty" is a poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and published in 1830; it was later expanded and published in 1842 as "The Day-Dream". Based on the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, the poem (as with many of Tennyson's adaptations of existing literary works) focuses on a single aspect of the story, the appearance of the eponymous character as she sleeps.
  
  This illustration by W. E. F. Britten was published in 1901 to accompany a reprinting of "The Sleeping Beauty". It accompanies the poem's final lines: "She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells / A perfect form in perfect rest."
• 
  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

  Artist: William Wallace Denslow

  An illustration from the first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, depicting the scene where Dorothy meets the Cowardly Lion, the first time the four major characters of the novel come together. The book was originally published in 1900 and has since been reprinted countless times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of both the 1902 Broadway musical and the extremely popular, highly acclaimed 1939 film version. Thanks in part to the film it is one of the best-known stories in American popular culture and has been widely translated. Its initial success, and the success of the popular 1902 musical Baum adapted from his story, led to his writing and having published thirteen more Oz books.
• 
  "The Queen of Hearts"

  Restoration: Lise Broer

  William Wallace Denslow's illustration of the poem "The Queen of Hearts" from a 1901 issue of Mother Goose. The poem was originally published in 1782 as part of a set of four playing card based poems, but proved to be far more popular than the others. By 1785 it had been set to music, and it forms the basis of the plot of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Chapter XI: "Who Stole the Tarts?" Although it was originally published in a magazine for adults, it is now best known as a nursery rhyme.

Did you know (auto-generated) -

• ... that literary fiction novel Agatha of Little Neon's title stems from a house that is "the color of Mountain Dew"?
• ... that a teacher of medieval literature and comic books writes the blog Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle?
• ... that 19th-century Polish ethnographer Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski travelled the countryside as a "wild man" and later appeared as a literary character?
• ... that the Lviv branch of the Ukrderzh­nats­menvydav was the main publisher of Polish literature in the Soviet Union by 1941?
• ... that a 1955 satirical comedy play by Kasymaly Jantöshev was one of the first signs of the relaxation of Soviet literary restrictions after the death of Joseph Stalin?
• ... that Cathie Dunsford was unable to find many books about lesbianism in the 1970s, but by the 1980s had herself become a writer and anthologist of lesbian literature?

Today in literature

18 November

• 1865 - Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press.
• 1874 - Clarence Day, American author born
• 1889 - William Allingham, Irish author died
• 1906 - Klaus Mann, German writer born
• 1922 - Marcel Proust, French novelist died
• 1926 - George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."
• 1939 - Margaret Atwood, Canadian writer (Surfacing, The Handmaid's Tale) born
• 1941 - Émile Nelligan, Quebec poet died
• 1946 - Alan Dean Foster, American author born
• 1952 - Paul Eluard, French poet died
• 1957 - Seán Mac Falls, Irish-born poet born
• 1966 - Jorge Camacho, Spanish poet born
• 1985 - Calvin and Hobbes, a comic strip by Bill Watterson, is first published.
• 1999 - Paul Bowles, American novelist died

Topics

Categories

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

Literature

Literature by ethnicity

Literature by form

Literature by genre

Literature by language

Literature by location

Literature by medium

Literature by period

Literature by source

Literature by topic

Literature by women

Fiction literature

Non-fiction literature

Publications

Anecdotes

Aviation literature

Books

Economics of the arts and literature

Grey literature

History of literature

Images of literature

Literary awards

Literary characters

Literary collaborations

Literary education

Literary events

Literary genres

Literary motifs

Literary organizations

Literary theory

Literary translation

Literature databases

Literature franchises

Literature in popular culture

Literature lists

Literature records

Literature timelines

Meitei literature

Miscellanies

Narratology

Nicknames in literature

Occupations in literature

Oral literature

People in literature

Postcolonial literature

Professorships in literature

Quotations from literature

References in literary works

Self-portraiture

Stylistics

Unfinished literature

Versions of literary works

Wikipedia categories named after texts

Works about literature

Works based on literature

Works by writer

Literature stubs

Wikipedia categories named after literary texts

Related portals

Portals related to literature

Concepts:
Genres:
Religions:

Things you can do

Related WikiProjects

WikiProjects related to literature:

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

• 

  Commons
  Free media repository

• 

  Wikibooks
  Free textbooks and manuals

• 

  Wikidata
  Free knowledge base

• 

  Wikinews
  Free-content news

• 

  Wikiquote
  Collection of quotations

• 

  Wikisource
  Free-content library

• 

  Wikiversity
  Free learning tools

• 

  Wiktionary
  Dictionary and thesaurus

Discover Wikipedia using portals

• 

  List of all portals

• 

  The arts portal

• 

  Biography portal

• 

  Current events portal

• 

  Geography portal

• 

  History portal

• 

  Mathematics portal

• 

  Science portal

• 

  Society portal

• 

  Technology portal

• 

  Random portal

• 

  WikiProject Portals