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.

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  Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books)
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  Walter Crane's chromolithograph illustration for The Frog Prince, 1874. (from Children's literature)
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  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)
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  The philosopher Confucius was influential in the developed approach to poetry and ancient music theory. (from History of poetry)
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  Postal stamp of Russia celebrating children's books. (from Children's literature)
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  The former Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke (2015) (from Canadian literature)
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  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)
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  Handwritten notes by Christopher Columbus on a Latin edition of The Travels of Marco Polo (from Travel literature)
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  The character which means "poetry", in the ancient Chinese Great Seal script style. The modern character is 詩/诗 (shī). (from History of poetry)
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  A 15th-century Incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books)
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  Dresden Codex (page 49) (from History of books)
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  The Codex Manesse, a German book from the Middle Ages (from History of books)
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  Charles G. D. Roberts was a poet that belonged to an informal group known as the Confederation Poets. (from Canadian literature)
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  Kings' Fairy Tale, 1909, by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (from Fairy tale)
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  H. O. Tanager performs at a bookstore in Boise, Idaho. (from Performance poetry)
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  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)
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  A Tagore illustration of a Hindu myth (from Children's literature)
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  French author Albert Camus was the first African-born writer to receive the award. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
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  Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books)
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  Page from the Blue Quran manuscript, ca. 9th or 10th century CE (from History of books)
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  The New England Primer (from Children's literature)
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  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)
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  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)
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  The Story of Mankind (1921) by Hendrik van Loon, 1st Newbery Award winner (from Children's literature)
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  Natias Neutert performing Diogenes Synopsis as at Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, 1986 (from Performance poetry)
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  Chinese Bookseller, illustration, c. 1824 (from History of books)
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  A picture by Gustave Doré of Mother Goose reading written (literary) fairy tales (from Fairy tale)
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  A mother reads to her children in a mid- to late 19th century lithograph by Jessie Willcox Smith. (from Children's literature)
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  Ivan Bilibin (1876–1942)'s illustration of the Russian fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful (from Fairy tale)
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  A poet with a few enraptured fans (from Performance poetry)
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  Hop-o'-My-Thumb and the ogre in an 1865 illustration (from Fairy tale)
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  An early Chinese poetics, the Kǒngzǐ Shīlùn (孔子詩論), discussing the Shijing (Classic of Poetry) (from History of poetry)
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  Illustration from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 pirate adventure Treasure Island (from Children's literature)
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  Cutlery for children. Detail showing fairy-tale scenes: Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel. (from Fairy tale)
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  Gabriel García Márquez, one of the most renowned Latin American writers (from Latin American literature)
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  Octavio Paz helped to define modern poetry and the Mexican personality. (from Latin American literature)
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  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)
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  Short story writer Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. (from Canadian literature)
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  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)
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  Number of children's books titles published by the trade sector in 2020 (from Children's literature)
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  Roberto Bolaño is considered to have had the greatest United States impact of any post-Boom author (from Latin American literature)
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  Folio from a manuscript of the Shanamah (Book of Kings) (from History of books)
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  The European fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in a painting by Carl Larsson in 1881. (from Fairy tale)
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  The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) (from History of books)
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  Page from a Jain manuscript depicting the birth of Mahavira, c. 1400 (from History of books)
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  A late 18th-century reprint of Orbis Pictus by Comenius, the first children's picture book. (from Children's literature)
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  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)
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  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)
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  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)
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  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
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  Goethe's Italian Journey between September 1786 and May 1788 (from Travel literature)
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  1900 edition of the controversial The Story of Little Black Sambo (from Children's literature)
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  An early Mexican hornbook pictured in Tuer's History of the Horn-Book, 1896. (from Children's literature)
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  Sculpture of Alfonso Reyes writer of influential pieces of Mexican surrealism. (from Latin American literature)
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  Peruvian poet César Vallejo, considered by Thomas Merton "the greatest universal poet since Dante" (from Latin American literature)
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  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)
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  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)
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  Galway Kinnell performing a poetic piece in Vermont (from Performance poetry)
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  Beauty and the Beast, illustration by Warwick Goble (from Fairy tale)
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  European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books)
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  Pages from the 1819 edition of Kinder- und Haus-Märchen by the Brothers Grimm (from Children's literature)
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  Hugo Ball performing at the Cabaret Voltaire (from Performance poetry)
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  Newbery's A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, originally published in 1744 (from Children's literature)
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  The Violet Fairy Book (1906)
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  Estimated medieval output of manuscripts in terms of copies (from Medieval literature)
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  European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books)
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  Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, London (from Children's literature)
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  Gabrielle Roy was a notable French Canadian author. (from Canadian literature)
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  J. K. Rowling reads from her novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (from Children's literature)
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  John Bauer's illustration of trolls and a princess from a collection of Swedish fairy tales (from Fairy tale)
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  The first page of Beowulf (from Medieval literature)
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  A Chinese bamboo book (from History of books)
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  Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books)
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  European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books)
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  Illustration from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865 (from Children's literature)
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  Father Frost acts as a donor in the Russian fairy tale Father Frost, testing the heroine before bestowing riches upon her (from Fairy tale)
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  A twentieth-century copyright imprint from McLoughlin Bros that features three rams and the copyright year, 1903 (from History of books)
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  Calliope, the muse of heroic poetry (from History of poetry)
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  The Crescent Moon by Rabindranath Tagore illus. by Nandalal Bose, Macmillan 1913 (from Children's literature)

Selected work

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

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"Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a poem written by the English Romantic poet John Keats in May 1819 and published anonymously in the January 1820, Number 15 issue of the magazine Annals of the Fine Arts. The poem is one of several "Great Odes of 1819", which include "Ode on Indolence", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale", and "Ode to Psyche". Keats found earlier forms of poetry unsatisfactory for his purpose, and the collection represented a new development of the ode form. He was inspired to write the poem after reading two articles by English artist and writer Benjamin Haydon. Keats was aware of other works on classical Greek art, and had first-hand exposure to the Elgin Marbles, all of which reinforced his belief that classical Greek art was idealistic and captured Greek virtues, which forms the basis of the poem.

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" was not well received by contemporary critics. It was only by the mid-19th century that it began to be praised, although it is now considered to be one of the greatest odes in the English language. A long debate over the poem's final statement divided 20th-century critics, but most agreed on the beauty of the work, despite various perceived inadequacies.

Selected biographies -

Featured articles are displayed here.

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  Tolkien in the 1920s

  
  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL (/ˈruːl ˈtɒlkiːn/, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
  
  From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, and held these positions from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the informal literary discussion group The Inklings. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972. (Full article...)
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  Cabinet card of W. S. Gilbert in about 1880 by Elliott & Fry

  
  
  
  Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan, which produced fourteen comic operas. The most famous of these include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. The popularity of these works was supported for over a century by year-round performances of them, in Britain and abroad, by the repertory company that Gilbert, Sullivan and their producer Richard D'Oyly Carte founded, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. These Savoy operas are still frequently performed in the English-speaking world and beyond.
  
  Gilbert's creative output included over 75 plays and libretti, and numerous short stories, poems and lyrics, both comic and serious. After brief careers as a government clerk and a lawyer, Gilbert began to focus, in the 1860s, on writing light verse, including his Bab Ballads, short stories, theatre reviews and illustrations, often for Fun magazine. He also began to write burlesques and his first comic plays, developing a unique absurdist, inverted style that would later be known as his "topsy-turvy" style. He also developed a realistic method of stage direction and a reputation as a strict theatre director. In the 1870s, Gilbert wrote 40 plays and libretti, including his German Reed Entertainments, several blank-verse "fairy comedies", some serious plays, and his first five collaborations with Sullivan: Thespis, Trial by Jury, The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance. In the 1880s, Gilbert focused on the Savoy operas, including Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard and The Gondoliers. (Full article...)
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  Barney in 1898, photograph by Alice Hughes

  
  Natalie Clifford Barney (October 31, 1876 – February 2, 1972) was an American writer who hosted a literary salon at her home in Paris that brought together French and international writers. She influenced other authors through her salon and also with her poetry, plays, and epigrams, often thematically tied to her lesbianism and feminism.
  
  Barney was born into a wealthy family. She was partly educated in France, and expressed a desire from a young age to live openly as a lesbian. She moved to France with her first romantic partner, Eva Palmer. Inspired by the work of Sappho, Barney began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900. Writing in both French and English, she supported feminism and pacifism. She opposed monogamy and had many overlapping long and short-term relationships, including on-and-off romances with poet Renée Vivien and courtesan Liane de Pougy and longer relationships with writer Élisabeth de Gramont and painter Romaine Brooks. (Full article...)
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  Revised detail of daguerreotype taken in 1842

  
  Honoré de Balzac (/ˈbælzæk/ BAL-zak, more commonly US: /ˈbɔːl-/ BAWL-; French: [ɔnɔʁe d(ə) balzak]; born Honoré Balzac; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus.
  
  Owing to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities. His writing influenced many famous writers, including the novelists Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert, and Henry James, and filmmakers François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. Many of Balzac's works have been made into films and continue to inspire other writers. James called him "really the father of us all." (Full article...)
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  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...)
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  Portrait of Rădulescu, by Mișu Popp

  
  Ion Heliade Rădulescu or Ion Heliade (also known as Eliade or Eliade Rădulescu; Romanian pronunciation: [ˈi.on heliˈade rəduˈlesku]; 6 January 1802 – 27 April 1872) was a Wallachian, later Romanian academic, Romantic and Classicist poet, essayist, memoirist, short story writer, newspaper editor and politician. A prolific translator of foreign literature into Romanian, he was also the author of books on linguistics and history. For much of his life, Heliade Rădulescu was a teacher at Saint Sava College in Bucharest, which he helped reopen. He was a founding member and first president of the Romanian Academy.
  
  Heliade Rădulescu is considered one of the foremost champions of Romanian culture from the first half of the 19th century, having first risen to prominence through his association with Gheorghe Lazăr and his support of Lazăr's drive for discontinuing education in Greek. Over the following decades, he had a major role in shaping the modern Romanian language, but caused controversy when he advocated the massive introduction of Italian neologisms into the Romanian lexis. A Romantic nationalist landowner siding with moderate liberals, Heliade was among the leaders of the 1848 Wallachian revolution, after which he was forced to spend several years in exile. Adopting an original form of conservatism, which emphasized the role of the aristocratic boyars in Romanian history, he was rewarded for supporting the Ottoman Empire and clashed with the radical wing of the 1848 revolutionaries. (Full article...)
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  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...)
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  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...)
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  Portrait of Sarah Trimmer, 1798

  
  Sarah Trimmer (née Kirby; 6 January 1741 – 15 December 1810) was an English writer and critic of 18th-century British children's literature, as well as an educational reformer. Her periodical, The Guardian of Education, helped to define the emerging genre by seriously reviewing children's literature for the first time; it also provided the first history of children's literature, establishing a canon of the early landmarks of the genre that scholars still use today. Trimmer's most popular children's book, Fabulous Histories, inspired numerous children's animal stories and remained in print for over a century.
  
  Trimmer was also an active philanthropist. She founded several Sunday schools and charity schools in her parish. To further these educational projects, she wrote textbooks and manuals for women interested in starting their own schools. Trimmer's efforts inspired other women, such as Hannah More, to establish Sunday school programs and to write for children and the poor. (Full article...)
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  Achebe in Lagos, 1966

  
  Chinua Achebe (/ˈtʃɪnwɑː əˈtʃɛbeɪ/ ; born Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as a central figure of modern African literature. His first novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart (1958), occupies a pivotal place in African literature and remains the most widely studied, translated, and read African novel. Along with Things Fall Apart, his No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964) complete the "African Trilogy". Later novels include A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). In the West, Achebe is often referred (or recognized as) to as the "father of African literature", although he vigorously rejected the characterization.
  
  Born in Ogidi, Colonial Nigeria, Achebe's childhood was influenced by both Igbo traditional culture and postcolonial Christianity. He excelled in school and attended what is now the University of Ibadan, where he became fiercely critical of how Western literature depicted Africa. Moving to Lagos after graduation, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS) and garnered international attention for his 1958 novel Things Fall Apart. In less than 10 years he would publish four further novels through the publisher Heinemann, with whom he began the Heinemann African Writers Series and galvanized the careers of African writers, such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Flora Nwapa. (Full article...)

Selected excerpt

“ It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through the meadows he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding everywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting—everything happy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasy conscience pricking him and whispering "whitewash!" he somehow could only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working. ” — Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

More Did you know

• ... that And Still I Rise, Maya Angelou's third volume of poetry, contains two of the author's most famous poems?
• ... that Kwee Tek Hoay's stage play Allah jang Palsoe was published seven years before the first canonical Indonesian drama?
• ... that The Monk As Man: The Unknown Life of Swami Vivekananda is one of the many books written on Swami Vivekananda?
• ... that the recent popularity of Amish romance novels has been seen as a reaction to the increasing popularity of erotic fiction such as Fifty Shades of Grey?
• ... that Jacques Rabemananjara, former Vice President of Madagascar, was also an important negritude poet and playwright?

Selected illustration

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  Caterpillar, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

  Artist: Sir John Tenniel

  Sir John Tenniel's illustration of the Caterpillar for Lewis Carroll's classic children's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The illustration is noted for its ambiguous central figure, which can be viewed as having either a human male's face with pointed nose and protruding lower lip or as the head end of an actual caterpillar, with the right three "true" legs visible. The small symbol in the lower left is composed of Tenniel's initials, which was how he signed most of his work for the book. The partially obscured word in the lower left-center is the last name of Edward Dalziel, the engraver of the piece.
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  Divine Comedy

  Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  An engraving of Charon, in Greek mythology the ferryman of Hades who carried souls of the newly deceased across the River Styx that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. This illustration is from French engraver Gustave Doré's 1857 set of illustrations for Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, an Italian epic poem depicting an allegorical vision of the Christian afterlife. Here, Charon is shown coming to ferry souls across the river Acheron to Hell. The caption is from Henry Francis Cary's translation, from which this particular copy is taken:
  
  And, lo! toward us in a bark
  Comes on an old man, hoary white with eld,
  Crying "Woe to you, wicked spirits!"
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  The Last of the Mohicans

  Illustration: Frank T. Merrill; restoration: Chris Woodrich

  An illustration from 1896 edition of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. Set during the French and Indian War, the novel details the transport of two young women to Fort William Henry. Among the caravan guarding the women are the frontiersman Natty Bumppo, the Major Duncan Heyward, and the Indians Chingachgook and Uncas. In this scene, Bumppo (disguised as a bear) fights against the novel's villain, Magua, as two of his compatriots look on.
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  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."
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  Ivanhoe

  Engraver: J. Cooper; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  "Le Noir Faineant in the Hermit's Cell", an illustration from an 1886 edition of Sir Walter Scott's 1819 novel Ivanhoe. Here, we see Le Noir Faineant, or the Black Knight (Richard the Lionheart in disguise) with Friar Tuck. Scott was an early pioneer in the development of the modern novel, and largely created the genre of historical fiction by weaving together legends and characters into his own creations. Ivanhoe, the story of one of the remaining Saxon noble families at a time when the English nobility was overwhelmingly Norman, was greatly influential on the modern view of the English folk hero Robin Hood, and has inspired many adaptations around the world in theatre, opera, film, and television.
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  Allan Quatermain

  Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  H. Rider Haggard's iconic character Allan Quatermain, from Thure de Thulstrup's illustrations to the 1888 novel Maiwa's Revenge, a prequel to Haggard's most famous work, King Solomon's Mines. In this scene, Quatermain orders his troops to discharge their rifles, yelling, "Fire, you scoundrels!" The character served as the basis for the modern Indiana Jones.
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  Headless Horseman

  Painting: John Quidor

  The Headless Horseman is a mythical figure who has appeared in folklore around the world since at least the Middle Ages. Depending on the legend, the Horseman is either carrying his head, or missing it altogether, and is searching for it. Examples include the dullahan from Ireland, who is a demonic fairy usually depicted riding a horse and carrying his head under his arm; the titular knight from the English tale Gawain and the Green Knight; and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," a short story written in 1820 by American Washington Irving which has been adapted into several other works of literature and film including the 1999 Tim Burton movie Sleepy Hollow.
  
  This picture, titled The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane, is an 1858 painting by American artist John Quidor, depicting a scene from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". It is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
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  The Bride of Lammermoor

  Artist: Charles Robert Leslie; Engraver: J. Cooper
  Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  A scene from an 1886 edition of Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor, originally published in 1819. Although fictional, the story is based on an actual incident of the family of James Dalrymple: Dalrymple's daughter Janet was betrothed to one man in an arranged marriage, but in love with another. On her wedding night, Janet stabbed her husband. She was judged to be insane and died within a month. The book is part of Scott's Tales of My Landlord series and is the basis for Gaetano Donizetti's 1835 opera Lucia di Lammermoor.
• 
  Rootabaga Stories

  Illustration: Maud and Miska Petersham; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  Rootabaga Stories is a children's book of interrelated short stories by Carl Sandburg, written in 1922. The stories are whimsical and sometimes melancholy, making use of nonsense language. Rootabaga Stories was originally created for Sandburg's own daughters, Margaret, Janet and Helga—whom he nicknamed "Spink", "Skabootch", and "Swipes"—and those nicknames occur in some of the Rootabaga stories. The book was born of Sandburg's desire for fairy tales to which American children could relate, rather than the traditional European stories involving royalty and knights. He therefore set the book in a fictionalized American Midwest called the "Rootabaga country", in which fairy-tale concepts were mixed with trains, sidewalks, and skyscrapers.
  
  This picture shows the frontispiece of the 1922 edition of the book.
• 
  Suikoden

  Woodblock artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi

  This woodblock print, titled Kinhyōshi yōrin, hero of the Suikoden, is one of a series created by the Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi between 1827 and 1830 illustrating the 108 Suikoden ("Water Margin"). The publication of the series catapulted Kuniyoshi to fame. The story of the Suikoden is an adaptation of the Chinese Shuǐhǔ Zhuàn; during the 1800s, the publication of this woodblock series and other translations of the novel created a Suikoden craze in Japan. Following the great commercial success of the Kuniyoshi series, other ukiyo-e artists were commissioned to produce prints of the Suikoden heroes, which began to be shown as Japanese heroes rather than the original Chinese personages. The hero portrayed in this print is Yang Lin.
• 
  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."
• 
  Don Quixote

  Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  An engraving by Gustave Doré of a scene from Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote, the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age in the Spanish literary canon. The scene illustrated here occurs early in the novel, when Alonso Quixano (Quixote's real name) has become obsessed with books of chivalry, and believes their every word to be true, despite the fact that many of the events in them are clearly impossible. Don Quixote was published in two separate volumes, ten years apart. It is considered a founding work of modern Western literature, and it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published.
• 
  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.
• 
  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.
• 
  Jeeves

  Illustration: Unknown; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  Jeeves is a fictional character in a series of comedic short stories and novels by English author P. G. Wodehouse, in which he is depicted as the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Bertie Wooster. First appearing in the short story "Extricating Young Gussie" in 1915, Jeeves continued to feature in Wodehouse's work until his last completed novel, Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974). He also appeared in numerous films and television series, portrayed by such actors as Arthur Treacher, Michael Aldridge, and Dennis Price. The name and character of Jeeves have come to be identified with the quintessential valet or butler.

Did you know (auto-generated) -

• ... that literary critic Leslie Fiedler called the novel Band of Angels "operatic in the worst sense of the word"?
• ... that a poem by Moses da Rieti includes an encyclopedia of the sciences, a Jewish paradise fantasy, and a post-biblical history of Jewish literature?
• ... that the literary magazine Adabijoti Soveti was the sole remaining publication in the Jewish-Bukharian language by the time of the switch to the Cyrillic script in 1939–1940?
• ... that Children's Fantasy Literature is the first work to address the genre's 500-year history in depth?
• ... that 19th-century Polish ethnographer Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski travelled the countryside as a "wild man" and later appeared as a literary character?
• ... that Super Mario 64 has been the subject of medical literature showing a correlation between habitual playing of 3D platformers and increased grey matter in the brain?

Today in literature

22 November

• 1722 - Hryhori Skovoroda, Ukrainian poet born
• 1819 - George Eliot, British novelist born
• 1869 - André Gide, French writer born
• 1877 - Endre Ady, Hungarian poet born
• 1884 - Syed Sulaiman Nadvi, Pakistani biographer born
• 1916 - Jack London, American writer died
• 1932 - William Walker Atkinson, American author died
• 1936 - James Burke, British writer born
• 1947 - Valerie Wilson Wesley, American author born
• 1962 - Victor Pelevin, Russian writer born
• 1963 - Aldous Huxley, British author died
• 1963 - C. S. Lewis, Irish author died
• 1970 - Stel Pavlou, British novelist born
• 1986 - William Bradford Huie, American writer died
• 1993 - Anthony Burgess, British author died

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