Ford Madox Ford lived a fascinating life, surrounded by some of the most famous writers of the era: Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, Henry James, Stephen Crane, D.H. Lawrence, Jean Rhys, Ernest Hemingway, and many others. Today, he's best known for his editing of others and for his modernist classics The Good Soldier (1915) and the Parade's End tetralogy (1924-8). Who was Ford Madox Ford? What was he like as a person? Just how complicated did his personal affairs get - and how did he manage to endure them? In this episode, Jacke talks to Max Saunders, "the doyen of Ford scholars," about his biography of Ford Madox Ford. PLUS Bethanne Patrick, aka the Book Maven, chooses the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Persuaded by the well-meaning Lady Russell, Anne Elliot turns down prospective suitor Frederick Wentworth. Will life give her a second chance at love? And if so, can she persuade herself to take it? In this episode, Jacke talks to Mike Palindrome, President of the Literature Supporters Club, about the second half of Jane Austen's Persuasion (1817). PLUS Juliette Bretan, freelance journalist and specialist in Eastern European current affairs and culture, tells us her choice for the last book she will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when we let opportunities slip past us? And what if we let others talk us out of what looks like our best chance at love? In this episode, Jacke talks to historical romance novelist Gina Buonaguro (The Virgins of Venice) about the first half of Jane Austen's Persuasion (1817). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harold Bloom called Persuasion "the perfect novel." Virginia Woolf said "In Persuasion, Jane Austen is beginning to discover that the world is larger, more mysterious, and more romantic than she supposed." In this episode, the first of three parts, Jacke takes a look at Jane Austen's novel of missed opportunities and second chances. PLUS Milton expert Stephen Dobranski (Reading Milton: How to Persist in Troubled Times) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Irina Mashinski is a bilingual Russophone American writer, poet, essayist, teacher, and translator, whose works include Giornata and eleven books of poetry and essays in Russian. She is also the co-editor of The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry. In this episode, Irina talks with Jacke about her childhood in the Soviet Union, her journey to becoming a poet living in America, and her new book The Naked World, which mixes poems and prose accounts to tell the story of four generations of a family living through Stalin's Great Terror, the Thaw of the Sixties, and the post-Thaw Seventies. SPECIAL NOTE: Irina would like to express her gratitude to the editors and translators who helped with The Naked World, and to whom she is very grateful. Additional listening suggestions: 130 The Poet and the Painter - The Great Love Affair of Anna Akhmatova and Amedeo Modigliani Keeping Secrets! Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, and the CIA (with Lara Prescott) 458 Alexander Pushkin (with Robert Chandler) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Episode 500! Jacke shares some thoughts on Meg White's drumming, Boswell and Johnson, and living in Taiwan. Then author Margot Livesey (The Boy in the Field, The Flight of Gemma Hardy) joins Jacke for a discussion of some My Last Books with past guests. Additional listening suggestions: 439 The Poets' Guide to Economics (with John Ramsden) 417 What Happened on Roanoke Island? (with Kimberly Brock) 465 Greek Lit and Game Theory (with Josiah Ober) 463 Friedrich Nietzsche (with Ritchie Robertson) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to author Laura Lee about her new book Wilde Nights and Robber Barons: The Story of Maruice Schwabe, the Man Behind Oscar Wilde's Downfall, Who with a Band of False Aristocrats Swindled the World. LAURA LEE is the author of 21 books including biography, humorous reference, fiction, and children's literature. The San Francisco Chronicle has said of her work, "Lee's dry, humorous tone makes her a charming companion... She has a penchant for wordplay that is irresistible." Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to legendary independent filmmaker John Sayles (Lone Star, Passion Fish) about his new novel Jamie MacGillivray: The Renegade's Journey, which tells a sweeping story of romance and revolution in eighteenth century Scotland and the New World. "Film director and novelist Sayles (Yellow Earth) follows in this strong outing the parallel stories of a Scottish rebel and a young Scottish woman pressed into servitude and sent to the Caribbean... he has a knack for bringing his many characters to life, and he makes palpable the raw violence of war and the uncompromising inequality of the period. It’s a worthy epic." -- Publishers Weekly John Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for Passion Fish (1992) and Lone Star (1996). He has written seven novels, the most recent being Yellow Earth (2020) and A Moment in the Sun (2011). Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By any measure, the ancient Chinese military treatise The Art of War has had an astonishing literary history, proving itself over two and a half millennia to be one of the world's most essential and enduring books. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and legacy of this classic work, reputedly by a Chinese general named Sun Tzu, to see how it is that something so old and out of date continues to instruct and inspire. Additional listening suggestions: 143 A Soldier's Heart (with Elizabeth Samet) Conflict Literature (with Matt Gallagher) 362 Kurt Vonnegut (with Tom Roston) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognizably real woman in English literature, has obsessed readers from Shakespeare to James Joyce, Voltaire to Pasolini, Dryden to Zadie Smith. Few literary characters have led such colorful lives or matched her influence or capacity for reinvention in poetry, drama, fiction, and film. In this episode, Jacke talks to award-winning Chaucer biographer Marion Turner about her new book, The Wife of Bath: A Biography. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do today's masters create their art? In this episode, Jacke talks to Joe Skinner, producer and host of the podcast American Masters: Creative Spark, about the narrative interviews he's conducted with iconic artists about the creation of a single work - and what he's learned about the mysteries of inspired creativity along the way. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a final powerful book, acclaimed literary biographer Robert Richardson told the story of how Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James dealt with personal tragedies early in their careers. In this episode, Jacke talks to Pulitzer-prize winner Megan Marshall, who wrote the foreword for the book, about her friend Robert and his look at three great thinkers and the resilience, growth, and creativity that can stem from devastating loss. Additional listening: 491 Elizabeth Bishop (with Megan Marshall) 483 Margaret Fuller (with Megan Marshall) 461 The Peabody Sisters (with Megan Marshall) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He loved and he hated. Other than that, not much is known about the life of Catullus, who scandalized the late Roman Republic with his bawdy poems, his aching love for the upper-class married woman he called "Lesbia," and his invective against Julius Caesar and other Roman notables. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of Catullus, whose poetry was lost for a thousand years, but which, once recovered, became highly influential among poets for its accomplished technique and urgent intimacy. Additional listening: 93 Robert Frost Finds a Friend Ezra Pound 4 Sappho Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After the October Revolution in 1917, a teenaged Vladimir Nabokov and his family, part of the Russian nobility, sought exile in Western Europe, eventually settling in Berlin, where Vladimir lived for fifteen years. His life then included some politics, some writing and translating, some recreational pursuits - and a lot of trips to the cinema, a burgeoning art form and cultural experience that fascinated him. In this episode, Jacke talks to Luke Parker about this period of Nabokov's life, as explored in Luke's book Nabokov Noir: Cinematic Culture and the Art of Exile. Additional listening suggestions: 318 Lolita (with Jenny Minton Quigley) 112 The Novelist and the Witch-Doctor - Unpacking Nabokov's Case Against Freud (with Joshua Ferris) 96 Dracula, Lolita, and the Power of Volcanoes (with Jim Shepard) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) was one of the twentieth century's most accomplished and celebrated poets. In this episode, Jacke talks to Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Megan Marshall about her personal connection to Bishop, as well as her book Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast. MEGAN MARSHALL is the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for Margaret Fuller, and the author of The Peabody Sisters, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. She is the Charles Wesley Emerson College Professor and teaches narrative nonfiction and the art of archival research in the MFA program at Emerson College. For more, visit www.meganmarshallauthor.com. Additional listening suggestions: 396 Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (with Heather Clark) 176 William Carlos Williams (The Use of Force) 306 John Keats (with Anahid Nersessian)  Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing YE GODS from producer-playwright and frequent guest of History of Literature, Scott Carter. We all know that faith and ethics are recurring themes in literature from Greek mythology to Shakespeare, to the great Russian novels, Charles Dickens, Emiliy Dickinson and everything between and after. In this new podcast series, YE GODS WITH SCOTT CARTER takes us on a pilgrimage of sorts, each week he’ll be talking to celebrity guests like historian Ken Burns, actor Susie Essman from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, Pulitzer Prize nominated playwright Anna Deavere Smith, neuroscientist-philosopher Sam Harris and others.   Follow and subscribe to YE GODS WITH SCOTT CARTER wherever you’re listening to this podcast so you don’t miss new episodes every Wednesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to Edgar Award-winning novelist, Tony Award-winning playwright, and legendary story songwriter Rupert Holmes about writing pop song landmarks ("Escape (The Piña Colada Song))," Broadway whodunit musicals (The Mystery of Edwin Drood), and his new book Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide. RUPERT HOLMES has received two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, and multiple Tony® and Drama Desk Awards for his Broadway mystery musicals, including the book of Curtains and his sole creation, the Tony® Award–winning Best Musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood. His first novel, Where the Truth Lies, was nominated for a Nero Wolfe award for Best American Mystery Novel, was a Booklist Top Ten Debut Novel, and became a motion picture starring Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon. His second novel, Swing, was the first novel with its own original, clue-bearing musical score. He has adapted Agatha Christie, John Grisham, and R.L. Stine for the Broadway and international stage. His short stories have been anthologized in such collections as Best American Mystery Stories, Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop,and On a Raven’s Wing. Holmes’s earliest story-songs were published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and he is also the writer/vocalist of several Billboard Top 10 hits, including his Billboard #1 multi-platinum classic with a memorable twist-ending: “Escape (The Pina Colada Song).” Additional Listening Suggestions: 350 Mystery! (with Jonah Lehrer) 109 Women of Mystery (with Christina Kovac) 99 History and Mystery (with Radha Vatsal) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"It is difficult to find happiness within oneself," said the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), "but it is impossible to find it anywhere else." In spite of his pessimism - or perhaps because of it - Schopenhauer, who was virtually unknown until the last few years of his life, went on to influence generations of writers, artists, philosophers, and composers. In this episode, Jacke looks at the life, legacy, and worldview of this darkest of men, including some thoughts on what it feels like to read Schopenhauer today. Additional reading: 463 Friedrich Nietzsche (with Ritchie Robertson) 155 Plato 465 Greek Lit and Game Theory (with Josiah Ober) 164 Karl Marx Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to "serial biographer" Carl Rollyson about his new two-volume biography of William Faulkner, The Life of William Faulkner: The Past Is Never Dead, 1897-1934 (Volume 1) and The Life of William Faulkner: This Alarming Paradox, 1935-1962 (Volume 2). CARL ROLLYSON, Professor of Journalism at Baruch College, The City University of New York, has published more than forty books ranging in subject matter from biographies of Marilyn Monroe, Lillian Hellman, Martha Gellhorn, Norman Mailer, Rebecca West, Susan Sontag, and Jill Craigie to studies of American culture, genealogy, children's biography, film, and literary criticism. Additional listening suggestions: William Faulkner - A Rose for Emily William Faulkner - Dry September Baldwin v. Faulkner Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On October 5, 1962, two items were released, hardly newsworthy at the time. One was Dr. No, the first James Bond film, and the other was Love Me Do, the first Beatles recording. Over the next sixty years, both Bond and the Beatles would become cultural juggernauts, with a reach and influence so vast that they can be hard to fathom. What have those twin phenomena meant to the British psyche? And what have they meant for the rest of the world? In this episode, Jacke talks to author John Higgs about his book Love and Let Die: Bond, the Beatles, and the British Psyche. Additional listening suggestions: 416 William Blake vs. the World (with John Higgs) 380 Ian Fleming | PLUS The Black James Bond 444 Thrillers on the Eve of War - Spy Novels in the 1930s (with Juliette Bretan) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What was Willa Cather's life really like? Was she - as is often thought - a solitary artist, painstakingly crafting her novels about the Great Plains? Or did she actually have a robust creative partnership with another woman, Edith Lewis, which was downplayed at the time and for decades afterward? In this episode, Jacke talks to Melissa J. Homestead about her book, The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather & Edith Lewis, which sheds new light on the life and works of a great twentieth century novelist. Additional listening suggestions: 316 Willa Cather (with Lauren Marino) 317 My Antonía by Willa Cather 308 New Westerns (with Anna North) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"In the early United States, a Black person committed an act of resistance simply by reading and writing. Yet we overlook that these activities also brought pleasure." In this episode, Jacke talks to Dr. Tara A. Bynum about her new book, Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America, which finds the "joyous, if messy, humanity" in the lives and works of four canonical Black writers from the 18th and early 19th centuries. Additional listening suggestions: The Trials of Phillis Wheatley 358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) 291 The Book of Firsts (with Ulrich Baer and Smaran Dayal) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Milton is often regarded as second only to Shakespeare in the history of English verse - and his epic poem, Paradise Lost, is viewed by many as second to none. His literary achievements are all the more remarkable when one considers the formidable political and personal obstacles Milton faced. In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Stephen Dobranski about his new book, Reading John Milton: How to Persist in Troubled Times. Additional listening: 154 John Milton 376 Why John Milton? (with Joe Moshenska) 91 In Which John Donne Decides to Write a Poem About a Flea Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her lifetime, Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was widely acknowledged as the best read person - male or female - in New England. Her landmark work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, is considered the first full-length treatment of women's rights in North America. After finding success as an author, scholar, educator, editor, translator, journalist, and host of a famous series of "conversations," she tragically died at the age of 40 in a sea accident off the coast of Fire Island, New York. In this episode, Jacke talks to Pulitzer-prize winning biographer Megan Marshall about her book, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life. Additional listening: 461 The Peabody Sisters (with Megan Marshall) 351 Mary Wollstonecraft (with Samantha Silva) 356 Louisa May Alcott 111 Ralph Waldo Emerson Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is Moby-Dick truly the Great American Novel? How did contemporary critics miss it? When (and how) was the book rediscovered? Jacke goes through all this and more, as he continues the countdown of Top 10 Essential Questions about Herman Melville's 1851 masterpiece. Additional listening: 481 Moby Dick - 10 Essential Questions (Part One) 474 Herman Melville 159 Herman Melville (with Mike Palindrome and Cristina Negrón) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here we go! Moby-Dick; or, the Whale (1851) by Herman Melville is one of the greatest - and strangest - novels you will ever read. Call it what you will - a literary leviathan, an intellectual chowder, an early entry in the Great American Novel sweepstakes - or don't call it anything, just call the narrator Ishmael and climb aboard! In this episode, Jacke counts down 10 Essential Questions regarding Melville's (white) whale of a book. Additional listening: 474 Herman Melville 159 Herman Melville (with Mike Palindrome and Cristina Negrón) 110 Heart of Darkness - Then and Now Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1878, critic Matthew Arnold wrote, "Goethe is the greatest poet of modern times... because having a very considerable gift for poetry, he was at the same time, in the width, depth, and richness of his criticism of life, by far our greatest modern man." In this episode, Jacke talks to Ritchie Robertson, author of Goethe: A Very Short Introduction, about the life and works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic, and supreme literary writer in a vast variety of genres. Ritchie Robertson is Taylor Professor of German in the University of Oxford. He is the author of The 'Jewish Question' in German Literature, 1749-1939: Emancipation and its Discontents (OUP, 1999), Mock-Epic Poetry from Pope to Heine (OUP, 2009), and Kafka; A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2004). He has translated several German authors into English for the Oxford World's Classics and Penguin Classics series, and has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2004. Additional listening: 463 Friedrich Nietzsche (with Ritchie Robertson) George Eliot 111 The Americanest American - Ralph Waldo Emerson Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

W.H. Auden (1907-1973) was one of the twentieth-century's greatest poets - and also one of the most engaged. As he struggled to make sense of the rise of fascism, two world wars, and industrialized murder, his focus turned to the poet's responsibility in the face of unthinkable horrors. How does a poet begin to address these subjects? In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb, author of the new book Auden and the Muse of History, about Auden's use of the past to help him come to grips with the present. Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies, Northwestern University. She is the author of Regions of Sorrow: Anxiety and Messianism in Hannah Arendt and W.H. Auden (Stanford, 2003) and editor of Hannah Arendt: Reflections on Literature and Culture (Stanford, 2007). Additional listening suggestions: 467 T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land (with Jed Rasula) 363 William Butler Yeats 464 Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Mature Years Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kafka! The avatar of anxiety! He's long been one of our favorites here at the History of Literature Podcast. In this episode, Jacke talks to translator Ross Benjamin about the new edition of The Diaries of Franz Kafka, published by Schocken Books, which includes some material available in English for the first time. “Readers will welcome this new edition of the Diaries, complete, uncensored, in a fluent translation by Ross Benjamin, and supplemented with 78 pages of invaluable notes, the fruit of half a century of Kafka scholarship.” —J. M. Coetzee, author of Disgrace “Ross Benjamin has given the literary world an incredible treasure in this thoughtful edition. Kafka has never been so fully present, both as a man and a writer." —New York Journal of Books Additional listening: 134 The Greatest Night of Kafka's Life 139 A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka 349 Kafka's Metamorphosis (with Blume) 404 Kafka and Literary Oblivion (with Robin Hemley) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does Edith Wharton hate us? That's a provocative question - but perhaps one that Wharton herself provoked, with her essay on the readers who damaged literature and her fiction satirizing the same. In this two-part series, Jacke takes a look at the type of readers targeted by Wharton: not the readers of trash fiction, whom she believed were harmless enough, but the readers of serious fiction who nevertheless read fiction in the wrong way. Does it include History of Literature Podcast listeners or even - gulp - its host? This episode is Part Two, which focuses on Wharton's 1903 essay "The Vice of Reading." Part One, which focuses on Wharton's 1916 short story "Xingu," will be available at the same time. Additional listening: Edith Wharton (with Mike Palindrome) 61 In the Mood for a Good Book - Wharton, Murakami, Chandler, and Fowles (with Vu Tran) 414 Henry James's Golden Bowl (with Dinitia Smith) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does Edith Wharton hate us? That's a provocative question - but perhaps one that Wharton herself provoked, with her essay on the readers who damaged literature and her fiction satirizing the same. In this two-part series, Jacke takes a look at the type of readers targeted by Wharton: not the readers of trash fiction, whom she believed were harmless enough, but the readers of serious fiction who nevertheless read fiction in the wrong way. Does it include History of Literature Podcast listeners or even - gulp - its host? This episode is Part One, focusing on Wharton's 1916 short story "Xingu." Part Two, which focuses on Wharton's 1903 essay "The Vice of Reading," will be available at the same time. Additional listening: Edith Wharton (with Mike Palindrome) 61 In the Mood for a Good Book - Wharton, Murakami, Chandler, and Fowles (with Vu Tran) 414 Henry James's Golden Bowl (with Dinitia Smith) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we all know, the text of a book can possess incredible powers, transporting readers across time and space. But what about the books themselves? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Emma Smith (This Is Shakespeare) about her new book, Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers, which provides a material history of books and the people who love them. EMMA SMITH is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford University, and the author of This Is Shakespeare (2020). She lives in Oxford, England. Additional listening: 92 The Books of Our Lives 149 Raising Readers (aka The Power of Literature in an Imperfect World) 259 Shakespeare's Best - Sonnets 129 and 130 ("Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame" and "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun") Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life of Herman Melville, author of Moby-Dick and many other works. Melville experienced ups and downs, from a fancy Manhattan childhood to financial ruin and back again. Once a literary celebrity, heralded for his early novels based on his experiences living on tropical islands with cannibals, he was nearly forgotten at the time of his death, only to be rediscovered a few decades afterward - and to become a household name for more than a hundred years. Additional listening suggestions: 159 Herman Melville (with Mike Palindrome and Cristina Negrón) 296 Nathaniel Hawthorne 273 The Book for Book Lovers - The Call Me Ishmael Phone Book (with Stephanie Kent and Logan Smalley) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke is joined by Professor Mark Cirino, host of the One True Podcast and editor of One True Sentence: Writers & Readers on Hemingway's Art, for a discussion of Hemingway's classic short story about World War I and recovery in an Italian hospital, "In Another Country." (If you haven't read the story in a while don't worry - we read it for you!) PLUS we kick off a new series on 99 random fragments of Kafka's life. NOTE: Mark's One True Podcast is planning to run an episode on "In Another Country" later this year - subscribe now so you don't miss it! Additional listening suggestions: 432 Hemingway's One True Sentence (with Mark Cirino) 47 Hemingway vs Fitzgerald 162 Ernest Hemingway Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special episode, Jacke pays tribute to a friend, including a consideration of endings and beginnings, mystery and grace, and two powerful works: John Berger's The Shape of a Pocket and James Joyce's masterpiece "The Dead." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Jacke talks to three bestselling authors - Susan Meissner, Kristina McMorris, and Ariel Lawhon - who came together to write When We Had Wings, a historical novel about a trio of World War II nurses who waged their own battle for freedom and survival. PLUS we hear what Charlie Lovett, bibliophile and Lewis Carroll expert, would choose as the last book he would ever read. Additional listening suggestions: 362 Kurt Vonnegut (with Tom Roston) 448 Lewis Carroll (with Charlie Lovett) 308 New Westerns (with Anna North) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Legendary anti-lynching crusader and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) is best known for her diligent research and brave and compelling journalism. But she was also a feature writer for both black-owned and white-owned newspapers, and her talents were not just limited to nonfiction. In this episode, Jacke reads and discusses a rare example of Wells's surviving fiction, "Two Christmas Days: A Holiday Story," the only romantic story Wells ever published. Additional listening suggestions: 293 Ebeneezer Scrooge 311 Frederick Douglass Learns to Read 358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since its publication in 1908, E.M. Forster's classic novel A Room with a View, which tells the story of a young Englishwoman who finds a romantic adventure during a trip to Florence, has inspired countless travelers to expand their minds and warm their hearts with a tour through Italy. In this episode, Jacke talks to historical and romance novelist Gina Buonaguro about her love for Forster's work, her own use of Italy as a setting, and her most recent novel The Virgins of Venice. Additional listening suggestions: 43 Seeing Evil (with Professor Rebecca Messbarger) 131 Dante in Love (with Professor Ellen Nerenberg and Anthony Valerio) The Distance of the Moon by Italo Calvino Help support the show at patreon.com/literature. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at historyofliterature.com or www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1886, the twenty-six-year-old Anton Chekhov was practicing medicine, supporting his family, falling in and out love, writing pieces for newspapers at a furious pace - and gradually becoming one of the greatest short story writers the world has ever seen. In this episode, Jacke talks to Bob Blaisdell, author of Chekhov Becomes Chekhov: The Emergence of a Literary Genius, about the two-year period in which Chekhov went from a virtual unknown to a promising literary star admired by Tolstoy himself. Bob Blaisdell is Professor of English at the City University of New York’s Kingsborough College and the author of Creating Anna Karenina. He is a reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Christian Science Monitor, and the editor of more than three dozen Dover literature and poetry collections, including a collection of Chekhov's love stores. He lives in New York City. Additional listening suggestions: 150 Chekhov's "The Lady with the Little Dog" "Gooseberries" by Anton Chekhov "Gusev" by Anton Chekhov 63 Chekhov, Bellow, Wright, and Fox (with Charles Baxter) 290 The Seagull by Anton Chekhov 292 Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov 294 Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov 295 The Past, The Future, and Chekhov 299 The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2022, T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land turned 100 years old - and it's hard to imagine a poem with a more explosive impact or a more enduring influence. In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Jed Rasula about his book, What the Thunder Said: How The Waste Land Made Poetry Modern. Jed Rasula is the Helen S. Lanier Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia. He is the author of nine scholarly books and three poetry collections and the coeditor of two anthologies. His recent books include Destruction Was My Beatrice: Dada and the Unmaking of the Twentieth Century and History of a Shiver: The Sublime Impudence of Modernism. Additional listening suggestions: T.S. Eliot | The Waste Land 438 How Was Your Ulysses? (with Mike Palindrome) 165 Ezra Pound Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When novelist Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007, the planet lost one of its most creative and compelling voices. In this episode, Jacke talks to Vonnegut scholar Christina Jarvis (Lucky Mud & Other Foma: A Field Guide to Kurt Vonnegut's Environmentalism and Planetary Citizenship) about Vonnegut's ethical, environmental, and planetary teachings. CHRISTINA JARVIS is Professor of English at State University of New York at Fredonia, where she teaches courses in sustainability and twentieth-century American literature and culture, including several major author seminars on Kurt Vonnegut. She is the author of The Male Body at War: American Masculinity during World War II, and has published in journals such as Women’s Studies, The Southern Quarterly, The Journal of Men’s Studies, and War, Literature, and the Arts. She lives near the shores of Lake Erie in Western New York. Additional listening suggestions: 362 Kurt Vonnegut (with Tom Roston) 141 Kurt Vonnegut (with Mike Palindrome) 436 The Lorax by Dr Seuss (with Mesh Lakhani) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Game theory as a mathematical discipline has been around since the Cold War, but as Professor Josiah Ober (The Greeks and the Rational: The Discovery of Practical Reason) points out, its roots stretch back to Socrates, if not before. In this episode, Jacke talks to Professor Ober about the Greek discovery of practical reason - and how literature plays a special role in helping us to understand what the Greeks thought, how they organized their society, and how we might apply those lessons today. Josiah Ober is Mitsotakis Professor of Political Science and Classics at Stanford University and Senior Fellow (Courtesy) at the Hoover Institution. He is author or editor of eighteen books, including The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece and Demopolis: Democracy before Liberalism in Theory and Practice. Additional listening suggestions: 155 Plato 374 Ancient Plays and Contemporary Theater - A New Version of Sopocles' Oedipus Trilogy (with Bryan Doerries) 5 Greek Tragedy  Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Following up on Episode 446 Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Early Years, Jacke takes a look at the final five years of Percy Bysshe Shelley's life, from 1817-1822, as the poet turned away from hands-on political action in favor of attempting to transform the world through his art. Works discussed include the Preface to Frankenstein; "Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples"; "Ozymandias"; "Ode to the West Wind"; "The Cloud"; "To a Skylark"; "Adonais, or an Elegy on the Death of John Keats"; Prometheus Unbound; "Music When Soft Voices Die"; "The Waning Moon" and "Art Thou Pale for Weariness." Additional listening: 446 Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Early Years 451 Mary Shelley John Keats More John Keats Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sigmund Freud once said of the philosopher and cultural critic Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) that "he had a more penetrating knowledge of himself than any man who ever lived or was likely to live.” Well known for his iconoclastic views and intoxicating prose style, Nietzsche went from near obscurity in his lifetime to dominating the ideas of philosophers, novelists, politicians, intellectuals, and artists. In this episode, Jacke talks to Ritchie Robertson, author of Friedrich Nietzsche (Critical Lives), about one of the most influential thinkers and writers of the past century. Ritchie Robertson is a fellow of the Queen’s College, Oxford, and the Emeritus Schwarz-Taylor Professor of German at the University of Oxford. His books include Goethe: A Very Short Introduction and The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680–1790. Additional listening suggestions: 164 Karl Marx 392 Sigmund Freud 117 Machiavelli and The Prince Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The question stopped Jacke in his tracks. "Dear Jacke," said the emailer. "What do you want your "last book" to be? This will be the last book you will ever read..." And so, he set about determining what his "last book" should be, with help from dozens of guests (and counting). In this special episode, Jacke talks to super guest Laurie Frankel (Goodbye For Now, One Two Three) about her choice for the "last book" she will ever read. With special cameos from Dinitia Smith, Saikat Majumdar, Isaac Butler, and Anna Beer. Additional listening suggestions: 332 Hamlet (with Laurie Frankel) 360 FMK Shakespeare! (with Laurie Frankel) 414 The Golden Bowl by Henry James (with Dinitia Smith) 447 Lady Chatterley's Lover (with Saikat Majumdar) 449 Method Acting and "Bad Hamlet" (with Isaac Butler) 459 Eve Bites Back! An Alternative History of English Literature (with Anna Beer) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pulitzer-Prize-winning literary biographer Megan Marshall joins Jacke to discuss the book that was twenty years in the making: The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism. This "stunning work of biography," as the New York Times labeled it, tells the story of Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia Peabody, the nineteenth-century New England women who made intellectual history. MEGAN MARSHALL is the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for Margaret Fuller, and the author of The Peabody Sisters, which won the Francis Parkman Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. She is the Charles Wesley Emerson College Professor and teaches narrative nonfiction and the art of archival research in the MFA program at Emerson College. For more, visit www.meganmarshallauthor.com. Additional listening suggestions: 120 Emily Dickinson 356 Louisa May Alcott 296 Nathaniel Hawthorne 111 The Americanest American - Ralph Waldo Emerson Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Jacke takes a look at the life and works of the legendary Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). Central to what became known as the Bengali Renaissance, Tagore's poetry, short stories, songs, essays, paintings, and plays earned Tagore widespread praise from Indians and non-Indians alike. Among many other awards and accolades, in 1913 Tagore became the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. Additional listening suggestions: 381 C. Subramania Bharati (with Mira T Sundara Rajan) 323 Salman Rushdie 35 Ronica Dhar Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jacke talks to author Anna Beer about her new book Eve Bites Back! An Alternative History of English Literature, which tells the stories of eight women (Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Aemilia Lanyer, Anne Bradstreet, Aphra Behn, Mary Wortley Montagu, Jane Austen, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon) who were warned not to write - but who did anyway. If you enjoyed this topic, you might also like our Forgotten Women of Literature series: 261 Enheduanna (with Charles Halton) 263 Cai Yan (Wenji) 265 Aemelia Lanyer 268 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz 340 Constance Fenimore Woolson 359 Eliza Haywood Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices