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Henry James

Television

Victorian Novels That Would Make Great TV Dramas

By Jane Hu on

Here’s a truth universally acknowledged: Television and the Victorian novel are two wholly different media. Make as many comparisons as you will, but the 19th-century English novel will never experience any kind of seamless transition into the world of serial television. The incentives of the two forms are so incongruous, not to mention the contrast in creative and productive conditions that goes into generating them. When Laura Miller emphatically told us that “The Wire is NOT like Dickens,” she made many good points — an obvious one being that if one wished to reference a canonical novelist in lofty conversation about The Wire, Dickens would be a safe bet. But as Miller went on to state: Dickens wrote prose narrative on paper, and The Wire is a visual drama. It’s a good place to start as any if we’re looking to tease out the distinctions between the two.

Still, it won’t stop television (or film, for that matter) from continuing to draw on written stories. Alfred Hitchcock, that undisputed master of cinema, took from novelists such as Patrick Hamilton, Patricia Highsmith, and Dorothy Sayers for his film and television work alike. Alfred Hitchcock Presents, however, focused on a different story per episode, while the idea behind The Wire-versus-Dickens comparison is that such serial storytelling has the power to hook the viewer time and time again. … Read More

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Books

10 of the Creepiest Ghosts in Literature

By Emily Temple on

We know it’s not October yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t indulge in a few extra scary stories as the nights get longer and the leaves start to change. This week saw the release of The Big Book of Ghost Stories, an anthology of spooky tales starring ghouls of all descriptions, edited by Otto Penzler. Though we haven’t worked our way through it yet, we were inspired to think about the fictional ghosts who have creeped us out the most thoroughly over the years — from those inhabiting classic horror stories to those sneaking into more literary fiction. Click through to read about our picks for the creepiest ghosts in literature — and since everyone has their own specific demons to face, let us know which you’d have chosen in the comments. … Read More

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Books

A Brief Survey of Unlikely Literary Friendships

By Emily Temple on

It’s a well known fact that, like any contemporaries in a wide artistic field, authors like to hang out together. It makes sense — who else could a writer gripe to, swap critiques with, and steal ideas from? But sometimes we’re a little surprised as to the pairs that pop up in literary history — whether because of huge age differences, disparate personalities, or just issues of accessibility. Click through to see a few pairs of famous unlikely literary friendships that blossomed nonetheless, and if we’ve missed your favorite odd couple, let us know about it in the comments. … Read More

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Architecture

10 Unusual Hotels for Unconventional Summer Getaways

By Claire Cottrell on

A Backward Glance, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton’s gem of an autobiography is highbrow beach reading at its very best. In the memoir, she recalls time spent with her bff traveling buddy, Henry James, and quotes his arcadian proclamation, “summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” Maybe so in the less than industrious heyday of inherited wealth, but in today’s world where most people work all day for a living, those two words just don’t have the same appeal as our two favorite words: summer getaway.

Like everyone else in our overworked and overheated city, rest and relaxation are all we can think about — especially on a hot Friday afternoon like this. In considering options for our celebrated summer respite, we thought we’d take a virtual gander to check out alternatives to the usual Hamptons summer share. From a treehouse where sloths join you for morning coffee to a giant sandcastle, click through to see some of the most unusual summer getaway destinations in the world. … Read More

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Books

Are These America's 25 Most Important Writers?

By Emily Temple on

There are a million ways to rank authors, as anyone who has spent any time on this website can surely attest. But here’s one that has us reflecting on the state of the American literary canon in a new way. Over at Commentary Magazine, D.G. Myers has ranked American writers based on the MLA International Bibliography’s account of the amount of scholarship on them. And, perhaps more interestingly, he’s tracked the changes since the last listing.

In the last 25 years, Henry James overcame William Faulkner as the headliner in our collective academic heraldry, Vladimir Nabokov and Toni Morrison have both shot up the charts, and Hawthorne, Thoreau, Frost and Twain seem to be fading fast. Of course, as Myers points out, this isn’t a popularity contest, per se. The list reflects ”the professional commitments, the devotion of time and energy, on the part of literary scholars. These are the writers who are principally taught in university English departments around the country, the writers who are being handed down to the next generation.” Click through to see Myers’ list, with the bracketed numbers reflecting changes since 1947, and let us know if you think this reflects the American canon in the comments. … Read More

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Books

Great Advice for Dealing with Grief Courtesy of Henry James

By Caroline Stanley on

Shaun Usher of Letters of Note calls this missive from Henry James to his grieving friend Grace Norton “one of the greatest letters of advice I’ve ever had the fortune to read.” Coming from someone who has posted over 700 hand-selected letters to his Tumblr so far, after scanning through countless others, that… Read More

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Books

10 Writers Who Moonlighted as Dandies

By Mary Barbour on

Dandyism is more than just a dress code. A dandy believes that, through a refined command of dress and manners, he or she can impress their greatness upon the world. This meant that a dandy could live a rather indolent, carefree lifestyle and still be regarded as influential and powerful despite not being born into wealth. It makes sense that so many writers were of the dandy sort, given the meager income their career path promised. This pursuit of elegance gave them access to bon vivance in Paris, lifestyles of jet-setting between the Swiss Alps and the Riviera, summers in coastal cottages, or early retirement (before retirement was even deemed acceptable). Dandyism is a interplay between fashion and mannerism, a perfect blend of style, sophistication, and caprice. Here we take a look at 10 authors who successfully made elegance, not just writing, an esteemed profession. … Read More

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Books

Yuppie Lit: Books About The Filthy Rich

By Kathleen Massara on

Macy Halford recently wrote in the New Yorker‘s Book Bench that she happened upon the “hipster lit” section of Bookhampton while browsing in its Sag Harbor location. The shelves are loaded with the usual suspects: Bolaño, Hornby, and Rimbaud. In the comments section, a rep from Bookhampton gushes, “Bukowski and McSweeney’ [sic] as well as the ultimate female hipster Jennifer Egan (Visit from Goon Squad) and Patti Smith jumped off the shelves this morning… We just put them back!”

Sixty-three years after Anatole Broyard published “A Portrait of the Hipster” in Partisan Review, we are still arguing about what constitutes a hipster. Instead of another essay on the topic, we thought choose a different tack and encourage an alternate list for those Hamptons residents and fair-weather visitors who are sick and tired of their bookstores being invaded by scowling tight-jeaned youths and adults wearing plaid shirts. We came up with a list of novels with acceptable characters for the lily-white denizens of the land where people use “summer” as a verb and argue about ancestors who were on the Mayflower or about who is from “new” money. (South- and East Hampton, we’re looking at you.) What are your suggestions for a Yuppie Lit genre, dear readers? … Read More

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Books

Readers' Choice: 20 More Author-On-Author Insults

By Emily Temple on

We hoped that when we listed our picks for the harshest author-on-author insults in history, you readers would have some of your own favorite barbs and witticisms to suggest. And goodness, you didn’t disappoint! Accordingly, and so as to continue the guilty pleasure of literary insult-mania, we’ve compiled a follow-up list of some of the best suggestions from the group. Note: many of you yearned for Harlan Ellison, but though he certainly has many deliciously to-the-point quotes to his name, we couldn’t seem to think of a choice example where he was directly insulting another author, so any Ellison fans out there with a direct quote, be sure to let us know. Click through for twenty more choice author-on-author insults, as beloved and nominated by our readers! … Read More

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Books

Wonderful Books About Unhappy Marriages

By Emily Temple on

Sometimes the best and most engrossing stories are those about the most terrible and heartbreaking events. Inspired by the Guardian’s article on the joys of unhappy marriage literature, we thought we’d catalog a few of our own favorites (a few of which, we admit, overlap with the Guardian’s choices). These novels, sad as they are, are completely beautiful. It’s like not being able to look away from a car accident, hard as you try — intense grief is an incredibly captivating emotion, and as humans, empathy is rewarding and cathartic. Click through for our list of unhappy marriage literature that is nonetheless wonderful to read, and let us know which books contain your own most dearly held crumbling marriage stories. … Read More

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