7 Surprising Animal Burials
Animals have always been hugely important to humans – as food, as beasts of burden and as companions. The archaeological record has offered up some […]
Category: Miscellany
My Next Book: A Museum Miscellany
It is with great excitement that I introduce my next book A Museum Miscellany — the final instalment of my miscellany trilogy (see here for […]
6 Writers and Artists who Quit
The creative urge is seen as something that can’t be ignored, and yet over the years a number of hugely talented writers and artists have […]
On Definitions of Short Stories
I just finished reading Henry James’ Daisy Miller (1878) and once I’d finished the story itself I flicked on to read the appended essay that […]
When Charlotte Brontë met William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was one of Charlotte Brontë’s literary heroes. In 1848 she dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre to him, after much admiring […]
10 Bestselling Books Written in Less Than 2 Months
Writing often seems like a tortuous process, we tend to picture novelists hopped up on coffee, hunched over their laptops staring into space while their […]
A Collection of Literary Orphans of Note
Literature is littered with orphans. The classic plot trope of the poor parentless child has appeared in numerous books across the eras, untethering our fictional […]
The Tragic Lives of 5 Artists’ Muses
The Muses in classical mythology were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. Their very being inspired the creativity of artists, writers, […]
Real streets named after literary characters
The built-environment often reflects the especial history of an area, with local luminaries, ancient landmarks and builder’s names often revealed in the street names. More […]
The Strange Afterlives of Ancient Egyptian Mummies
The mummified remains of Ancient Egyptians have always held a certain gruesome fascination but today the closest we are likely to get to one is […]