literature |

Travelling through the pages: find inspiration for your holidays at home in literature

Travelling in our minds with books, like Selma Lagerlöf’s The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

Private and Public Letters

Read about the famous epistolary cases from 14th and 17th century when private correspondence entered public life.

Romanticism and the Invention of Tradition: Iolo Morganwg and James MacPherson

Learn about literary forgeries in 18th century poetry celebrating Celtic cultures in Scotland and Wales.

Street Literature: Welsh Almanacs

Discover the favourite reading material of monoglot Welsh speakers right from the 17th century.

The Good Place? Tracing utopia and dystopia through literature

Is utopia the best possible place possible or possible at all? Is one person’s utopia another’s dystopia?

Babylonian Language Confusion – Ljubomir Micić and Yugoslav avant-garde movement

Yugoslavia’s avant-garde invented a new language and orthography in the early 20th century.

Endpapers: beautiful patterns and illustrations inside book covers

Marbling techniques made endpapers beautiful and artistic, as well as a practical bookbinding tool.

Star-crossed lovers in classic literature part 2

Two stories from classic literature of lovers separated by forces outside of their control.

Star-crossed lovers in classic literature: Depictions of historical relationships in times of social distancing

Today we bring you the first two of five stories of love made impossible by physical distance – stories of longing, heartache, and yearning in European literature and art.

Miloš Crnjanski: a literary life of migration and exile

Author Miloš Crnjanski’s works form an invaluable part of Serbian 20th-century literature. His creative writing – poetry and prose – as well as his life in general, were marked by key elements: migration, exile and existential drama.

Catchpenny prints in The Netherlands

What did the people in the lower orders of society and children read in the 18th and 19th centuries? In the Netherlands, their main reading material was catchpenny prints.

Chapbooks: the poor person’s reading material

Books were expensive in Scotland between the 17th and 19th centuries. But literacy was comparatively high, and people were keen on reading. There was a large market for cheap, easy-to-get reading material: so-called street literature because it was simply sold on the streets.

Five of the finest (anti-)heroines from European literature

This post began with an idea to write about great female characters in European literature. Those that break the mould. Doing a little bit of research, the term ‘anti-heroine’ came up. And so did a range of characters who could fall into that category (see below for more on them). So I started to look […]

Ivan Cankar – The Writer, The Migrant

Zala Mojca Jerman Kuželički of National and University Library in Slovenia introduces us to Ivan Cankar, who died 100 years ago today and is regarded as the greatest writer in the Slovene language.

The Place of Literature in the World of Newspapers

In France, the important development of including literature in the press began with the launch of ‘La Presse‘ in 1836 by Emile de Girardin. He cut the subscription rate to his daily newspaper in half by speculating on advertising to cover the costs.

Emile Zola: Novelist and Journalist

A true writer-journalist, Emile Zola successfully managed both activities for about 20 years, at first out of financial necessity before he became a successful author, but also by conviction.