Category Archives: books

Treasure Hunting in the Public Domain: Scribner’s Magazine on “The Day of the Motor”

I spend a lot of time trolling through public domain texts and audio while researching, and I find a lot more than makes its way into my academic projects. “Treasure Hunting in the Public Domain” is a chance for me to share some of these finds. The February 1913 issue of Scribner’s Magazine had a [...]

Research round-up no. 3: Wharton in the Jazz Age

Edith Wharton with Bernard Berenson.  I wrote a chapter!  It’s off with my advisor right now, but I did get some good feedback from my thesis reading group last night.  As such, I haven’t actually spent a lot of time this week researching.  Still, I do have a few things to share. One song Charles [...]

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Cupid’s Message. NYPL, Mid-Manhattan Library Picture Collection. Some reading suggestions: Harvard’s new online exhibit about John Keats and Fanny Brawne; Edith Wharton’s Beatrice Palmato.

The limits of “sympathy”: Franzen on Wharton

Without sympathy, whether for the writer of for the fictional characters, a work of fiction has a very hard time mattering. So what to make of Wharton, on her hundred and fiftieth birthday? There are many good reasons to wish Wharton’s work read, or read afresh, at this late literary date. You may be dismayed [...]

Research Round-up no. 2: the hodgepodge of American culture

I’m just getting going on writing this first chapter — I’m at that terrible beginning part where I can’t figure out what to say first — so I’m not researching as heavily right now.  Still, it’s nice to put some things together and remind myself why this project is fun. One song I chose this [...]

The Parade’s End read-along begins today!

Do you have your book?  Are you excited?  Terrified?  Skeptical?  ALL OF THE ABOVE? The read-along kicks off today, but if you’ve already started reading, feel free to start blogging or tweeting about it! Previously Here’s the link to our completely nonbinding schedule guide; information about book and ebook editions; casting information for the miniseries; [...]

Research round-up no. 1: Edith Wharton and The Custom of the Country

Borrowing liberally from Esther’s Innogen and the Hungry Half preview posts, Research Round-up will be a small, curated collection of neat stuff that comes across my desk during my academic research.  Currently, I share one song, two people, and three lines, and I hope to do so each week.  (And if you still haven’t read Innogen, what [...]

Presenting: The Parade’s End read-along!

This will be a fandom-friendly* read-along of the Ford Madox Ford tetralogy, spanning several months, in anticipation of the (as-yet-undated) airing of Parade’s End, written by Tom Stoppard, directed by Susanna White, and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall. When: The read-along will begin on February 1, 2012.  At that time, we’ll publish a schedule guide for each [...]

A detective on Christmas: Dorothy L. Sayers’s Strong Poison

I blogged about a Christmas film noir, but I didn’t actually mean to read a Christmas detective story as well.  But Dorothy L. Sayers’s Strong Poison was calling out to me from the shelf where I’d stuck it, just above a collection of Poe’s mystery stories.  I actually bought the book several years ago in Atlanta, [...]

Read this! Innogen and the Hungry Half

Georgia Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, 2004 The beauty of vacation is getting to catch up on all the reading one has missed during the semester.  Usually that means the stacks of books piling up around my room, but currently, I’m falling madly in love with an ongoing online serial novella that I just have to take a [...]