Literature

Gripping tales that abound with fantastic characters and astonishing twists and turns, Greek myths confront what it means to be mortal in a world of powerful forces beyond human control.

Set amid the glimmering lakes and disappearing forests of the early United States, The Forest imagines how a wide variety of Americans experienced their lives. Part truth, part fiction, and featuring both real and invented characters, the book follows painters, poets, enslaved people, farmers, and artisans living and working in a world still made largely of wood.

A major poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906) was one of the first African American writers to garner international recognition in the wake of emancipation.

Sitting before a lake one summer, Nathaniel Hawthorne took a newspaper from his pocket and began to read. His object was not to catch up on the news but to play a trick—to lull nature into a false sense of security, to make it think he was not perceiving the world around him, so he could look up suddenly and see the trees for how they really are.

Medieval women led varied, interesting, risky lives. They worked in a wide variety of jobs, were economically active, and were often independent. This is the world in which Chaucer’s Wife of Bath–one of the most famous and enduring female characters in English literature–was born.