Portal:Literature

---

The Literature Portal

Introduction

The Library of the Palais Bourbon in Paris

Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment. It can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.

Literary criticism is one of the oldest academic disciplines, and is concerned with the literary merit or intellectual significance of specific texts. The study of books and other texts as artifacts or traditions is instead encompassed by textual criticism or the history of the book. "Literature", as an art form, is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction, fiction written with the goal of artistic merit, but can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoirs, letters, and essays. Within this broader definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles, or other written information on a particular subject. (Full article...)

General images -

The following are images from various literature-related articles on Wikipedia.

• 
  A mother reads to her children in a mid- to late 19th century lithograph by Jessie Willcox Smith. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Octavio Paz helped to define modern poetry and the Mexican personality. (from Latin American literature)
• 
  Number of children's books titles published by the trade sector in 2020 (from Children's literature)
• 
  The European fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in a painting by Carl Larsson in 1881. (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Natias Neutert performing Diogenes Synopsis as at Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, 1986 (from Performance poetry)
• 
  European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books)
• 
  Estimated medieval output of manuscripts in terms of copies (from Medieval literature)
• 
  Gabrielle Roy was a notable French Canadian author. (from Canadian literature)
• 
  Kings' Fairy Tale, 1909, by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Chinese Bookseller, illustration, c. 1824 (from History of books)
• 
  A Sumerian clay tablet, currently housed in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, inscribed with the text of the poem Inanna and Ebih by the priestess Enheduanna, the first author whose name is known
• 
  A late 18th-century reprint of Orbis Pictus by Comenius, the first children's picture book. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Children's books author Maria Elena Walsh in 1952. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Short story writer Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. (from Canadian literature)
• 
  Page from a Jain manuscript depicting the birth of Mahavira, c. 1400 (from History of books)
• 
  Peruvian poet César Vallejo, considered by Thomas Merton "the greatest universal poet since Dante" (from Latin American literature)
• 
  A 15th-century Incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books)
• 
  Calliope, the muse of heroic poetry (from History of poetry)
• 
  Two people dressed up in costumes inspired by Willy Wonka (from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and the Hatter (from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) in London (from Children's literature)
• 
  Illustration from the Codex Manesse, a German book from the Middle Ages (from History of books)
• 
  A Tagore illustration of a Hindu myth (from Children's literature)
• 
  1900 edition of the controversial The Story of Little Black Sambo (from Children's literature)
• 
  Hop-o'-My-Thumb and the ogre in an 1865 illustration (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books)
• 
  Father Frost acts as a donor in the Russian fairy tale Father Frost, testing the heroine before bestowing riches upon her (from Fairy tale)
• 
  The scene in Botticelli's Madonna of the Book (1480) reflects the presence of books in the houses of richer people in his time. (from History of books)
• 
  Cutlery for children. Detail showing fairy-tale scenes: Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel. (from Fairy tale)
• 
  An author portrait of Jean Miélot writing his compilation of the Miracles of Our Lady, one of his many popular works. (from History of books)
• 
  A twentieth-century copyright imprint from McLoughlin Bros that features three rams and the copyright year, 1903 (from History of books)
• 
  The Violet Fairy Book (1906)
• 
  A Chinese bamboo book, The Art of War, commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor in 18th-century China (from History of books)
• 
  Hugo Ball performing at the Cabaret Voltaire (from Performance poetry)
• 
  Selma Lagerlöf, the first female author awarded the prize. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  John Bauer's illustration of trolls and a princess from a collection of Swedish fairy tales (from Fairy tale)
• 
  The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra from Tang dynasty China, i.e. 868 CE, the oldest known dated printed book in the world (British Library) (from History of books)
• 
  Gabriel García Márquez, one of the most renowned Latin American writers (from Latin American literature)
• 
  12-metre-high (40 ft) sculpture of a stack of books at the Berlin Walk of Ideas, commemorating the invention of modern book printing (from History of books)
• 
  An early Mexican hornbook pictured in Tuer's History of the Horn-Book, 1896. (from Children's literature)
• 
  A poet with a few enraptured fans (from Performance poetry)
• 
  Statue of C. S. Lewis in front of the wardrobe from his Narnia book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (from Children's literature)
• 
  The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) is a canonical piece of children's literature and one of the best-selling books ever published. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Page 49 of the Dresden Codex (from History of books)
• 
  Rudyard Kipling, the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books)
• 
  The oldest known love poem. Sumerian terracotta tablet#2461 from Nippur, Iraq. Ur III period, 2037–2029 BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul (from History of poetry)
• 
  European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books)
• 
  Galway Kinnell performing a poetic piece in Vermont (from Performance poetry)
• 
  The first page of Beowulf (from Medieval literature)
• 
  Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books)
• 
  Pages from the 1819 edition of Kinder- und Haus-Märchen by the Brothers Grimm (from Children's literature)
• 
  Hemingway's telegram in 1954 (The academy has alternately used for Literature and in Literature over the years, the latter becoming the norm today.) (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  French author Albert Camus was the first African-born writer to receive the award. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  A picture by Gustave Doré of Mother Goose reading written (literary) fairy tales (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Roberto Bolaño is considered to have had the greatest United States impact of any post-Boom author (from Latin American literature)
• 
  Ivan Bilibin (1876–1942)'s illustration of the Russian fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful (from Fairy tale)
• 
  The Story of Mankind (1921) by Hendrik van Loon, 1st Newbery Award winner (from Children's literature)
• 
  Cover of the Argentine children's magazine Billiken N° 1 (1919) (from Children's literature)
• 
  Postal stamp of Russia celebrating children's books. (from Children's literature)
• 
  The former Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke (2015) (from Canadian literature)
• 
  The New England Primer (from Children's literature)
• 
  Statue of Minnie the Minx, a character from The Beano. Launched in 1938, the comic is known for its anarchic humour, with Dennis the Menace appearing on the cover. (from Children's literature)
• 
  Walter Crane's chromolithograph illustration for The Frog Prince, 1874. (from Children's literature)
• 
  J. K. Rowling reads from her novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (from Children's literature)
• 
  The character which means "poetry", in the ancient Chinese Great Seal script style. The modern character is 詩/诗 (shī). (from History of poetry)
• 
  The Swedish Academy's permanent secretary Peter Englund at the announcement of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  Poet Charles G. D. Roberts belonged to an informal group known as the Confederation Poets. (from Canadian literature)
• 
  Statuta Mutine Reformata, 1420–1485; parchment codex bound in wood and leather with brass plaques worked the corners and in the center, with clasps. (from Medieval literature)
• 
  In 1901, French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme (1839–1907) was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection, and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect." (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  The philosopher Confucius was influential in the developed approach to poetry and ancient music theory. (from History of poetry)
• 
  The Nobel diploma awarded to Hermann Hesse in 1946. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, London (from Children's literature)
• 
  Illustration from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 pirate adventure Treasure Island (from Children's literature)
• 
  The Crescent Moon by Rabindranath Tagore illus. by Nandalal Bose, Macmillan 1913 (from Children's literature)
• 
  John Newbery's A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, originally published in 1744 (from Children's literature)
• 
  An early Chinese poetics, the Kǒngzǐ Shīlùn (孔子詩論), discussing the Shijing (Classic of Poetry) (from History of poetry)
• 
  Beauty and the Beast, illustration by Warwick Goble (from Fairy tale)
• 
  Handwritten notes by Christopher Columbus on a Latin edition of The Travels of Marco Polo (from Travel literature)
• 
  Wole Soyinka, the first African writer awarded the prize. (from Nobel Prize in Literature)
• 
  The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) (from History of books)
• 
  Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books)
• 
  Jikji, Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Seon Masters, the earliest known book printed with movable metal type, 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. (from History of books)
• 
  H. O. Tanager performs at a bookstore in Boise, Idaho. (from Performance poetry)
• 
  Illustration from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865 (from Children's literature)
• 
  Goethe's Italian Journey between September 1786 and May 1788 (from Travel literature)
• 
  Sculpture of Alfonso Reyes writer of influential pieces of Mexican surrealism. (from Latin American literature)

Selected work

Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

---

The Man in the Moone is a book by the English divine and Church of England bishop Francis Godwin (1562–1633), describing a "voyage of utopian discovery". Initially considered to be one of his early works, it is now generally thought to have been written in the late 1620s. It was first published posthumously in 1638 under the pseudonym of Domingo Gonsales. The work is notable for its role in what was called the "new astronomy," the branch of astronomy influenced especially by Nicolaus Copernicus, the only astronomer mentioned by name, although the book also draws on the theories of Johannes Kepler, William Gilbert, and Galileo Galilei.

The work tells the story of Gonsales, a Spaniard who discovers a species of wild swan able to carry substantial loads, the gansa, and contrives a device that allows him to harness many of them together and fly around an island, and eventually, to the moon and back.

Some critics consider The Man in the Moone, along with Kepler's Somnium, to be one of the first works of science fiction. Although the book was well known in the 17th century, and even inspired parodies by Cyrano de Bergerac and Aphra Behn, modern literary critics do not consider it to be very important.

Selected biographies -

Featured articles are displayed here.

---

• 

  

  17th-century depiction of Murasaki by Tosa Mitsuoki

  
  Murasaki Shikibu (紫式部, 'Lady Murasaki'; c. 973 – c. 1014 or 1025) was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period. She was best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, widely considered to be one of the world's first novels, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. Murasaki Shikibu is a descriptive name; her personal name is unknown, but she may have been Fujiwara no Kaoruko (藤原香子), who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady-in-waiting.
  
  Heian women were traditionally excluded from learning Chinese, the written language of government, but Murasaki, raised in her erudite father's household, showed a precocious aptitude for the Chinese classics and managed to acquire fluency. She married in her mid-to-late twenties and gave birth to a daughter, Daini no Sanmi. Her husband died after two years of marriage. It is uncertain when she began to write The Tale of Genji, but it was probably while she was married or shortly after she was widowed. In about 1005, she was invited to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi at the Imperial court by Fujiwara no Michinaga, probably because of her reputation as a writer. She continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work. After five or six years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the Lake Biwa region. Scholars differ on the year of her death; although most agree on 1014, others have suggested she was alive in 1025. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Angelou in 1993

  
  Maya Angelou (/ˈændʒəloʊ/ ^ⓘ AN-jə-loh; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou's series of seven autobiographies focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
  
  She became a poet and writer after a string of odd jobs during her young adulthood. These included fry cook, sex worker, nightclub performer, Porgy and Bess cast member, Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator, and correspondent in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. Angelou was also an actress, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Angelou was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Beginning in the 1990s, she made approximately 80 appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" (1993) at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Pound photographed in 1913 by Alvin Langdon Coburn

  
  
  
  Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a collaborator in Fascist Italy and the Salò Republic during World War II. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his 800-page epic poem The Cantos (c. 1917–1962).
  
  Pound's contribution to poetry began in the early 20th century with his role in developing Imagism, a movement stressing precision and economy of language. Working in London as foreign editor of several American literary magazines, he helped discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as H. D., Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce. He was responsible for the 1914 serialization of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the 1915 publication of Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", and the serialization from 1918 of Joyce's Ulysses. Hemingway wrote in 1932 that, for poets born in the late 19th or early 20th century, not to be influenced by Pound would be "like passing through a great blizzard and not feeling its cold". (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Andrade in 1928

  
  Mário Raul de Morais Andrade (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈmaɾiu ʁaˈu dʒi moˈɾajs ɐ̃ˈdɾadʒi]; October 9, 1893 – February 25, 1945) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. He wrote one of the first and most influential collections of modern Brazilian poetry, Paulicéia Desvairada (Hallucinated City), published in 1922. He has had considerable influence on modern Brazilian literature, and as a scholar and essayist—he was a pioneer of the field of ethnomusicology—his influence has reached far beyond Brazil.
  
  Andrade was a central figure in the avant-garde movement of São Paulo for twenty years. Trained as a musician and best known as a poet and novelist, Andrade was personally involved in virtually every discipline that was connected with São Paulo modernism. His photography and essays on a wide variety of subjects, from history to literature and music, were widely published. He was the driving force behind the Modern Art Week, the 1922 event that reshaped both literature and the visual arts in Brazil, and a member of the avant-garde "Group of Five". The ideas behind the Week were further explored in the preface to his poetry collection Pauliceia Desvairada, and in the poems themselves. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  William Shakespeare (c. 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" or simply "the Bard". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
  
  Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Meeker in 1921

  
  Ezra Morgan Meeker (December 29, 1830 – December 3, 1928) was an American pioneer who traveled the Oregon Trail by ox-drawn wagon as a young man, migrating from Iowa to the Pacific Coast. Later in life he worked to memorialize the Trail, repeatedly retracing the trip of his youth. Once known as the "Hop King of the World", he was the first mayor of Puyallup, Washington.
  
  Meeker was born in Butler County, Ohio, to Jacob and Phoebe Meeker. His family relocated to Indiana when he was a boy. He married Eliza Jane Sumner in 1851; the following year the couple, with their newborn son and Ezra's brother, set out for the Oregon Territory, where land could be claimed and settled on. Although they endured hardships on the Trail in the journey of nearly six months, the entire party survived the trek. Meeker and his family briefly stayed near Portland, then journeyed north to live in the Puget Sound region. They settled at what is now Puyallup in 1862, where Meeker grew hops for use in brewing beer. By 1887, his business had made him wealthy, and his wife built a large mansion for the family. In 1891, an infestation of hop aphids destroyed his crops and took much of his fortune. He later tried his hand at a number of ventures, and made four largely unsuccessful trips to the Klondike, taking groceries and hoping to profit from the gold rush. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (UK: /ˈwʊlstənkrɑːft/ WUUL-stən-krahft, US: /-kræft/ -⁠kraft; née Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.
  
  Mary's mother died 11 days after giving birth to her. She was raised by her father, who provided her with a rich informal education, encouraging her to adhere to his own anarchist political theories. When she was four, her father married a neighbour, Mary Jane Clairmont, with whom Mary had a troubled relationship. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Vonnegut in 1965

  
  Kurt Vonnegut (/ˈvɒnəɡət/ VON-ə-gət; November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American author known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works over fifty-plus years; further works have been published since his death.
  
  Born and raised in Indianapolis, Vonnegut attended Cornell University, but withdrew in January 1943 and enlisted in the U.S. Army. As part of his training, he studied mechanical engineering at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Tennessee. He was then deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was interned in Dresden, where he survived the Allied bombing of the city in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. After the war, he married Jane Marie Cox. He and his wife both attended the University of Chicago while he worked as a night reporter for the City News Bureau. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Cabinet card of W. S. Gilbert in about 1880 by Elliott & Fry

  
  
  
  Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan, which produced fourteen comic operas. The most famous of these include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. The popularity of these works was supported for over a century by year-round performances of them, in Britain and abroad, by the repertory company that Gilbert, Sullivan and their producer Richard D'Oyly Carte founded, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. These Savoy operas are still frequently performed in the English-speaking world and beyond.
  
  Gilbert's creative output included over 75 plays and libretti, and numerous short stories, poems and lyrics, both comic and serious. After brief careers as a government clerk and a lawyer, Gilbert began to focus, in the 1860s, on writing light verse, including his Bab Ballads, short stories, theatre reviews and illustrations, often for Fun magazine. He also began to write burlesques and his first comic plays, developing a unique absurdist, inverted style that would later be known as his "topsy-turvy" style. He also developed a realistic method of stage direction and a reputation as a strict theatre director. In the 1870s, Gilbert wrote 40 plays and libretti, including his German Reed Entertainments, several blank-verse "fairy comedies", some serious plays, and his first five collaborations with Sullivan: Thespis, Trial by Jury, The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance. In the 1880s, Gilbert focused on the Savoy operas, including Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard and The Gondoliers. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Carson in 1943

  
  Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose sea trilogy (1941–1955) and book Silent Spring (1962) are credited with advancing marine conservation and the global environmental movement.
  
  Carson began her career as an aquatic biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her a U.S. National Book Award, recognition as a gifted writer, and financial security. Its success prompted the republication of her first book, Under the Sea Wind (1941), in 1952, which was followed by The Edge of the Sea in 1955 — both were also bestsellers. This sea trilogy explores the whole of ocean life from the shores to the depths. (Full article...)

Selected excerpt

“ Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn’t mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter. ” — Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

More Did you know

• ... that the reality television poetry competition Prince of Poets is more popular than football in countries of the Arab world, where it airs?
• ... that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won a record-tying seven Olivier Awards at the 2013 Laurence Olivier Awards on April 28, 2013?
• ... that Berit Brænne's first children's book, from 1958, is a story about a sailor's family who adopted children from different parts of the world?
• ... that the 1934 Jeanne Galzy novel Jeunes filles en serre chaude, with its seductive title, was deemed to contain "dangerous aberrations" and "strong emotional reaction[s] of an undesirable nature"?
• ... that Fu Sheng was credited with saving the Confucian classic Book of Documents from the book burning of the First Emperor of China?

Selected illustration

• 
  Guy Mannering

  Artist: Norman Mills Price; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  A scene from Chapter XXVII of Guy Mannering, a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott that was originally published anonymously in 1815. It is set in the 1760s to 1780s, mostly in the Galloway area of southwest Scotland. The eponymous character of Guy Mannering is actually only a minor character in the story, the plot being mostly concerned with Harry Bertram, the son of the Laird of Ellangowan, who is kidnapped at the age of five by smugglers. It follows the fortunes and adventures of Harry and his family in subsequent years, and the struggle over the inheritance of Ellangowan. The novel also depicts the lawlessness that existed at the time, when smugglers operated along the coast and thieves frequented the country roads. The book was a huge success, selling out the day after its first edition.
• 
  Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith

  Artist: Francis S. Walker; Engraving: Brothers Dalziel
  Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  Hermann Vezin in the title role of Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith, an 1876 play by W. S. Gilbert. In the story, Druce begins as a miser and drunkard whose wife has left him. Two army deserters find shelter at his house, but they rob him and abandon a baby girl there. Many years later, Druce has become a blacksmith, and the two men return to try to claim the girl. The play was a success, running for about 100 performances and enjoying tours and several revivals.
• 
  "Jabberwocky"

  Illustration: John Tenniel

  The Jabberwock, the titular creature of Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem "Jabberwocky". First included in Carroll's novel Through the Looking-Glass (1871), the poem was illustrated by John Tenniel, who gave the creature "the leathery wings of a pterodactyl and the long scaly neck and tail of a sauropod". "Jabberwocky" is considered one of the greatest nonsense poems written in English, and has contributed such nonsense words and neologisms as galumphing and chortle to the English lexicon.
• 
  The Last of the Mohicans

  Illustration: Frank T. Merrill; restoration: Chris Woodrich

  An illustration from 1896 edition of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. Set during the French and Indian War, the novel details the transport of two young women to Fort William Henry. Among the caravan guarding the women are the frontiersman Natty Bumppo, the Major Duncan Heyward, and the Indians Chingachgook and Uncas. In this scene, Bumppo (disguised as a bear) fights against the novel's villain, Magua, as two of his compatriots look on.
• 
  Three Little Pigs

  Artist: Leonard Leslie Brooke; Restoration: Jujutacular

  The wolf blows down the straw house in a 1904 adaptation of Three Little Pigs, a fairy tale featuring anthropomorphic animals. Printed versions date back to the 1840s, but the story itself is thought to be much older. The story in its arguably best-known form appeared in English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, first published in 1890. The phrases used in the story, and the various morals which can be drawn from it, have become embedded in western culture. The story uses the literary rule of three, expressed in this case as a "contrasting three", as the third pig's brick house turns out to be the only one which is adequate to withstand the wolf.
• 
  The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania

  Painting: Joseph Noel Paton

  The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania is an oil painting on canvas by the Scottish artist Joseph Noel Paton. Painted in 1849, it depicts the scene from William Shakespeare's comedy play A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which the fairy queen Titania and fairy king Oberon quarrel. When exhibited in Edinburgh in 1850, it was declared the "painting of the season". The painting was acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland in 1897, having initially been bought by the Royal Association for Promoting the Fine Arts.
• 
  Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

  Engraving: I. H. Jones; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  The frontispiece to a c. 1825 edition of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, a lengthy narrative poem by Lord Byron. The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands. In a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. This poem proved to be quite popular upon its publication in 1812. Byron himself said of this, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous."
• 
  The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby

  Artist: Jessie Willcox Smith; Restoration: ErikTheBikeMan

  Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, a character named after the Golden Rule, from The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, a children's novel by Charles Kingsley. Published in 1863, the book was extremely popular in England, and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades. The book had been intended in part as a satire, a tract against child labour, as well as a serious critique of the closed-minded approaches of many scientists of the day in their response to Charles Darwin's ideas on evolution.
• 
  Caterpillar, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

  Artist: Sir John Tenniel

  Sir John Tenniel's illustration of the Caterpillar for Lewis Carroll's classic children's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The illustration is noted for its ambiguous central figure, which can be viewed as having either a human male's face with pointed nose and protruding lower lip or as the head end of an actual caterpillar, with the right three "true" legs visible. The small symbol in the lower left is composed of Tenniel's initials, which was how he signed most of his work for the book. The partially obscured word in the lower left-center is the last name of Edward Dalziel, the engraver of the piece.
• 
  Midas

  Artist: Walter Crane; Restoration: Lise Broer

  An illustration from an 1893 version of A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which recounted the tale of King Midas. In Greek mythology, Midas was given ability to turn everything he touched into gold by the god Bacchus. However, he soon discovered that he was unable to even eat. Bacchus told him to wash in the river Pactolus, and the power flowed in the river, which was supposedly the reason for why the river was so rich in gold in later years. In Hawthorne's version, Midas' touch even turned his daughter to gold (pictured here).
• 
  The Song of Los

  Illustration: William Blake

  The Song of Los is an epic poem by William Blake first published in 1795 and considered part of his prophetic books. The poem consists of two sections, "Africa" and "Asia": in the first section Blake catalogues the decline of morality in Europe, which he blames on both the African slave trade and enlightenment philosophers, whereas in the second section he describes a worldwide revolution, urged by the eponymous Los.
  
  The illustration here is from the book's frontispiece and shows Urizen presiding over the decline of morality.
• 
  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

  Artist: William Wallace Denslow

  An illustration from the first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, depicting the scene where Dorothy meets the Cowardly Lion, the first time the four major characters of the novel come together. The book was originally published in 1900 and has since been reprinted countless times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of both the 1902 Broadway musical and the extremely popular, highly acclaimed 1939 film version. Thanks in part to the film it is one of the best-known stories in American popular culture and has been widely translated. Its initial success, and the success of the popular 1902 musical Baum adapted from his story, led to his writing and having published thirteen more Oz books.
• 
  Suikoden

  Woodblock artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi

  This woodblock print, titled Kinhyōshi yōrin, hero of the Suikoden, is one of a series created by the Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi between 1827 and 1830 illustrating the 108 Suikoden ("Water Margin"). The publication of the series catapulted Kuniyoshi to fame. The story of the Suikoden is an adaptation of the Chinese Shuǐhǔ Zhuàn; during the 1800s, the publication of this woodblock series and other translations of the novel created a Suikoden craze in Japan. Following the great commercial success of the Kuniyoshi series, other ukiyo-e artists were commissioned to produce prints of the Suikoden heroes, which began to be shown as Japanese heroes rather than the original Chinese personages. The hero portrayed in this print is Yang Lin.
• 
  Jeeves

  Illustration: Unknown; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  Jeeves is a fictional character in a series of comedic short stories and novels by English author P. G. Wodehouse, in which he is depicted as the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Bertie Wooster. First appearing in the short story "Extricating Young Gussie" in 1915, Jeeves continued to feature in Wodehouse's work until his last completed novel, Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974). He also appeared in numerous films and television series, portrayed by such actors as Arthur Treacher, Michael Aldridge, and Dennis Price. The name and character of Jeeves have come to be identified with the quintessential valet or butler.
• 
  Humpty Dumpty

  Restoration: Jujutacular

  An illustration of Humpty Dumpty by American artist William Wallace Denslow, depicting the title character from the nursery rhyme of the same name. He is typically portrayed as an egg, although the rhyme never explicitly states that he is, possibly because it may have been originally posed as a riddle. The earliest known version is in a manuscript addition to a copy of Mother Goose's Melody published in 1803.

Did you know (auto-generated) -

• ... that a study of Anglo-Saxon literature begun by Bernard Pitt in 1914 was completed by a colleague after Pitt was killed in the First World War?
• ... that Hammersmith by Gustav Holst was acclaimed by Frederick Fennell for having "some of the most treacherous stretches of music making" in band literature?
• ... that The Inland Whale, by Theodora Kroeber, sought to demonstrate the literary merit of Indigenous American oral traditions?
• ... that in the Forum of Augustus in Rome, elogia were hung on statues of commanders and Augustus's ancestors?
• ... that Alexandre Dumas's travel book Le Corricolo, published in 1843, contains one of the earliest literary accounts of Neapolitan pizza?
• ... that The Tale of Genji's Kaoru Genji has been called literature's first antihero?

Today in literature

4 May

• 1715 - Richard Graves, English writer born
• 1938 - Carlos Monsiváis, Mexican writer born
• 1939 - Amos Oz, Israeli writer, novelist born
• 1940 - Robin Cook, American novelist born
• 1941 - George Will, American writer born
• 1949 - Graham Swift, British author born

Topics

Categories

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

Literature

Literature by ethnicity

Literature by form

Literature by genre

Literature by language

Literature by location

Literature by medium

Literature by period

Literature by source

Literature by topic

Literature by women

Fiction literature

Non-fiction literature

Publications

Anecdotes

Aviation literature

Books

Economics of the arts and literature

Grey literature

History of literature

Images of literature

Literary awards

Literary characters

Literary collaborations

Literary education

Literary events

Literary genres

Literary motifs

Literary organizations

Literary theory

Literary translation

Literary works

Literature databases

Literature franchises

Literature in popular culture

Literature lists

Literature records

Literature timelines

Meitei literature

Miscellanies

Nicknames in literature

Occupations in literature

Oral literature

People in literature

Postcolonial literature

Professorships in literature

Quotations from literature

References in literary works

Self-portraiture

Stylistics

Unfinished literature

Versions of literary works

Wikipedia categories named after texts

Works about literature

Works based on literature

Literature stubs

Wikipedia categories named after literary texts

Related portals

Portals related to literature

Concepts:
Genres:
Religions:

Things you can do

Related WikiProjects

WikiProjects related to literature:

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

• 

  Commons
  Free media repository

• 

  Wikibooks
  Free textbooks and manuals

• 

  Wikidata
  Free knowledge base

• 

  Wikinews
  Free-content news

• 

  Wikiquote
  Collection of quotations

• 

  Wikisource
  Free-content library

• 

  Wikiversity
  Free learning tools

• 

  Wiktionary
  Dictionary and thesaurus

Discover Wikipedia using portals

• 

  List of all portals

• 

  The arts portal

• 

  Biography portal

• 

  Current events portal

• 

  Geography portal

• 

  History portal

• 

  Mathematics portal

• 

  Science portal

• 

  Society portal

• 

  Technology portal

• 

  Random portal

• 

  WikiProject Portals