Latest posts
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St. Petersburg: Dostoevsky’s Accomplice
Return to Crime and Punishment and notice how much of Raskolnikov’s mind is really the city. On St Petersburg as Dostoevsky’s accomplice.
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The Madwoman in the Attic: What Jane Eyre Hides
There is another woman in Jane Eyre, locked upstairs. On Bertha Mason, the rage a Victorian heroine could not feel, and the secret the romance rests on.
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My Brilliant Career: The Netflix Hit — and the Australian Classic Behind It
The new Netflix series opened with a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. But the 1901 novel behind it is a classic in its own right — written by a teenager, suppressed by its author for forty years. Watch the series, then read the book.
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The Economics of Pride and Prejudice
The greatest love story is also a novel about money, where marriage is the only career. On the ruthless economics under Pride and Prejudice.
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Frankenstein in the Age of AI
A teenager wrote the exact story we are now living. On Frankenstein as the founding parable of artificial intelligence — and the creator who won’t take responsibility.
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The Women of Dracula
Dracula is obsessed less with a count than with women — and what they might become if propriety slipped. On Lucy, Mina, and the New Woman that terrified the 1890s.
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Ahab: Literature’s Greatest Monomaniac
Return to Moby-Dick and it is not the whale that haunts you but the man. On Ahab, the greatest portrait of obsession in literature.
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Pope’s Odyssey: The Translation That Made Homer Sing
‘A pretty poem, but you must not call it Homer.’ On Pope’s Odyssey, its secret collaborators, and why a translation can be a masterpiece in its own right.
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White Nights: The Most Beautiful Lonely Story
Four nights in the Petersburg twilight and a love that was never quite possible. On White Nights, the tenderest and saddest thing Dostoevsky wrote.
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The Gambler: The Novel Dostoevsky Wrote to Pay a Debt
Dictated in 26 days to escape a ruinous contract, on the addiction that was destroying its author. On Dostoevsky’s The Gambler.