By Tyler Scott | On November 30, 2022 | Updated July 11, 2024 | Comments (0)
Who was Madame de Sévigné (1626 – 1696) and why are we still reading her collected letters more than three hundred years later? She lived in complicated times— during the reign of Louis XIV — and she was a gifted chronicler.
To this day, 1,372 of her letters survive, mostly written to her beloved daughter, Françoise-Marguerite de Sévigné.
Thanks to this correspondence, we have detailed insight into French history, politics, and culture, not to mention gossip — about the King’s love life, the Rennes tax revolt, or details of the corruption trial of finance minister Nicolas Fouquet. Read More→
By Elodie Barnes | On November 16, 2022 | Updated March 15, 2025 | Comments (0)
Nancy Mitford (November 28, 1904 – June 30, 1973) was a British novelist, journalist, and biographer. She was best known for her novels depicting upper-class life in England, often with satirical and provocative humor.
In addition to her two most successful novels, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, she also wrote several other works of fiction as well as historical biographies, magazine articles, and essays.
Nancy was the eldest of the six Mitford sisters, most of whom courted controversy in one way or another, and was considered one of the “Bright Young Things” on the London scene of the 1920s and 1930s.
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By Elodie Barnes | On October 13, 2022 | Updated March 15, 2025 | Comments (1)
Juana Inés de Asbaje Ramírez de Santillana (November 1648 (?) – April 17, 1695), more familiarly known as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a Mexican writer, poet, philosopher, composer, and Hieronymite nun.
Known as the “Tenth Muse” or as “The Phoenix of America” due to her formidable achievements in literature and scholarship, she is now revered as an early feminist.
Her writing is the subject of vibrant academic discourse on subjects as wide-ranging as women’s rights, environmentalism, colonialism, and education. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On August 22, 2022 | Updated August 29, 2022 | Comments (2)
Margery Williams Bianco (July 22, 1881 – September 4, 1944) was a British-American author and translator, best known for children’s books. Her most enduring work is The Velveteen Rabbit (1922). She received the Newbery Honor for Winterbound.
Margery William’s interest in writing was fueled by the encouragement she received from her father. As a renowned barrister and scholar, her father inspired his daughters to read and write, and by extension, fueled her passion to become a writer. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 7, 2022 | Updated February 15, 2024 | Comments (4)
Eulalie Spence (June 11, 1894 – March 7, 1981) was an award-winning American playwright, stage director, actress, and educator. As a prolific Black writer in the first half of the twentieth century, Spence was most active during the Harlem Renaissance era.
She was so esteemed and prolific in her heyday that her relative obscurity today is unfathomable. Like many of her contemporaries who blossomed during the Harlem Renaissance years, she was multitalented — a writer and playwright, as well as an actress and teacher. She authored some fourteen plays, five of which were preserved in print; nearly all were staged.
An immigrant from the British West Indies, Spence went against the prevailing trend of her time among Black creatives, which was to use the arts in all forms to press for racial justice. She believed that plays were for entertainment and considered herself a “folk dramatist.” Read More→
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