By Nava Atlas | On February 7, 2023 | Updated February 18, 2023 | Comments (0)
In 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, a long narrative novel in verse, was published. It would become one of her best known works, and a true magnum opus with 11,000 lines.
The story of a writer somewhat like herself, it’s set in a lush landscape and laced with Elizabeth’s wry observations on the position of women in her time and place.
In a book titled Some Eminent Women of Our Time (1889), the author observed: Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On January 31, 2023 | Updated February 10, 2023 | Comments (0)
This appreciation and in-depth analysis of the poetry of Christina Rossetti (1830–1894), the esteemed English romantic poet, is excerpted from Essays by Arthur Christopher Benson, published by William Heinemann (London), 1896.
Rich in insights and references to other poets of the period, this essay and the book from which it came are in the public domain.
Read More→
By Melanie P. Kumar | On January 9, 2023 | Updated February 5, 2025 | Comments (0)
In 2021, The Union Government of India designated Partition Horrors Remembrance Day to be commemorated yearly on August 14. This is a fitting occasion to consider the impact of the India-Pakistan Partition of 1947 on the writings of litterateur/journalist Amrita Pritam, who lived through this horrific time.
For those of us who were born in independent India, there is not much recollection of what happened then, as perhaps our elders were trying to shield us from the sorrows of those times.
It is only through reading books like Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre’s Freedom at Midnight and Amrita Pritam’s works in translation, including her autobiography, The Revenue Stamp , that brought that terrible time alive. Read More→
By Francis Booth | On July 28, 2022 | Updated August 20, 2022 | Comments (0)
Along with Nelly Sachs and Paul Celan, Else Lasker-Schüler (1869 – 1945) was one of the most important German-Jewish poets of the twentieth century. And along with August Stramm and Georg Trakl, she was one of the most important early German expressionist poets.
This look at one of her best-known works is adapted from the forthcoming Wilder, Eve, Some Early Poems of Else Lasker-Schüler, translated by Francis Booth. Reprinted by permission.
Born Elizabeth Schüler into a middle-class banking family in what is now Wuppertal, Germany in 1869, she began writing poetry very early, imagining herself as a child living in the Orient, a fantasy that persisted throughout her life. Read More→
By Nicola Darwood | On June 12, 2022 | Updated August 20, 2022 | Comments (0)
In the third chapter of Pull Devil, Pull Baker, “Oho, What Next? …” Stella Benson questions her role in this book: “Sometimes, I wonder whether I am editing the Count de Savine or he me. What seems to me the extreme remoteness of his point of view makes me quite giddy.”
This excerpt is from Nicola Darwood’s Afterword to Pull Devil, Pull Baker, originally published in 1933 and reissued by Boiler House Press (2022). All quotations come from the latter edition. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Read More→
Categories: 
Comments: