By Nava Atlas | On December 14, 2018 | Updated August 26, 2026 | Comments (0)
Virginia Stephen first met Leonard Woolf while visiting her brother Thoby at Trinity College at Cambridge in 1900. She wore a white dress and carried a parasol, looking like “the most Victorian of Victorian young ladies,” as Leonard described her.
Leonard and Virginia Woolf, as she would later be known, were destined to be together, though it took considerable persistence and many proposals on his part before she agreed to marry him.
According to The American Reader, “Virginia and her elder sister, Vanessa, were described by Leonard Woolf as ‘young women of astonishing beauty …. It was almost impossible for a man not to fall in love with them.’” Brilliant as well as exquisitely beautiful, Virginia attracted many admirers, both male and female. Read More→
By Marita Golden | On December 10, 2018 | Updated July 2, 2023 | Comments (0)
The musing by writer Marita Golden explores the impact Zora Neale Hurston had on her own life and art. She celebrates finding and remaking herself by discovering Zora’s glorious and imperfect life lessons.
Excerpted from the book Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves, an anthology edited by Glory Edim. “Zora and Me” ©2018 by Marita Golden, reprinted with permission by arrangement with Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House:
I saw myself, found myself, and remade myself over and over learning and discovering Zora Neale Hurston. She became and has become a continuing source of possibility and pride for me. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On November 21, 2018 | Updated August 26, 2026 | Comments (6)
Given the circumstances of the 19th century, both before and after emancipation, Black women writers who took up the pen to write full books or other substantial bodies of work were rare indeed.
It’s worth noting that before the Civil War, it was illegal to teach African Americans to read in many states, not just in the South. So to write a novel or autobiography was a radical act for a Black woman of that era, whether she had been enslaved or free born.
Not surprisingly, many of the books, essays, and poetry produced by Black women writers dealt with slavery. Most of the autobiographies and thinly veiled novels discussed here were in the genre of slave narrative. Read More→
By Helena Kelly | On November 1, 2018 | Updated August 8, 2025 | Comments (0)
In Jane Austen, the Secret Radical, author Helena Kelly looks past the grand houses, drawing room dramas, and witty dialogue that have long been the hallmarks of Jane Austen‘s work to bring to light the serious, ambitious, subversive concerns of this beloved writer.
Kelly illuminates the radical views — on such subjects as slavery, poverty, feminism, marriage, and the church — that Austen deftly and carefully explored in her six novels, at a time when open criticism was considered treason.
Kelly shows us that Austen was fully aware of what was going on in the world during the turbulent times she lived in, and sure of what she thought of it. Read More→
By Wendy Jones | On October 29, 2018 | Updated August 20, 2025 | Comments (2)
Jane on the Brain: Exploring the Science of Social Intelligence with Jane Austen by Wendy Jones is an exploration of how Jane Austen was able to capture human psychology via relatable characters in compelling stories.
Following is an excerpt from the book introducing the role of empathy in Austen’s novels, but first, a few words from the publisher:
“Why is Jane Austen so phenomenally popular? Why do we read Pride and Prejudice again and again? Why do we delight in Emma’s mischievous schemes? Why do we care about the suffering of Anne Elliot in Persuasion? Read More→
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