Classic Literature

Monsters have always represented societal fears, but narrative art also casts doubt on whether we fully understand our monsters — and their slayers.

Some classic books, like Mark Twain’s "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," remain controversial to this day.

What is Captain America doing in ancient Mesopotamia?

Jules Verne wrote about gasoline-powered vehicles, weapons of mass destruction, and global warming more than a century ago.

Take a trip through these master-crafted fantasy societies and ask yourself: Could I actually live there?

"Painfully forced" is how one contemporary critic described Fitzgerald's writing style.

Would you want to live in any of these places?

Art criticism is inherently subjective. Still, many critics have tried to make a case for why some of the world’s most celebrated books are in fact terribly written. 

Could the prevalence of flood myths around the world tell us something about early human migration or even the way our brains work?

These five great books should prompt us to work on what needs fixing the most in the world: ourselves.

A Cambridge Ph.D. student has solved a grammatical problem that has befuddled Sanskrit scholars since the 5th century BC.

When battles raged in ancient cities, their rocks blazed so brightly that they could be reoriented according to Earth's magnetic field.

"Tristram Shandy" trolled its way to fame.

"All moments past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist."

From Atlantis to Thule, these mythical locales have captivated people's imaginations for centuries.

Today’s scary clowns are not a divergence from tradition, but a return to it.

Because Dylan “samples and digests” songs from the past, he has been accused of plagiarism. But imitatio isn't the same.

Add these great titles to your wish list or secure copies for yourself.

Forget about Tinkerbell.

One award was for a medical procedure that incapacitated thousands of people.

These hard-to-finish books are still worth the effort.

Books that were rarely taught in 1963, when baby boomers were students, became classics when those same boomers were teachers and parents.

Literature's first utopia shows how far we've come.

There are nearly 100 towns named "Troy."

Following the advent of human space flight, NASA began naming missions after children of Zeus.

Fire-breathing dragons may represent chaos and the human impulse to conquer that threat.

What Odysseus needed from his father was something more important: the comfort of being a son.

Like some cold poison creeping up our veins, there's a frisson in the stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

Here's your gateway to enjoying the best of literature.

According to Tolkien, fantasy requires a deep imagination known as "sub-creation." And the genre reflects a fundamental truth of being human.