Who was Oscar Wilde? Was he just an author of witty but meaningless plays, only out to get a laugh or two? The answer is a resounding no. Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright in the late nineteenth century. His controversial plays were riddled with mockery of social status, cleverly covered by the […]
What would literature be without the works of Edgar Allan Poe? Would we have the detective story, as was created by this master of the art of deductive reasoning? How would the horror genre have turned out? Inside you will read about… ✓ The Poe Family and the Allan Family✓ Poe Joins the Military✓ Poor
Ernest Hemingway has sometimes been called one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century. The titles of his works—novels such as The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls or short stories such as “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”—are recognizable even to many who have never read them. His last novel, The
What kind of a man could create the dreaming melodies of the Moonlight Sonata? Give birth to the dramatic voice of the Fifth Symphony? Compose the Ode to Joy? Meet Ludwig van Beethoven, the musical genius, the passionate artist, the incorrigible man, the composer from whose soul music breathed. Inside you will read about… ✓
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Casanova. Womanizer. Playboy. It has been more than 200 years, but Giacomo Casanova’s name is still a slang word. That name, emblazoned across Europe in the 1700s, is synonymous yet today with a player, someone who seduces a woman, makes a sexual conquest of her, and leaves her. It was once something more than that.
Mark Twain is best known as the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. His authentic voice, humor, and use of vernacular language undeniably changed American literature—some have called him the Father of American Literature. Inside you will read about… ✓ The Mississippi Steamboat Pilot✓ Westward to Fame and
Vincent van Gogh is one of the world’s most famous artists, and his paintings are among the world’s most valuable. The archetypal starving artist, Vincent died aged just 37 by his own hand, poor, isolated, and, in his eyes, a failure. Yet, in Vincent’s life story we can see the evolution of a boy becoming
From working in a shoe-blacking factory as a 12-year-old to help his family while his father was in debtor’s prison, Charles Dickens rose to become one of the best-known novelists of all time. Lines like Oliver Twist’s “Please sir, may I have some more?” or the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities “It
Elvis Presley was much more than a cultural icon; he was a reliable barometer of the world he grew up in. Long before the cultural revolutions of the ‘60s and ‘70s, Elvis was sparking a dynastic change of hands in American society. And by his own admission, much of it was by accident. Whenever his
James Dean is known as the first rebel. He was a ‘50s-styled, leather-clad biker rebuking authority. With his black turtleneck and a penchant for bongo drums and poetry, he could also easily be a kind of forerunner to the beatniks. And with his unkempt, wild hair and far-reaching philosophies, he is often cited as a
