Fact-Checking ‘Ulysses’

Did Dickens ruin Christmas? He was certainly a pioneer in exploiting its commercial potential. A Christmas Carol sold 6,000 copies in five days when it was published on 19 December 1843, and Dickens went on to write four more lucrative Christmas books in the 1840s. But in many wa ...  Show more

Emily Brontë died on 19 December 1848. As Patricia Lockwood said in an episode of Close Readings, there is evidence that Brontë was writing a second novel to follow ‘Wuthering Heights’, but if she was, it has been lost, and it has been suggested, though never proved, that her sis ...  Show more

Nobody hated better than Alexander Pope. Despite his reputation as the quintessentially refined versifier of the early 18th century, he was also a class A, ultra-pure, surreal, visionary mega-hater, and The Dunciad is his monument to the hate he felt for almost all the other writ ...  Show more

James Joyce is, without question, one of the most famous authors in the English language. Millions of readers have enjoyed (and sometimes struggled with) his groundbreaking novels and short stories. However... that's not all Joyce wrote. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max expl ...  Show more

When Philip Benight met Becky Golden, they made a promise to stick together, no matter how bad things got. Read Ann Neumann's reporting in Harper's. Her book is The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for o ...  Show more

In the fifth episode of Among the Ancients II we turn to Greek lyric, focusing on Pindar’s victory odes, considered a benchmark for the sublime since antiquity, and the vivid, narrative-driven dithyrambs of Bacchylides. Through close reading, Emily and Tom tease out allusions, le ...  Show more