549 Forgotten Women of Literature 7 - Ursula ...

The second half of the twentieth century was marked by an extreme increase in America's prison population, from roughly 250,000 inmates in 1940 to well over two million by 2008. At the same time, American readers were devouring mysteries, thrillers, detective novels, police proce ...  Show more

At the time of Washington Irving's death, he was the most famous and widely praised American writer of his or any other era. But his reputation soon dwindled, and today he's known primarily as the author of just two stories ("The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle"), wh ...  Show more

In 2007, Debby Applegate won a Pulitzer Prize for “The Most Famous Man in America,” her biography of the 19th-century preacher and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher. Applegate’s new ...

Why might a woman have willingly confined herself to a cell for the rest of her life? Why have so many female authors in history published under aliases or initials? And what was Jane Austen’s dirtiest joke?In this episode of Betwixt the Sheets, Kate is joined by Anna Beer to dis ...  Show more

This 2017 episode covers an American sculptor who was a celebrated artist in her day, but receded from the spotlight; her final years remained a mystery for quite some time. Her marble works are striking examples of the neoclassical style popular at the end of the 19th century. L ...  Show more

Margaret Cavendish has been largely forgotten and, when remembered, divides opinion. One of England’s first female philosophers, professional authors and scientists, the 17th-century writer challenged convention throughout her life with her proto-feminist writing and audacious be ...  Show more