Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick was published in 1851. The notorious white whale that compelled Captain Ahab to dedicate his life to finding it was famously described by Melville as being the […]
A Whale of a Lot of Fun Facts about Whales
20 Quirks and Strange Habits — The Weird Side of Famous Writers
Readers of this site will not be surprised that famous writers have their own niche in the realm of eccentricity. Whether it be their unusual jobs, their acerbic wit, or creepy predictions, […]
The Dragon that Almost Ended the Lord of the Rings
English is a language of exceptions, with few concrete rules. When it comes to adjectives, however, there is a very specific hierarchy most English speakers know, instinctively, must be followed to avoid utter confusion. […]
From the Hand of the Bard
Some of the most beautiful and inspiring words in the English language have come from the hand of William Shakespeare. 422 words were added to English by his fertile and creative mind. […]
Fellow Authors Are the Hardest to Please
It would be an understatement to say that Mark Twain was not a fan of Jane Austen. “She makes me detest all her people, without reserve. Is that her intention? It is […]
Don’t Be a Writer If You Can’t Handle Rejection Letters
“Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable soddingrotters, the flaming sods, the sniveling, dribbling, dithering, palsied, pulse-less lot that make up England today. They’ve got white of […]
Longest Novel Will Take a While to Read
The world record for the longest novel ever published goes to A la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust. It was published in 13 volumes beginning in 1912. With an estimated 9,609,000 characters […]
Rags to Riches … and Back to Rags
Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832 – 1899) was a prolific 19th-century American author, best known for his many novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security […]
He’s Just the Type Who Would Type
Mark Twain was the first significant author to submit a typewritten manuscript to a publisher. By his own accounts, Mark Twain admitted that he did not actually do the typing himself, but […]
He Was a Scrooge When It Came to Henry VIII
“The plain truth is, that [Henry VIII] was a most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the History of England.” — Charles Dickens
The Author of Tragedies Was the Victim of One
Aeschylus, the great Athenian author of tragedies, died in 455 BC. He was killed when an eagle mistook his head for a rock and tried to crack a tortoise’s shell by dropping […]
I Rose And Met This Bet and Yet …..
Bennett Cerf, co-founder of Random House, one of the biggest publishing companies in the world, bet a client of his that he couldn’t write a book with fifty or fewer distinct words. […]
Commonplace Fun Facts 