J. M. Barrie and The Pan
By Kenny Chumbley
“You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all...
H. Rider Haggard: Northern Lights and Valkyries
By Kenny Chumbley
Before Indiana Jones, there was Allan Quatermain; before The Last Jedi, there was King Solomon’s Mines;and before the 1958 swashbuckler, The Vikings,...
The Eight Memes of the Postmodern Mystery – By Ted Gioia
What do postmodern writers have against the mystery novel? For reasons that perhaps only a Lacan or Derrida could deconstruct, they have turned to it again...
When Jean-Paul Sartre Cured Existential Angst with a Jazz Record – By Ted...
A Look Back at Sartre's Nausea
Philosophers can be incisive storytellers—and have been since the earliest days of the discipline. The most memorable passages in...
Charles Kingsley : “Tomfoolery with a Serious Purpose”
By Kenny Chumbley
No one familiar with Victorian literature would rate Charles Kingsley’s books among the very best except, maybe, his children’s fantasy, The Water-Babies.
Charles Kingsley...
Money-Changers in the Temple: Evil Bankers in Literature and Film – By Tim Wenzell
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies” –Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Taylor, May 28,...
Lewis Carroll and Nonsense – By Kenny Chumbley
“It sounds uncommon nonsense.” The Mock Turtle
Among the storied authors of children’s...
The Formula for Fantasy – By Kenny Chumbley
All fairy tales are fantasy, but not all fantasies are fairy tales. Fairy tales require fairy folk (elves, gnomes, etc.). The Three Little Pigs...
The Personality of Phantasy – By Kenny Chumbley
My qualifications for writing about fantasy literature/fairy tales are slight. As a child, I wore out the Whitman...
