J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord of Fantasy
By Kenny Chumbley
In October 1936, a manuscript for a children’s book arrived at the office of the London publisher Allen & Unwin. Stanley Unwin,...
L. Frank Baum and the Wonder of Oz
By Kenny Chumbley
He saw his story as a “modernized fairy tale,” but he put no fairies in it. He meant it to be without...
Andrew Lang, The Master of Fairyland
By Kenny Chumbley
In the late 19th century, fairy tales had fallen out of favor with the general public; some educationalists even attacked them as...
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...
