She had never seen Vesuvius; in fact, she had rarely left and never too far or for too long her room in the house with a ...

In college, before becoming an English major — and therefore borderline unemployable —I was in something called The General ...

Food is the one thing that binds us together across generations, no matter the title or social status. Even history's most ...

Few events in American literary history have been more curious than the sudden rise of Emily Dickinson into a posthumous fame only more accentuated by the utterly recluse character of her life and ...

Although Emily Dickinson's poetry wasn't appreciated until after her death in 1886, her baking skills were much appreciated ...

I found a kindred spirit in Emily Dickinson quite early in life. A letter the reclusive author wrote at the age of 23, ...

Charles Darwin couldn’t wait to get his mail. In “Natural Magic,” Renée Bergland reports that he installed an angled mirror outside his window so that he would see right away when it came ...

History’s greatest artists and thinkers reward reinterpretation. A Shakespeare or a Curie can feel different in different decades — can reveal something fresh about their time, and also ours.

I like something Emily Dickinson wrote in a letter to a friend: “I am out with lanterns looking for myself.” I’ve been out ...