Monthly Archives: November 2024

Mignon G. Eberhart published more than 50 books over a 60-year career, and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1971. Her first novel, The Patient in Room 18, introduces nurse Sarah Keate and her … Continue reading →

By 1929, Arthur Conan Doyle had retired Sherlock Holmes, and his stories had more fantastical elements than Holmes would have put up with. The title story of The Maracot Deep and Other Stories involves encounters with supernatural beings in Atlantis. … Continue reading →

Warner Brothers’ full-color 1929 musical film On With the Show featured Ethel Waters singing “Am I Blue?”, a song so pervasive that it was also in 3 other films that year. Singers that have since covered this standard include Billie … Continue reading →

In 1929, just two years after The Jazz Singer introduced synchronized sound to theaters nationwide, The Broadway Melody was released as a full-length movie musical with synchronized sound nearly throughout. One sequence was even in Technicolor. The movie won the … Continue reading →

William Golding called the bipolar Catholic author Graham Greene “the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man’s consciousness and anxiety”. Both Greene’s thrillers and his more serious novels are suffused with concerns of politics and religion, flawed institutions, characters who betray others … Continue reading →

Emma Willard had remarkable persistence. She founded the first higher education institution for women in America, and appealed tirelessly for its support in multiple states. She wrote textbooks for it that include groundbreaking work in history and graphic design. Alma … Continue reading →

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Virginia Woolf’s classic 1929 essay on feminism and creative work has inspired numerous analyses (like this one), adaptations (like this one), and projects … Continue reading →

Just two months from now, much of the world will celebrate another Public Domain Day, welcoming a year’s worth of works into the public domain. Many countries that have had life+70 years copyright terms for a while will get works … Continue reading →