Blog Posts by Subject: English and American Literature

To celebrate Herman Melville's 200th birthday, the Library is displaying notable Melville items from our collections, including family correspondence and literary manuscripts.

In the midst of the holiday planning, take some time for yourself with one of our coziest recommendations for the season. Includes a Spotify playlist!

Love English literature, but don't know the difference between a barouche and a carriage? Wonder no longer!

In honor of three of our favorite writers, who happen to share a last name, we're challenging you to answer: which Brontë wrote it?

Have you been called to serve your civic duty? Here's a list of books you'll want to check out.

World War I is called "The Great War" but in America it could also be called "The Forgotten War." We started celebrating Veteran’s Day on November 11, 1919 as a way to commemorate the day that hostilities in World War I ended.

I’m going to let you in on a little tip. There’s a book coming out in January 2018 that everyone will be talking about. It’s called The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn.

In honor of National Poetry Month, and what would have been her 89th birthday, we celebrate the life and work of, Dr. Maya Angelou, with this Research Guide. Here, you will find an overview of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture’s holdings related to the work and life of this notable poet, writer, journalist, actress, and dancer.

Neil Gaiman reads from the only surviving "prompt" copy of the book, that is, Dickens's own annotated version used for live readings.

We're celebrating National Cookie Day with a list of literary-related cookie recipes.

Do you ever wonder what books are popular with readers in other countries? We do, so we’ve been taking a look at some bestseller lists from around the world to see what people are reading.

A discussion with Dr. Simon Reader, a professor at CUNY Staten Island, about Middlemarch, and the implications of this first edition appearing in digital format.

When we explore the dynamics of the Black Power Movement, we must not fail to explore the Black Arts Movement as well. It was the artistic voice that helped increase political activism and express the importance of cultural values through various art forms.

Celebrate Countee Cullen’s birthday on Tuesday, May 31 at the Countee Cullen Library and the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division of the Schomburg Center.

Mrs. Dalloway is not the only novel to begin its life as a short story. With the New York Public Library's extensive collection of online newspapers, magazines, and journals, you can read many of these published short stories at home and compare them to their later, expanded versions—all you need is your library card.

A researcher's reading of erased marginalia provides insight to Melville's thoughts on religion.

Shakespeare’s language can be a challenge for fluent English speakers. If you’re an English language learner, you might think that Shakespeare is not for for you, but there are many different ways you can learn about his work, his life, and his language and improve your English skills.

Paying homage to the Bard’s most loathsome characters: his villains, schemers, whiners, and all-around bad actors.

Novelist, essayist, playwright, activist, son, brother, friend, lover, man, human, Black. There are many words of which to describe a person, but never enough to describe James Baldwin.