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A close look at Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: how it was written and published, the conscience at its center, the argument over its ending, and why it is still challenged.
Dostoevsky’s 1866 novel of a student who murders a pawnbroker to test a theory: how it was written, what it argues, what critics have fought over, and how to choose a translation.
A researched review of The Great Gatsby: its flop of a first printing, the green light, the 1925 critics, and the film, opera and Broadway versions since.
A review of Shakespeare’s Othello: where the play came from, how Iago’s method works, what it does with jealousy, reputation and race, and how stages and screens have handled it since its first recorded performance in 1604.
At least five London publishers rejected Life of Pi before it won the 2002 Booker Prize. How the two-story ending works, where critics split, and how the Ang Lee film and the stage play handled it.
Atwood handwrote the first draft in West Berlin under the title Offred. How the novel was made, why critics doubted it in 1986, the Unburnable Book, and its path from film and opera to Hulu.