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Colette and Doris Lessing: Reading Beyond the Cat Stereotype
Explore La Chatte and On Cats through affection, observation and the different promises made by fiction and recollection.
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Books & ReadingThe Cheshire Cat: An Older Saying, a New Character and an Uncertain Origin
The Cheshire Cat’s grin predates Wonderland. The manuscript and the novel show how Carroll transformed an expression into…
Books & ReadingPoe’s The Black Cat: Guilt, Alcohol, and an Unreliable Confession
Poe’s The Black Cat explained: the 1843 story, its unreliable narrator, guilt, alcohol, real cats and the films…
Books & ReadingThe Cat in Japanese Literature: From Soseki to Murakami
Cats in Japanese literature, from Soseki’s nameless narrator and Tanizaki’s Lily to Murakami’s missing cats and quieter modern…
Books & ReadingT.S. Eliot’s Practical Cats: How a Poetry Side Project Became Broadway
How Eliot’s cat poems grew from letters into a book, a radio programme, and Cats: the musical, with…
Books & ReadingBulgakov’s Behemoth: The Talking Cat, the Satire, and the Censors
Meet Bulgakov's Behemoth, the unruly cat of The Master and Margarita, and trace the novel's censorship, restored passages,…
Books & ReadingWhat Is an Epistolary Novel? Letters, Documents and the Voices Behind Them
How epistolary novels tell stories through letters and other documents, with examples from Dracula, The Color Purple and…
Books & ReadingWhat Is a Bildungsroman? The Coming-of-Age Novel, Explained
What Bildungsroman means, where the term comes from, and how novels of formation explore changing identity, ambition and…
Books & ReadingWhat Is a Roman à Clef? Real People Behind Fictional Names
Explore the roman à clef, from Scudéry to The Bell Jar and On the Road: real-life models, fictional…
Showing 9 of 33 posts