Archive - The Common Reader

Frances Wilson: T.S. Eliot is stealing my baked beans.

Thomas De Quincey, D.H. Lawrence, Muriel Spark, Elizabeth Bowen, George Meredith, ghosts, spies, lives, and modern novels.

13 hrs ago •

1:05:41

The case for literary optimism

A piece in the New Statesman

Jul 4 •

Twenty-five facts about the Merchant of Venice

A Grail quest, a romantic comedy, Shakespeare's most performed play

Jul 3 •

How long until they can read your mind? Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail...

Should the government be able to interrogate your thoughts?

Jul 2 •

Northanger Abbey and the critics

A much loved novel that we now understand very well

Jul 1 •

June 2025

Arnold Bennett's ten step plan for learning to appreciate poetry

You can do this on your lunch break

Jun 29 •

What works of the humanities should undergraduates read?

some speculations

Jun 27 •

George Eliot and the Reform of England

you must look to yourself

Jun 26 •

What was the gothic revival?

And why was Jane Austen involved in it?

Jun 24 •

Victoria Moul. Poetry for life.

Bilingual Shakespeare, Proust, and and Larkin at the dentist.

Jun 22 •

and

1:03:44

Boswell as Lydia Davis?

found micro-fiction

Jun 19 •

Boys, Flesh, Christie, Hours, Trollope, Diana, Perfection, audiobooks

Lots of opinions about some of my recent reading

Jun 17 •

#nojs-banner { position: fixed; bottom: 0; left: 0; padding: 16px 16px 16px 32px; width: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; background: red; color: white; font-family: -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 13px; line-height: 13px; } #nojs-banner a { color: inherit; text-decoration: underline; } This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts