While Elizabeth Jane Howard is best known for her multigenerational family epic, The Cazalet Chronicles, in 1975, she published a collection of short stories, Mr Wrong, which demonstrates a darker, more chilling side to her range. Of the nine pieces included here, two are effectively ghost stories, expertly channelling the unnerving atmosphere one expects from […]
Mr Wrong by Elizabeth Jane Howard
The death of Bram Stoker in 1912 marks the enduring influence of Dracula, a novel that shaped the language of Gothic horror in English. Through its vocabulary, structure, and atmosphere, it transformed how fear is described, turning imagination into a shared and lasting linguistic system.
The Death of Bram Stoker — When Fear Found Its Language
Sanaas Haus hat tausend Augen, die kritisch jeden ihrer Schritte überwachen. Seit sie mit ihrer Familie aus dem Irak nach Deutschland gekommen ist, versucht sie, der familiären Enge zu entkommen und doch den Frieden zu wahren. Als Kind ist Sanaa mit ihren kurdischen Eltern nach Deutschland gekommen. Inzwischen ist sie eine junge Erwachsene, lebt aber […]
Das Haus hat Augen – “Beschreibung einer Krabbenwanderung” von Karosh Taha
On April 17, 1897, Thornton Wilder was born. Through simplicity, suggestion, and direct connection, he reshaped how English functions on stage. His work proved that dialogue does not need complexity to be powerful—only precision, presence, and the ability to reach beyond what is explicitly said.
Birth of Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) — When English Learned to Say More by Saying Less
Born in 1452, Leonardo da Vinci influenced English through translated ideas that united art and science. His detailed observations expanded descriptive and technical vocabulary, refining how language captures form, motion, and structure, and helping English evolve into a medium capable of expressing complex, interdisciplinary thought with clarity.
Birth of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) — Expanding the Descriptive and Scientific Range of English
We’ve been here before, many times, but not for a while. Due to issues with my knee (mostly on downhills) I have been keeping my walking to flat places, but over Easter it was time for me to get up ‘my’ hill. The downhill was fine, but the uphill involved a lot of puffing and […]
My Landscape
As I have mentioned before, there is a long tradition of women writers depicting crushing mental health conditions in fiction, from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s unforgettable short story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) to Emily Holmes Coleman’s account of a woman’s experiences of post-partum psychosis in The Shutter of Snow, to Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel The Bell […]
The Ha-Ha by Jennifer Dawson
Born in 1770, William Wordsworth transformed poetry by replacing ornate language with the clarity of everyday speech. Through works like Lyrical Ballads, created with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he made English verse more natural, expressive, and deeply connected to ordinary human experience and emotion.
Birth of William Wordsworth (1770–1850) — The Poet Who Brought Everyday English into Literature
penwithlit