Not just Dracula: there were fictional vampires before Bram Stoker's, and they've only grown in popularity since. Why are we fascinated by these blood-sucking creatures?
Born in County Dublin in 1865, W. B. Yeats went on to become a leading figure in the Irish Literary Revival and eventually won a Nobel Prize for Literature for his contribution to the shaping of modern Irish culture.
The decade-long relationship between the composer Chopin and the author Sand, though unlikely, was a testament to the Romantic belief in the virtues of genius.
Today best known for his epic novel Les Miserables (1862), Victor Hugo (1802–1885) used literature to speak out about social issues and highlight injustice. HIs works helped to shape the soul of modern France.
The life of Henry James, who left America for a cosmopolitan life in Europe before settling in England and contributing multiple masterpieces to its literature.
Jane Austen’s novels advocated virtuous living, drawing on Aristotelian ideas of virtue and implicit Christian virtues to find the middle path to happiness.
Who was Giovanni Boccaccio, and what made his major work, the Decameron, so influential? Read about this forerunner of the Renaissance and his masterpiece.
Follow Dante’s mystical journey in Heaven (Paradiso), the final, and most theological, canto of The Divine Comedy.
