Portal:Literature
Introduction
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment. It can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.
The term is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction, which encompasses fiction written with the goal of literary merit.Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoirs, letters, and essays. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles, or other written information on a particular subject. (Full article...)
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Lad, A Dog is a 1919 American novel written by Albert Payson Terhune and published by E. P. Dutton. Composed of twelve short stories first published in magazines, the novel is based on the life of Terhune's real-life rough collie, Lad. Born in 1902, the real-life Lad was an unregistered collie of unknown lineage originally owned by Terhune's father. Lad's death in 1918 was mourned by many of the story's fans, particularly children.
Through the stories of Lad's adventures, Terhune expresses his views on parenting, obtaining perfect obedience without force, and the nature and rights of the "well-bred". Terhune began writing the stories in 1915 at the suggestion of his Red Book Magazine editor. They gained in popularity and, as Terhune was under contractual obligation to submit something to Doubleday-Page, he collected them into novel form. After Doubleday rejected the novel, he solicited other publishers until it was picked up by Dutton. After a slow start, the novel became a best seller in the adult fiction and children's fiction markets, having been repositioned as a young adult novel by Grosset and Dunlap in the 1960s and 1970s. Selling over one million copies, it is Terhune's best-selling work and the one that propelled him to fame.
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“ | When in 1892 I settled in Macao, a small island near the mouth of the Canton river, to practise medicine, I little dreamt that in four years time I should find myself a prisoner in the Chinese Legation in London, and the unwitting cause of a political sensation which culminated in the active interference of the British Government to procure my release. It was in that year however, and at Macao, that my first acquaintance was made with political life; and there began the part of my career which has been the means of bringing my name so prominently before the British people. | ” |
— Sun Yat-sen, Kidnapped in London |
More Did you know
- ... that Begum Akhtar Riazuddin, the first woman to write modern Urdu travelogues, was one of the 1000 PeaceWomen nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005?
- ... that Danilo Kiš's final work, the 1983 collection The Encyclopedia of the Dead, helped make him one of the most important figures for the post-Yugoslav generation of writers?
- ... that Joe D'Cruz won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Korkai, which is based on history and the lives of Parathavars?
- ... that the satirical novel Er ist wieder da was priced at €19.33, a deliberate reference to Hitler's ascent to power in that year?
- ... that although Maya Angelou is best known for her autobiographies, she has also been successful as a poet?
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Imagining Mars: A Literary History "presents a compelling case that 'Mars matters'"?
- ... that more than 1000 tons of paper were used every year printing car literature for the British Motor Corporation by the in-house Nuffield Press?
- ... that campaign literature in the 1894 Montana capital referendum accused Helena residents of copious Manhattan consumption?
- ... that the North-Western Regional Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) ran an underground network to distribute literature to German soldiers in occupied areas?
- ... that in her 2021 book The Origins of Early Christian Literature, Robyn Faith Walsh found that German Romanticists were in part responsible for modern scholarly assumptions about the gospels?
- ... that Sheila Egoff, Canada's first professor of children's literature, returned to her library work immediately after retirement?
Today in literature
- 480 BC - Euripides, Greek playwright born
- 1605 - Pontus de Tyard, French poet died
- 1764 - Robert Dodsley, English writer died
- 1863 - Mary Church Terrell, American writer born
- 1865 - Baroness Orczy, British novelist born
- 1870 - Prosper Mérimée, French author died
- 1889 - Wilkie Collins, British author died
- 1901 - Jaroslav Seifert, Czech writer born
- 1907 - Dominique Aury, French novelist born
- 1943 - Elinor Glyn, English author died
- 1956 - Peter David, American writer born
- 1973 - Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet died
- 1994 - Robert Bloch, American author died
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