Portrait of a Black woman; artist unknown, American, circa 1830–1835.

In Search of the Real Hannah Crafts

"The Bondwoman’s Narrative" is the first novel by a Black woman to describe slavery from the inside. Recently, scholars have discovered her true identity.
Black and white portrait of Jones Very

The Voice of Unfiltered Spirit

In the poetry of Jones Very, whom his contemporaries considered “eccentric” and “mad," the self is detached from everything by an intoxicated egoism.
Black and white photo of Lydia Maria Child reading a book

Living in Words

A new biography explores the work of the influential abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, who wrote about the social, political, and cultural issues of her time.
Lumpkin’s Jail; engraving from A History of the Richmond Theological Seminary, 1895

A Fable of Agency

Kristen Green’s "The Devil’s Half Acre" recounts the story of a fugitive slave jail, and the enslaved woman, Mary Lumpkin, who came to own it.
Watercolor portrait of Bronson Alcott, a 19th century American philosopher and educator.

New England Ecstasies

The transcendentalists thought all human inspiration was divine, all nature a miracle.
Lady with black hair tied up in a bun

Dickinson’s Improvisations

A new edition of Emily Dickinson’s Master letters highlights what remains blazingly intense and mysterious in her work.
Henry Adams and his wife, Clover Adams at Wenlock Abbey, England, 1873

A Posthumous Life

Family blessings are a curse, or they can be. The life of Henry Adams explained in his book Education.
Headshot of William Faulkner

‘A Land Where the Dead Past Walks’

Faulkner’s chroniclers have to reconcile the novelist’s often repellent political positions with the extraordinary meditations on race, violence, and cruelty in his fiction.

Our First Authoritarian Crackdown

A new book persuasively argues that the Federalists’ attempt to squash opposition and the free flow of ideas was even more nefarious than we thought.
Edmund G. Ross.

Mike Pence’s Impeachment Hero Is a Corrupt 19th Century Politician

An historian debunks the vice president’s op-ed.

The Contradictions of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The Supreme Court justice may have been heralded by many of his progressive peers, but the legacy he left behind is far more ambiguous.

The Author of a New Book About Andrew Johnson on the Right Reasons to Impeach a President

Johnson’s impeachment was driven by his refusal to rid the country of the lingering effects of slavery.

The Large Policy

How the Spanish-American War laid the groundwork for American empire.