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Litstack Rec The Goldfinch, & The Dead Lands

Published on : 8 February, 201910 February, 2019 Published by : Lauren Alwan

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt The reception Donna Tartt garnered for her third novel—her first in twelve years—was called a phenomenon and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014 (among other honors). The story centers on young Theo Decker, whose mother is killed in a terrorist attack […]

On this day, September 18, in 1709, Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England. A supremely literate man, he was a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer, who in 1755 published A Dictionary of the English Language (which he wrote himself, a task that took 9 years); it was the pre-eminent English dictionary until the Oxford English Dictionary was published 173 years later. He was also well known for an influential annotated edition of William Shakespeare’s plays, as well as many other works. “Dr. Johnson” died in London in 1784; he was 75.

On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.

Litstack Rec The Goldfinch, & The Dead Lands

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