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The History of Literature Podcast

The History of Literature Podcast

Amateur enthusiast Jacke Wilson journeys through the history of literature, from ancient epics to contemporary classics. (Episodes are not in chronological order - feel free to jump in wherever you'd like!)

Recent Episodes

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692 An Investigation in Chinatown (with Radha Vatsal) | The Five Books (with Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen)
April 3, 2025

692 An Investigation in Chinatown (with Radha Vatsal) | The Five Books (with Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen)

It's a two-for-one special! First, Jacke talks to novelist Radha Vatsal about her new book, No. 10 Doyers Street , which tells the gripping story of an Indian woman journalist investigating a bloody shooting in New York's Chi...
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691 The Making of Sylvia Plath (with Carl Rollyson) | My Last Book with Cheryl Hopson
March 31, 2025

691 The Making of Sylvia Plath (with Carl Rollyson) | My Last Book with Cheryl Hopson

Since her death, poet and novelist Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) has been an endless source of fascination for fans of her and her work. But while much attention has been paid to her tumultuous relationship with fellow poet Ted Hu...
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690 Coleridge and the Person from Porlock [Ad-Free]
March 27, 2025

690 Coleridge and the Person from Porlock [Ad-Free]

[This episode originally ran on July 18, 2016. It is presented here without commercial interruption.] In 1797, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge took two grains of opium and fell into a stupor. When he awoke, he had in his hea...
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689 Thomas Kyd (with Brian Vickers) | My Last Book with Jonathan D.S. Schroeder
March 24, 2025

689 Thomas Kyd (with Brian Vickers) | My Last Book with Jonathan D.S. Schroeder

For centuries, the playwright Thomas Kyd has been best known as the author of The Spanish Tragedy , a terrific story of revenge believed to have strongly influenced Shakespeare's Hamlet . And yet, a contemporary referred to K...
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688 Georges Simenon
March 20, 2025

688 Georges Simenon

The Belgian-born French writer Georges Simenon (1903-1989) was astonishing for his literary ambition and output. The author of something like 400 novels, which he wrote in 7-10 day bursts (after checking with his physician be...
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687 Gatsby Turns 100 (with James West)
March 17, 2025

687 Gatsby Turns 100 (with James West)

"I want to write something new," American author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a letter to his editor, "something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." Months later, he presented the results: the n...
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