As a belated tribute (of sorts) to Victoria Day, may you find interest in a variety of Victorina era literature, short and long. In the short category, there is Chit-Chat of Humor, Wit, and Anecdote (Edited by Pierce Pungent; New York: Stringer & Townsend (1857), who has written quite a bit of such work) [via mefi projects], and Conundrums New and Old (Collected by John Ray Frederick; J. Drake & Company Publishers Chicago, 1902) [via mefi projects] This publishing house also published The Art of Characturing, copyright 1941. If you prefer your antiquated humor with a twist, take a gander at bizarro version of Conundrums New and Old [via mefi projects]. In the category of longer works, behold the The Lost Novels of Victorian New Zealand [via an older mefi projects]. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on May 29, 2009 - 4 comments

Happy Birthday, Anne Carson! The iconoclastic modern poet who published the arresting, compulsively readable Autobiography of Red turned 57 this weekend. [more inside]
posted by zoomorphic on Jun 23, 2008 - 9 comments

Everyone's favorite pro se plaintiff, Jonathan Lee Riches, whose complaints have previously graced Metafilter's front page, has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit [pdf] against Eliot Spitzer. [more inside]
posted by saslett on Mar 25, 2008 - 8 comments

John Rawls gives six reasons why baseball is the best of all games. Marianne Moore's "Baseball & Writing." John Updike's "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu." [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea on Mar 11, 2008 - 89 comments

The Cupboard.
posted by hama7 on Aug 21, 2007 - 14 comments

It's common for pro se prisoners to sue unusual defendants, but never before have I seen a list of defendants [pdf] so awe-inspiring. Francois Rabelais would truly be proud. Unfortunately, this particular prisoner's follow up lawsuit against Atlanta Falcons Quarterback Michael Vick isn't nearly so entertaining.
posted by saslett on Jul 28, 2007 - 58 comments

Bad Writing = Good Writing? The academic journal Philosophy and Literature used to hold a "Bad Writing Contest" to ridicule dense, unreadable academic prose... but a new book argues headache inducing sentences are necessary to express subtle theoretical points.
posted by gregb1007 on Oct 30, 2003 - 28 comments

Why Isn't Evelyn Waugh The Most Popular Great Writer On Earth? It's his centenary this year and it's time to ask why such an irrefutably superb prose stylist - after Samuel Beckett, I rate him last century's funniest and most perceptive tragicomic writer, the best since Dr. Johnson - is still not as widely known and loved as his work deserves? Is it because he was so utterly reactionary and misanthropic, as brought out by this adorable BBC interview? After all, other far more reactionary writers, such as Ezra Pound, Fernando Pessoa, Gottfried Benn, Georg Trakl, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Allan Tate or Philip Larkin are, arguably, more widely read today than Waugh is. Which brings me to my question: are poets forgiven their ideological trespasses far more than is the case with novelists and essayists? Why? Isn't this one of the most unfortunate - and unfair! - consequences of today's outrageously politically correct culture? I fear so. And hate so, too! [A little more on Evelyn Waugh inside... ]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Apr 20, 2003 - 40 comments