Coincidentally: Table Talk
In October 1883 the poet and critic Matthew Arnold arrived in New York on the Cunarder Servia to begin a lecture tour….
Scaramouche, Sabatini, and Spadassinicide
Few are the stories that are vouched for by a lead sentence alone. It was the best of times, it was…
Descending into the Chocolate Factory: Are Dahl’s Works Worth it?
Every good child takes some pleasure in being bad. It is the perversity of human inheritance that forbidden fruit is fascinating….
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (Not for the Squeamish)
When Evelyn Waugh came to Hollywood in 1947 to discuss the film rights for Brideshead Revisited, he visited a graveyard: Forest Lawn Memorial Park. He…
The Ballad of Judas Iscariot and the Burden of Lent
Lent is a burden and a blessing. It calls Catholics to crawl beneath the weight of themselves to the Cross of…
Coincidentally: Moses and the Muses
The Anglo-Irish critic Robert Wilson Lynd observed that only in literature does coincidence seem unnatural. The literary Detection Club, whose…
Coincidentally: Animal Magnetism
The former mayor Marion Barry said of conditions in Washington, D.C., that “the crime rate isn’t so bad if you…
The War of the Worlds and the Significance of Science Fiction
In 1938, the world was waiting for war. Germany had invaded Czechoslovakia. The United States was battling the Great Depression. The…
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux: Triumphant Tragedy
All great literature is well written, but not all that is well written is great literature. In other words, there are…
Coincidentally: Heirs to the Hairless
Dr. Martin Routh, president of Magdalen College for 63 years, was the last Oxford don to wear a wig in…
