‘The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby’ was a letter to an editor

‘The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby’ mapped a major transition

The hilarious 1963 story offered insight into how Americans were shifting away from elite interests to “low culture” by focusing on customized cars and their teen enthusiasts in Southern California. Wolfe pokes fun at the trend while also recognizing young people’s post-war desire for freedom, individualism and creativity.

Tom Wolfe wrote a humorous account of the birth of New Journalism

Wolfe explains the style came from journalists attempting to make fact-based reporting read like a novel, arguing that traditional reporting left readers “bored to tears.” Instead of emphasizing an objective point of view, Wolfe favored detailed descriptions that established complex characters, painted interesting scenes, and shared dialogue.

‘The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved’ signaled the birth of Gonzo Journalism

The 1970 essay opens with a crude conversation between Hunter S. Thompson, the author, and a man at an airport bar. Thompson’s first-person account places him as an active participant. Instead of focusing on the race itself, Thompson paints vivid details of his experience with the hedonistic scene surrounding it.

Gay Talese's 1966 Frank Sinatra profile was written without an interview with Sinatra

After numerous rejections from Sinatra, Esquire, and writer Gay Talese continued to pursue the profile, gathering information from observing Sinatra and interviewing friends and fans of his. Readers (and future writers) admired the way Talese captured the many layers of Sinatra’s personality from his generosity to his short temper.

'Shipping Out' can be viewed as a more recent example of subjective journalism

Later retitled "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," Wallace's essay details his existential experience on a cruise ship with biting wit. Arguably more Gonzo than New Journalism, Wallace laments the pressure to have fun in the commercialized cruise atmosphere that brings out feelings of dread more than pleasure.

How a Seattle scenester pranked The New York Times with ridiculous grunge 'slang'

In 1992, The New York Times was eager to report on the grunge phenomenon. When a Times reporter called Megan Jasper, who'd previously worked at Sub Pop, she decided to have some fun, feeding him a fake "Lexicon of Grunge."

In 1922, Zelda Fitzgerald was commissioned to write a satirical review of her husband's latest novel

The review of "The Beautiful and the Damned" might have been comedic, but it was also illuminating, allowing Zelda to acknowledge her husband's tendency to use material from her diaries in his fiction and interrogate the way female characters were often portrayed in novels written by men.

Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ inspired a trove of angry letters to The New Yorker

The writer’s short story “The Lottery” is widely taught in American schools and with good reason—it’s a masterful and horrifying story about the dangers of blind tradition. After its initial publication in The New Yorker, 150 readers wrote letters calling the story “outrageous,” “gruesome,” and “utterly pointless.” Listen to a reading of the story below and a discussion of why it provoked such outraged responses.

How literary agent Scott Meredith invented the modern book auction

Prior to the 1964 auction of "The Night Action" for $13,500 to New American Library, a gentleman's code persisted in the literary world: no manuscript should be shared with more than one publisher at a time. Meredith—the agent behind Norman Mailer, Carl Sagan, and Arthur C. Clarke—leveraged his deep knowledge of the talent pool to publishers, sending around manuscripts to 19 different publishers to generate a bidding war. The Beat-influenced novel eventually flopped and is now out of print.

He made a name with a short story about jumping frogs

Twain’s first big break came with “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” a fictitious story that appeared in a 1865 edition of the New York Saturday Press. (When it was republished elsewhere, the title was changed to “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”) That year, American poet James Russell Lowe called it “the finest piece of humorous literature yet produced in America.”

Langston Hughes solicited ghost stories from his readers

Hughes had a column in the Chicago Defender newspaper for two decades. In 1951, he asked readers to send him their ghost stories, promising that he'd reward them with autographed copies of his books. He spent the next several months dedicating the column to the stories he received.

A lost Jack Kerouac story was discovered in the belongings of a gunned-down mob boss

The unpublished "The Holy, Beat, and Crazy Next Thing" was found in the belongings of Paul Castellano, who was murdered in 1985. It's unclear why Castellano had it, though an heir says it was originally in the collection of a "noted San Francisco-based poet...who received it directly from the author."

Terrible performance art: an insider's perspective

David Sedaris may be known for his writing now, but when he was in college, he thought his future was in the art world. Specifically, the performance art world. In this episode of NPR’s This American Life, Sedaris shares a selection of moments from his career as an artist, each more embarrassing than the last. The kicker? Being heckled from the audience—by his own father.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

In 1974, Norman Mailer touted graffiti as an intellectual art form

The Pulitzer Prize winner explored the style in his 1974 Esquire essay, "The Faith of Graffiti," before expanding on it in a book with 81 photos by Jon Naar. In it, he traces the form back to its ancient roots and compares graffiti writers to Renaissance painters.

Innovative novelist Don DeLillo wrote an erotic hockey novel under a pseudonym

The acclaimed writer—known for books like "White Noise" and "Underworld"—published "Amazons" in 1980 under the pen name Cleo Birdwell. The story claimed to be a memoir, written by a woman who secretly joined an NHL team. The ruse went beyond the text, too, with a female model posing as Birdwell for promotional events.

Read T.S. Eliot's rejection letter for Orwell's 'Animal Farm'

In 1944, the renowned poet T.S. Eliot, then an editorial director at Faber and Faber, wrote to George Orwell to decline "Animal Farm," arguing that the fable's politics didn't quite make sense, writing, "after all, your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore the best qualified to run the farm."

A writer's reflection on 'The Falling Man' - the man who fell from the World Trade Center

In an excerpt from his ‘Press Box’ interview with Bryan Curtis, writer Tom Junod discusses his Esquire story about the image of a man who fell or jumped from the North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001.

King once shelved his own book

“Rage” was one of King’s earliest novels and the first to be published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. After several school shootings mirrored the book’s plot, in which a troubled student murders several of his teachers, King asked his publisher to discontinue the title, fearing it might have inspired the assailants.

‘The consumer isn't a moron, she's your wife’ is among David Ogilvy’s most memorable pieces of advertising advice

Some of David Ogilvy’s maxims include, “talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels” and “never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your own family to read.”

A selection of author Flannery O'Connor's witty letters

Flannery O'Connor wrote darkly humorous novels while cultivating a richly devout Catholic faith. One of the most renowned American authors of the 20th century, she also wrote many letters in a very charming and witty style. Read a selection of her best epistles here.

A Guardian writer turned midlife chess slump into an obsession

Journalist Stephen Moss embarked on a chess self-improvement journey described in "The Guardian." Not a how-to, but a reflection on loss, drive, and whether mastering chess can mean mastering oneself.

Fans loved a minor character, so Dickens made him a major part of 'Pickwick'

Dickens' first serialized novel, "The Pickwick Papers," was selling modestly until he introduced the wisecracking Sam Weller, a cockney character that working-class readers instantly loved. In response to the attention, Dickens made Weller a central figure in the book, turning the series into a bestseller.

Rockwell's first full-time magazine job was for Boys' Life

After graduating from the Art Students League of New York, Rockwell found work illustrating for Boys’ Life, the magazine of the Boy Scouts of America. He went on to create images for over 50 magazine covers and to design the organization’s annual calendars.

Warren Buffett wrote a letter on why a seller should sell his business to his firm

In Berkshire Hathaway's 1990 Annual Letter, Warren Buffett included an edited version of a letter he sent to a man who indicated he might want to sell his family business. This short letter is a masterclass in selling and differentiating your product from the competition.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

An archive of anonymous messages people wrote but never sent

The site invites users to submit unsent letters to people, pets, or moments, which are then published anonymously for strangers to read. Every post is moderated, and the design of the site—no likes or replies, just words—feels polished and somber.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'