'Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.'

Jane Austen remains a literary force 250 years later

Both her books and adaptations of them for film continue to sell, with 2025 seeing the highest book sales since 2009. Critics claim her deep, witty exploration of relationships and social norms are the basis of her enduring relevance.

A linguist argues Jane Austen's language is what defines her fiction

While many readers love Austen's novels for their characters and their romantic plots, Chi Luu argues that many people (including literary luminaries like Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, and Ralph Waldo Emerson) underestimate how her adept wordplay, sense of irony, and memorable turns of phrase are what have made readers fall in love with her fiction for centuries.

Exploring the work of Frances Burney, one of Jane Austen's main influences

Jane Austen is often credited with pioneering the narrative technique of "free indirect discourse," in which a narrator embodies a character's style without using the first-person perspective. But this essay argues Burney is the real innovator and that Austen, a fan of Burney's, continued using the technique to more acclaim.

Jane Austen was unhappy in the city of Bath, but it inspired some of her books

In 1801, Austen's father retired and abruptly moved the family from Steventon to Bath. Austen loathed her new home, but she used it as the setting for pieces of her novels "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey." "The scandals and shallowness of the city fueled her cynicism and wit; nothing escaped her scathing pen," an exhibition on Austen from the Bath Preservation Trust explained.

View a timeline of Jane Austen's life

Austen was born in 1775 and died in 1817. In that time, she wrote six novels that have gone on to become some of the most celebrated in the English language. This timeline allows you to see the events that shaped her writing, from her informal education at a young age to the illness that eventually took her life.

'I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.'

- Actress and singer Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992)

'I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.'

- Martha Washington (1731-1802)

Winston Churchill said he was comforted by 'Pride and Prejudice' during World War II

The prime minister was bedridden in a hospital with pneumonia in 1943. In his memoirs, Churchill recalls how Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" comforted him, especially because its characters remained calm amid the political turbulence of the time.

'For it would seem—her case proved it—that we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.'

- Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) in "Orlando: A Biography"

'The true measure of all our actions is how long the good in them lasts.'

- Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)

'I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.'

- American novelist Eudora Welty (1909-2001)

'I can’t go back to yesterday–because I was a different person then.'

- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" author Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898)

'When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top.'

- Author Jacqueline Susann (1918-1974)

Debunking the myth of Dickinson's antisocial seclusion

It's true that the poet largely kept to herself in her late-30s, spending nearly all her time at her father's house, and when she did venture out into the world, she'd wear white, facts that led American history to label her a strange, antisocial recluse. But, as this essay shows, that image is not entirely true, evident in the many relationships she maintained through her letters.

'Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.'

- Jane Addams (1860-1935)

'Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul—and sings the tunes without the words—and never stops at all.'

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

'Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.'

- Author Philip Roth (1933-2018)

Ten writers and thinkers on what growing older actually requires of us

The Marginalian's Maria Popova curates a collection arguing our culture has learned to dread aging while forgetting it is a privilege, and that the antidote is sustaining passions strong enough to keep us from turning inward. Voices include Simone de Beauvoir, Joan Didion, Pablo Casals, and Kahlil Gibran.

A quote by Herman Melville

"Whoever is not in the possession of leisure can hardly be said to possess independence."

'I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot ... The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.'

- Author Jack London (1876 - 1916)

'The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.'

-Writer J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)

'If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.'

- Marine biologist and author Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

Dozens of common phrases are attributed to Shakespeare

His clever wordsmithery infiltrated English, from “Neither rhyme nor reason” to “In my heart of hearts.” This article lists nearly two dozen of his best-known phrases.

'There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.'

-Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)

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.

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

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

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

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.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

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.

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.

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

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

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

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

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

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

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.