Tagged Literature
We Celebrate Him: Walt Whitman at 200
I celebrate myself — When lilacs last — I contain multitudes — O Captain! my Captain! What other U.S. poet’s work can be recognized by so few words—and by so many people—as that of the self-proclaimed…
The Mystery of Missing Persons
Many things go missing – overdue books, keys, socks in the dryer – but none of those can compare with the gravity of when a person simply disappears. Approximately 90,000 people are missing at this very moment in the United…
Book Donation to Recognize and Celebrate Polish Literature
The Free Library was fortunate to recently receive a donation of books by Polish authors that were translated into English, along with books in Polish for both adults and children. The books were donated by the Polish Book Institute , a…
Immersive Multimedia Experience Breathes New Life into the Frankenstein Mythos
Even if you’ve never read Mary Shelley ’s groundbreaking novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus , you’ve certainly heard of the stiched-together monster the teenage mother invented during a drizzly 1816 summer…
Break Out Your Garlic Necklaces and Wooden Stakes for Bram Stoker's Bday!
by Michelle Sheffer Today marks Irish writer Bram Stoker ’s 171st birthday. Author of Dracula —the inspiration for many a nightmare and pop-culture meme over the past two centuries—Stoker compiled and wrote his iconic…
Shakespeare In the World Lecture Series
The Fool in King Lear advised "Speak less than thou knowest" – but it's good the speakers at this year’s Shakespeare in the World lecture series aren’t following his advice. If you’re …
Join The Rosenbach for a Marathon Reading of Moby-Dick!
If you’ve ever joined our friends at The Rosenbach for Bloomsday , you know how fun (and slightly surreal) it can be to hear a book read aloud over an extended period of time. Well, the next Bloomsday may be several months off…
An American Author in Paris
"For two centuries," writes The New Yorker essayist Adam Gopnik in the preface of his 2004 collection Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology , "Paris has been attached for Americans to an idea of happiness, of good…
TRIPOD: Conversations with Place
The Writers Room 's second annual Canon TRIPOD photo exhibition is on view throughout Pepper Hall, home of the Art & Literature Department . Head up to Art & Literature on the 2nd floor…
Baby & Toddler Storytime
Books, songs, rhymes and bounces for children (birth to 23 months) and their caregivers!
Baby & Toddler Storytime
Books, songs, rhymes and bounces for children (birth to 23 months) and their caregivers!
Hands-On Tour: Book Arts
Do you prefer to judge a book by its cover, or does the inside matter more? In this tour of book arts, we’ll take a look at various rare books in The Rosenbach collection, their aesthetics, their functions, how the processes in…
Hands-On Tour: Titanic: The Rise of Rosenbach
When the RMS Titanic sank in the icy waters of the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912, it took with it Dr. ASW Rosenbach’s friend and collecting protégé, Harry Elkins Widener. Harry’s mother, socialite Eleanor…
Baby & Toddler Storytime
Books, songs, rhymes and bounces for children (birth to 23 months) and their caregivers!
Storytime Yoga with Beth Heed
Yoga instructor Beth Heed from Oak and Acorn Wellness will host a class filled with stories, yoga, and fun for 2 to 5 year-olds and their caregivers. Move, play, and explore your body in creative ways as we read stories! No prior yoga…
Hands-On Tour: James Joyce & Irish Authors
The Rosenbach is home to an incredible collection of works by Irish authors. Along with James Joyce’s handwritten manuscript of his modernist masterpiece Ulysses, we’ll also read and handle works by Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde,…
Hands-On Tour: Women Novelists at The Rosenbach
Female novelists of the 19th and 18th centuries traveled different routes to find readership for their work. Some used male or deliberately ambiguous pseudonyms; others published anonymously before claiming their creations. Through…
Hands-On Tour: Charles Dickens, The Inimitable Boz
Beginning with his early works published under pseudonym “Boz” (he later impishly signed his letters “The Inimitable Boz”), Charles Dickens was a literary phenomenon in the 19th century, and his ubiquity…
Richard Russo | Chances Are . . . with Amy Hempel | Sing to It: New Stories
Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for his novel Empire Falls , Richard Russo is acclaimed for capturing the “foolishness of this lonely world, but also the humor, friendship and love that abide” ( San Francisco…
Baby & Toddler Storytime
Books, songs, rhymes and bounces for children (birth to 23 months) and their caregivers!
Hands-On Tour: Early Hebrew Books I
Explore the philosophy and history of some of the first books printed in the Hebrew language. Each has its own visual beauty and its own story to tell about early printing in Europe, local cultural tensions, change, and continuity.…
Hands-On Tour: Herman Melville
With a warm heart for human nature, a cold eye for the human condition, and prose that would awe a Biblical prophet, Herman Melville was too good for his time. Join us for an odyssey through the Rosenbach’s mighty Melville…
Hands-On Tour: Love Letters
Join us for this rare peek into some of the most personal and emotional writing in our collections. From the aching yearnings of poet John Keats to the dying wishes of a Civil War solider, the Rosenbach is home to a variety of love…
A Free Tour of Our Five Senses: A Family Friendly, Interactive Exhibition.
Sign up for your free curator-led tour of Our Five Senses, the first family friendly, fully-interactive exhibition at the Free Library. Tours begin at 3:00 p.m and are 45 minutes. While the exhibition is geared for all ages, the…
Baby & Toddler Storytime
Books, songs, rhymes and bounces for children (birth to 23 months) and their caregivers!
Teen Parent Storytime and Play Group
Read! Sing! Play! Help your child learn through stories, songs, and fun activities. This free program is for teen parents with children ages birth through 2 years. Read, Baby, Read is a series of fun programs for babies, toddlers…
Hands-On Tour: Book Art
Do you prefer to judge a book by its cover, or does the inside matter more? In this tour of book arts, we’ll take a look at various rare books in The Rosenbach collection, their aesthetics, their functions, how the processes in…
Hands-On Tour: Shakespeare In Love
Lovers abound in the works of Shakespeare. His characters struggle and play and persist, and sometimes die, in pursuit of love. In this brand new Hands-On Tour, we’ll explore his myriad visions of love in early editions of…
Poetry in Translation
Take pleasure in reading poets from other languages and cultures.
Poetry - Novels in Verse
Poetry with special appeal for tweens and teens.
Poetry - Great Contemporary Poetry
Selections from the Literature Department.
Research in Context *
Discover reliable and trusted information on a variety of topics to support middle school student research for government, U.S and world history, geography, literature, sciences, and social issues. Research In Context offers…
NewsBank Hot Topics
Trending news and hot topics for your next assignment! Hot topics covers Current Events, Business & Economics, Civics, Government, & Politics, Social Issues, Science, Technology & Health, Sports, Arts & Literature, and People in the News.
LitFinder *
Discover literature content from more than 150,000 full-text poems, 840,000 poem citations and excerpts, 7,100 full-text short stories and novels, 3,800 full-text essays published in the 16th-20th centuries, 2,400 full-text speeches, and…
Literature Criticism Online
This extensive compilation of literary commentary represents a range of modern and historical views on authors and their works across regions, eras, and genres. Covers Children’s, Classical, Contemporary, Drama, Poetry, Shakespearean,…
Kids InfoBits *
Elementary students in kindergarten through grade five will find age-appropriate content covering a broad range of educational topics such as animals, arts, geography, health, literature, people, social studies, technology, etc. Kids…
InfoTrac Student Edition *
High school students will have access to age-appropriate content from magazines, journals, newspapers, reference books, and engaging multi-media covering a wide range of subjects, from science, history, and literature to political…
Gale Literary Sources (formerly Artemis)
Cross-search all of Gale’s literature databases from a single digital space to find biographies, primary sources, contextual reference, and criticism. Includes Dictionary of Literary Biography, Something About the Author, LitFinder,…
Books & Authors *
Discover fiction and non-fiction books that match your interests! Books and Authors (powered by Gale's popular What Do I Read Next? series) is for readers from every level of reading proficiency and enables users to explore the endless…
America's Historical Imprints
Explore the nation’s past in unprecedented ways. Includes books, pamphlets, broadsides and other scarce printed material, centuries of American history, literature, culture, and daily life, and extensive indexing and full bibliographic…
Academic OneFile *
More than 18,000 peer-reviewed journals and more than 9,200 in full text Full text of The Economist ranging from 1988 to the present, with no embargo Full text of The New York Times from 1985 to present, updated daily Full text of The…
Eve Ensler | The Apology
One of Newsweek ’s “150 Women Who Shake the World” and the Guardian ’s “Top 100 Women,” Tony Award–winning playwright Eve Ensler is a performer, activist, and author. Her phenomenon The Vagina Monologues has been published in nearly…
Tommy Orange | There There: A Novel with Rachel Kushner | The Mars Room
“Masterful. . . . A devastating debut novel” ( The Washington Post ), Tommy Orange ’s There There has been lauded as a new American treasure by some of the country’s greatest writers and esteemed publications. A New York Times…
Lorene Cary | Ladysitting: My Year with Nana at the End of Her Century
“A powerful storyteller, frankly sensual [and] mortally funny" ( New York Times ), Lorene Cary is the author of the novels Pride , The Price of a Child , If Sons, Then Heirs , and the memoir Black Ice . A senior lecturer in creative…
Susan Choi | Trust Exercise: A Novel with Myla Goldberg | Feast Your Eyes
Excavating the hidden corners of the human heart and acclaimed for their “nuance, psychological acuity, and pitch-perfect writing” ( Los Angeles Times ), Susan Choi ’s novels include the Asian American Literary Award-winning The Foreign…
Julia Alvarez | In the Time of the Butterflies: 25th Anniversary Edition
In conversation with Concepción de León , the digital staff writer for the Books desk at The New York Times . She also writes "El Espace," a news and culture column for Latino . A “one-woman cultural collision” ( Los Angeles Times Book…
Richard Blanco | How to Love a Country: Poems
Richard Blanco made history four times at Barack Obama’s second presidential inauguration: He was the first immigrant, the first Latino, the youngest person, and the first openly gay person to be the U.S. inaugural poet. Exploring…
Robert A. Caro | Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing
In conversation with Dick Polman , "Writer in Residence" at the University of Pennsylvania, national political columnist at WHYY News and contributor to The Atlantic Standing at “the summit of American historical writing” ( Washington…
Barry Lopez | Horizon
Barry Lopez won the National Book Award for Arctic Dreams , a “rich, abundant, vigorously composed” ( Boston Globe ) meditation on his travels in the barren but beautiful far North. His other work includes Of Wolves and Men , Crow and…
Nathan Englander | Kaddish.com with Thomas Mallon | Landfall
Nathan Englander is the author of the story collections For the Relief of Unbearable Urges and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank , a Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story…
Darius James | Negrophobia: An Urban Parable
In conversation with Gene Seymour, contributor to The Nation and former film critic and jazz columnist for Newsday . He has written for Bookforum , CNN.com, and The Washington Post . Author and spoken-word artist Darius James’s 1992…
Don Winslow | The Border
The author of numerous international bestselling crime novels, Don Winslow is the recipient of dozens of awards and spots on myriad best-books-of-the-year lists. These books include The Winter of Frankie Machine , The Force , and…
Sigrid Nunez | The Friend: A Novel with Keith Gessen | A Terrible Country: A Novel
Sigrid Nunez won the 2018 National Book Award for The Friend , “a penetrating, moving meditation on loss, comfort, memory” (NPR) in which a woman is forced to adopt her deceased best friend’s Great Dane. The recipient of a Berlin Prize,…
Victor LaValle with Justina Ireland, Sam J. Miller, and Alice Sola Kim | A People's Future of the United States: Twenty-five Visionary Stories
Amidst a climate of division, tumult, and fear, what will the United States look like tomorrow? In A People’s Future of the United States , 25 diverse writers synthesize hopeful, cynical, prescient visions of a country shaped by…
Feminista Jones | Reclaiming Our Space: How Black Feminists Are Changing the World from the Tweets to the Streets with DaMaris B. Hill | A Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing
Social worker, public speaker, community activist, and blogger Feminista Jones is the author of the novel Push the Button and the poetry collection The Secret of Sugar Water . She was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in…
Jane Brox | Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives
Penning “nonfiction literature of a high and lasting order” ( Chicago Tribune ), Jane Brox is the author of, among other books, Five Thousand Days Like This One , a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Brilliant: The…
Bridgett M. Davis | The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers
Bridgett M. Davis is the author of Into the Go-Slow , the acclaimed story of a young woman traveling from Detroit to Nigeria as she mourns the death of her sister, and Shifting Through Neutral , a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy…
Dani Shapiro | Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
In conversation with Beth Kephart , the award-winning author of twenty-four books, including Going Over , Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir , and Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River . Delivering “an…
Ha Jin | The Banished Immortal: A Life of Li Bai (Li Po)
In conversation with Carlin Romano , Critic-at-Large, The Chronicle of Higher Education , former literary critic The Philadelphia Inquirer and author of America the Philosophical . Celebrated internationally for a prolific, “achingly…
One Book, One Philadelphia Kickoff Event | Featuring Jesmyn Ward
One Book, One Philadelphia 2019 kicks off with a reading and conversation between Jesmyn Ward, author of the One Book featured selection Sing, Unburied, Sing, and WURD President/CEO Sara Lomax-Reese. Their talk will be followed by…
Kristen Roupenian | You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories
Kristen Roupenian holds a PhD in English from Harvard and an MFA from the University of Michigan. Originally published in The New Yorker in 2017, her story “Cat Person” garnered national attention for its frank depiction of dating in…
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