The History of Literature
803 episodes — Page 1 of 17
835 Blackness in Iran (with Amy Motlagh) | My Last Book with Nicholas Boggs
834 Shakespeare's Scholars (with Sean Keilen) | My Last Book with Nan Z. Da
833 Galahad and the Grail (with Malcolm Guite)
832 Stendhal [Revisited]
831 Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" (with Rachel Pastan) | My Last Book with David Denby
830 Becoming Stendhal (with Hadley Suter) | A Literary Tribute to Dolly Parton
829 Charlotte Brontë and Her Biographer Elizabeth Gaskell (with Susan Dunne) | My Last Book with Travis Franks | The Odyssey Kerfuffle
828 Confucius (with Mark Csizkszentmihalyi) | Celia Bookshop! (with Rachel Pastan) | Jacke in Taiwan
827 American Literature's War on Crime (with Theodore Martin) | W.E.B. DuBois Sits with Shakespeare
826 The Essayist's Essayist - Phillip Lopate on the Pleasures of Reading Washington Irving and Other "Minor Writers" | Notes from the History of Literature Podcast Tour!
825 Henry James's Ghosts (with Morgan Lloyd Malcolm) | My Last Book with David Womersley
824 Why Did Mary Shelley Try to Erase Her? The Claire Clairmont Story (with Emily Franklin) | My Last Book with Mathelinda Nabugodi
823 Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, and Shakespeare in a Divided America (with James Shapiro)
822 Wild Thoreau (with Lydia Willsky-Ciollo) | My Last Book with Douglas Clark
821 A History of the Kiss (with Katie Barclay) | Wonderland Books! (with Amy Joyce and Gayle Weiswasser)
820 Irish Radical Poet Eva Gore-Booth (with Sonja Tiernan)
819 Robert Louis Stevenson (with Glenda Norquay) | The Rise of HOT Literati | My Last Book with Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
818 Muriel Spark (with James Bailey) | My Last Book with J. Michael Lennon
817 The Odyssey - Getting Ready for a Summer Blockbuster | My Last Book with Mary Beard
816 Gulliver's Travels at 300 (with David Womersley) | My Last Book with Daniel Mendelsohn
815 Paddy Chayefsky
814 Shakespeare in Translation (with Daniel Hahn) | My Last Book with Indira Ghose
813 George Sand (with Fiona Sampson) | My Last Book with Kathleen Antonioli
812 Talking Classics (with Mary Beard) | My Last Book with Karen Spence
811 The Harlem Renaissance [Reclaimed] | My Last Book with Erin Sharkey
810 "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant (with Mike Palindrome)
809 Robert Browning | The Dutch Roots of Washington Irving (with Elisabeth Paling Funk)
808 A Treacherous Secret Agent - How Literature Spoke Truth to Power During the Red Scare (with Marjorie Garber) | Arthur Miller on Writing "The Crucible"
807 The Story of Stories (with Kevin Ashton) | My Last Book with Ilya Vinitsky and James H McGavran III
806 Robert Frost (with Adam Plunkett) | My Last Book with Ursula Buchan
805 Robert Frost Finds a Friend [Revisited]
804 Shakespeare and Loss (with Sarah Beckwith) | My Last Book with Caroline Lea
803 Literature, Authorship, and the Rise of AI (with Eric Burgess) | My Last Book with Mark Hussey
802 Colette (with Kathleen Antonioli) | My Last Book with Colombe Schneck
801 Persuasion by Jane Austen (Revisited)
800 Shakespeare in Jest (with Indira Ghose) | My Last Book with Nicholson Baker
799.5 Laurie Frankel's Enormous Wings (Revisited) | My Last Book with Julie Gilbert
799 Emma Smith and Shakespeare's First Folio (Revisited)
798.5 Thinking Through Shakespeare (with David Womersley) | My Last Book with Ramie Targoff
798 Emma Smith and Portable Magic - A History of Books and Their Readers (Revisited)
797 Marion Turner and Chaucer (Revisited)
796 Marion Turner and The Wife of Bath (Revisited)
795 Will Tosh and Queer Shakespeare (Revisited)
794 E.T.A. Hoffmann (with Ritchie Robertson) | My Last Book with Gerri Kimber
793 The Secret Order of Shandeans: Laurence Sterne in Early Soviet Russia (with Peter Budrin) | My Last Book with Edward Watts
792 Death and Decay in Early Modern Lyric Poetry (with Eileen Sperry) | My Last Book with Bruce Gordon
791 Emilia Lanier (a.k.a Aemilia Bassano Lanyer) Revisited
790 Madness and Myth (with Natasha Joukovsky) | My Last Book with Kimberly Lau
Ep 789789 The 25 Greatest Books of All Time (with Mike Palindrome) | My Last Book with Cass Sunstein
In 2025, Jacke began a countdown of the top 25 greatest books of all time, as part of a series called "25 for 25." In this episode, Jacke reveals the #2 and #1 entries on the list. Then Mike Palindrome, longtime friend and President of the Literature Supporters Club, joins Jacke to discuss the books chosen, the relative merits of the list, and propose some alternatives. PLUS Cass Sunstein (How to Become Famous: Lost Einsteins, Forgotten Superstars, and How the Beatles Came to Be) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate . The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ep 788788 John Ruskin (with Bob Blaisdell) | My Last Book with Francesca Wade
Nineteenth-century art critic and polymath John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a visionary thinker and influential social commentator who revolutionized how society viewed art and its connection to life. In this episode, Jacke talks to Bob Blaisdell (editor of Ruskin on Art and Artists) about the impact that Ruskin had on the artists and writers who followed. PLUS Gertrude Stein expert Francesca Wade (Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife) stops by to discuss her choice for the last book she will ever read. The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate . The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices