The History of Literature
Channel Details
The History of Literature
Amateur enthusiast Jacke Wilson journeys through the history of literature, from ancient epics to contemporary classics. Episodes are not in chronological order and you don't need to start at the beginning - feel free to jump in wherever you like! Find out more at historyofliterature.com and faceboo...
Recent Episodes
784 episodes
817 The Odyssey - Getting Ready for a Summer Blockbuster | My Last Book with Mary Beard
Jacke gets ready for the release of Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, the rare instance of a summer blockbuster based on a literary classic, with some help...
816 Gulliver's Travels at 300 (with David Womersley) | My Last Book with Daniel Mendelsohn
As a literary classic turns 300, Jacke talks to the University of Oxford's David Womersley about Jonathan Swift, the nature of satire, and The Cambrid...
815 Paddy Chayefsky
Thanks in part to beloved films like Marty (1955) and Network (1976), Paddy Chayefsky is often regarded as the greatest writer of television's first G...
814 Shakespeare in Translation (with Daniel Hahn) | My Last Book with Indira Ghose
What is it like to translate Shakespeare into another language? How does one attempt to capture that transcendent magic so familiar to English speaker...
813 George Sand (with Fiona Sampson) | My Last Book with Kathleen Antonioli
Upon her death, French novelist George Sand (1804-1876) was widely recognized as one of the most popular and acclaimed writers in Europe. And yet, eve...
812 Talking Classics (with Mary Beard) | My Last Book with Karen Spence
Why are we so fascinated by the ancient world? What can we find in the distant past that is recognizably human--and how do we grapple with the complic...
811 The Harlem Renaissance [Reclaimed] | My Last Book with Erin Sharkey
The Harlem Renaissance, the great flowering of African American arts and culture in the early twentieth century, is hard to define but easy to admire....
810 "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant (with Mike Palindrome)
Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) is widely regarded as one of the greatest short story writers in history. Among his admirers were Flaubert, who befriend...
809 Robert Browning | The Dutch Roots of Washington Irving (with Elisabeth Paling Funk)
Robert Browning (1812-1889) is often considered one of the greatest of the Victorian poets. Two developments established Browning as an indispensable...
808 A Treacherous Secret Agent - How Literature Spoke Truth to Power During the Red Scare (with Marjorie Garber) | Arthur Miller on Writing "The Crucible"
During the Cold War, hearings led by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy soon turned into a witch hunt, as paranoia and political opportunism destroyed the c...
807 The Story of Stories (with Kevin Ashton) | My Last Book with Ilya Vinitsky and James H McGavran III
When we first started this podcast in 2015, we began with a simple premise: "We are human beings, and human beings tell stories." But how has that hap...
806 Robert Frost (with Adam Plunkett) | My Last Book with Ursula Buchan
By the middle of the twentieth century, Robert Frost was widely regarded as America's most popular poet, beloved for the simple, sincere verses that t...
805 Robert Frost Finds a Friend [Revisited]
In preparation for next week's conversation with Adam Plunkett, author of a new major biography of Robert Frost (1874-1963), we revisit an earlier epi...
804 Shakespeare and Loss (with Sarah Beckwith) | My Last Book with Caroline Lea
It's Memorial Day in the United States, a day devoted to remembering the soldiers who have died in service. Together, the society grieves, mourns, and...
803 Literature, Authorship, and the Rise of AI (with Eric Burgess) | My Last Book with Mark Hussey
The rise of Artificial Intelligence has sent shockwaves through the literary world, with the impact being felt by both publishers and creative types....
802 Colette (with Kathleen Antonioli) | My Last Book with Colombe Schneck
Twentieth-century French novelist Colette (1873-1954) was a strikingly modern celebrity and full of contradictions. In this episode, Jacke talks to a...
801 Persuasion by Jane Austen (Revisited)
As the History of Literature Podcast Tour rolls through literary England, Jacke and Emma are revisiting some past episodes with connections to what th...
800 Shakespeare in Jest (with Indira Ghose) | My Last Book with Nicholson Baker
It's Episode 800! Jacke celebrates the milestone by talking to Shakespeare scholar Indira Ghose about her book Shakespeare in Jest, which draws fascin...
799.5 Laurie Frankel's Enormous Wings (Revisited) | My Last Book with Julie Gilbert
Happy Mother's Day! Jacke takes advantage of an error to revisit a conversation with novelist Laurie Frankel about her book Enormous Wings, in which a...
799 Emma Smith and Shakespeare's First Folio (Revisited)
As Jacke and Emma travel to England for the History of Literature Podcast Tour, they're revisiting some past interviews with special guests. In this e...
798.5 Thinking Through Shakespeare (with David Womersley) | My Last Book with Ramie Targoff
Is there such a thing as a general human nature? And if so, does Shakespeare serve as a "faithful mirror" to it, as Dr. Johnson claimed? In this episo...
798 Emma Smith and Portable Magic - A History of Books and Their Readers (Revisited)
As Jacke and Emma get ready for the History of Literature Podcast Tour, they're revisiting some past interviews with special guests. In this episode,...
797 Marion Turner and Chaucer (Revisited)
As Jacke and Emma get ready for the History of Literature Podcast Tour, they're revisiting some past interviews with special guests. In this episode,...
796 Marion Turner and The Wife of Bath (Revisited)
As Jacke and Emma get ready for the History of Literature Podcast Tour, they're revisiting some past interviews with special guests. In this episode,...
795 Will Tosh and Queer Shakespeare (Revisited)
As Jacke and Emma get ready for the History of Literature Podcast Tour, they're revisiting some past interviews with special guests. In this episode,...
794 E.T.A. Hoffmann (with Ritchie Robertson) | My Last Book with Gerri Kimber
In addition to being an accomplished lawyer and a highly influential music critic, the nineteenth-century German Romantic Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffma...
793 The Secret Order of Shandeans: Laurence Sterne in Early Soviet Russia (with Peter Budrin) | My Last Book with Edward Watts
The 1920s were a tumultuous time for Russia, as the nation careened from the aftermath of revolution to the death of Lenin, the establishment of the S...
792 Death and Decay in Early Modern Lyric Poetry (with Eileen Sperry) | My Last Book with Bruce Gordon
In this episode, Jacke talks to author Eileen Sperry about her book This Body of Death: Form and Decay in Early Modern Lyric, which examines how the l...
791 Emilia Lanier (a.k.a Aemilia Bassano Lanyer) Revisited
The "Forgotten Women of Literature" series continues with a look at Aemilia Bassano Lanyer (1569-1645), the first Englishwoman to publish a volume of...
790 Madness and Myth (with Natasha Joukovsky) | My Last Book with Kimberly Lau
What happens when an abnormally average man is suddenly on a path to greatness, as his picks in the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament start panning ou...
789 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...
788 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 s...
787 Why Poetry with Matthew Zapruder Encore
In his book Why Poetry, the poet Matthew Zapruder issued "an impassioned call for a return to reading poetry and an incisive argument for its accessib...
786 Cherokee Novelist and Poet John Rollin Ridge (with Travis Franks)
A member of the Cherokee nation, John Rollin Ridge (1827-1867) lived a dramatic life full of contradictions. He also became the first Native American...
785 Literature in an Age of Anti-Immigration Sentiment (with Daniel Olivas) | My Last Book with Janet Todd
Daniel A. Olivas, the grandson of Mexican immigrants, is a fiction writer, poet, playwright, book critic, and attorney. In this episode, Jacke talks t...
784 Marcus Aurelius: Philosopher-King (with William O. Stephens)
In the fourth century B.C., Plato famously posited a philosopher-king as the ideal ruler for his imagined Republic. Five hundred years later, the Roma...
783 Southern Imagining (with Elleke Boehmer) | My Last Book with John McMurtrie
The world has a northern bias: our politics, culture, and literature all tend to view the northern viewpoint as the default position, leaving the far...
782 Consent in the Regency Novel (with Zoë McGee)
Ever since the novel was invented, women have used it as a platform for sharing ideas about sexual consent. In this episode, Jacke talks to Dr. Zoë Mc...
781 Laurie Frankel's Enormous Wings | My Last Book with Rhodri Lewis
"And one man in his time plays many parts," wrote Shakespeare in As You Like It, "[h]is acts being seven ages." We all know the feeling of passing fro...
780 Chekhov on Writing (with Bob Blaisdell)
In an 1886 letter to his brother, Anton Chekhov delivered some advice about truthfulness in writing. "Don't invent sufferings you have not experienced...