By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
In 1592, the brightest new star of the London theatre scene was on the receiving end of a rather harsh review:
Yes trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
In Reacher Said Nothing, his account of following bestselling thriller author Lee Child around while Child writes one of his Jack Reacher novels, the academic and author Andy Martin reveals that Child (with his daughter) was working on a script for a TV pilot in which a forensic linguist solves crimes by focusing on verbal and linguistic clues.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What are the origins of the word ‘family’, and what does ‘family’ have to do with the word ‘familiar’, or, for that matter, with the Latin famulus? We might assume that the etymology of ‘family’ will be straightforward, denoting a group of related people, but that meaning of the term is actually surprisingly recent. Let’s take a closer look …
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Treasure in the Forest’ is a short story by the British science-fiction author H. G. Wells (1866-1946). It was first published on 23 August 1894 in the Pall Mall Budget before being included (as the final story) in his 1895 collection The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Which book for children is this? Written by one of the twentieth century’s most popular British authors of books for children, it features a young girl who is sent away from her parents to stay in a strange house. Finding herself in the large house’s spare room, the girl steps into a wardrobe, only to be transported into a magical fantasy world where everything is cloaked in white and silver. The book also features a lion, a lantern, and a White Witch.
