Hardly anyone knows Ursula Parrott today, but not long ago she was close to being a household name. As a bestselling novelist of the Roaring Twenties and beyond, Parrott's life was filled with literature, celebrity, and scandal. In this episode, Jacke talks to Parrott's biographer Marsha Gordon (Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life & Forgotten Writi ... Show More
Oct 19
837 Ghost Month (with Simon Wroe) | Madness and Murder - The Story of Charles and Mary Lamb
Jacke gets ready for the Halloween season with an episode filled with madness, murder, and ghosts! First, he recounts the story of Romantic period writers Charles and Mary Lamb. Although the brother-sister duo later became famous for their summaries of Shakespeare's tales, they e ... Show More
1h 15m
Oct 12
836 Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (with Robin Waterfield and John Sellars) | My Last Book with Daniel Olivas
What does it mean to live a good life? How can we accomplish it? For more than two thousand years, Western civilization has looked to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics to help answer those questions. In this episode, Jacke talks to translator Robin Waterfield and scholar John Sellar ... Show More
56m 58s
Oct 8
835 Blackness in Iran (with Amy Motlagh) | My Last Book with Nicholas Boggs
What do Iranians - both home and abroad - think of race? Does "blackness" exist in Iran? And what can we learn about race and slavery in Iran from folklore, ethnography, literature, and films? In this episode, Jacke talks to author Amy Motlagh about her book Colorblind: Racial Th ... Show More
46m 4s
Sep 2023
Margaret Cavendish: scandalous 17th-century writer
Margaret Cavendish has been largely forgotten and, when remembered, divides opinion. One of England’s first female philosophers, professional authors and scientists, the 17th-century writer challenged convention throughout her life with her proto-feminist writing and audacious be ... Show More
37m 26s
Mar 2022
SYMHC Classics: Aphra Behn
This 2017 episode covers the life of Aphra Behn, but there's really not a lot concretely known about the her. In addition to being a spy, was a dramatist, poet, novelist, translator, and the first woman in English literature known to have made her living as a writer.See omnystudi ... Show More
26m 42s
May 2024
Forgotten women writers of the Renaissance
You've heard of Shakespeare, but have you heard of his contemporary Mary Sidney, the first person to translate the Book of Psalms into English poetry? Or what about Elizabeth Cary, who published the first original play known to be written by a woman in English? In her new book Sh ... Show More
42m 36s
Feb 2022
Sappho: The Poet from Lesbos
<p>Famous throughout antiquity, yet retold only in fragments today - who is Sappho? Her poetry inspired generations, from Catullus to Byron, so how come we know so little about her life? This week Tristan is joined by Professor Margaret Reynolds from Queen Mary University in ... Show More
32m 20s