Writers & Books

The Gothic is more than vampires and flying buttresses, burgundy lips and black lace: it is the thrill of transgression

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes, author of one of the best-loved and most frequently illustrated books in the history of literature — Don Quixote. Rachel Schmidt explores how the varying approaches to illustrating the tale have reflected and impacted its reading through the centuries.

The professor of English literature tells us about his favourite novels in a golden era for fiction, and the dilemma, still with us today, that led Dickens to write two different endings for Great Expectations