Lit Hub Daily: April 27, 2020

TODAY: In 1882 , transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson dies.

• “I have not pretended to show the World what it actually is, but what it appears to a girl of 17.” On Frances Burney and the birth of “chick lit.” | Lit Hub
• Two novels, two global catastrophes, two decades apart: Lee Durkee has had some bad luck. | Lit Hub
• Living through plague: Rishi Reddi presents a reading list for the coronavirus era. | Lit Hub
• Fowzia Karimi examines the draw of illustrated narratives, and the “pulsing threshold between the written word and the picture.” | Lit Hub
• Writerly lessons from an early ’90s improv class: Joanna Hershon on what theater taught her about scene, character, and rejection. | Lit Hub
• Simon the Fiddler author Paulette Jiles on Little Women, All the Pretty Horses, and hating Balzac. | Book Marks
• “We hope to use this as a platform to make real change in the industry, but we cannot deny that everyone loves to see a brick get thrown every now and then.” An interview with the anonymous duo behind @PublishrsWeakly. | Electric Literature
• If your writing playlist needs a refresh, check out the songs Carmen Maria Machado, Jericho Brown, and more LGBTQ authors are listening to in isolation. | Lambda Literary
• Indie bookstores are finding creative ways to stay alive, from curbside pickups to literary care packages and more. | Bloomberg
• Books of Greek philosophy, parchment paper, lace—not background items in a Brontë sister novel, but the decor of “dark academia,” a literary aesthetic trend taking over TikTok. | i-D
• Rhyming dictionaries have been around for thousands of years, often serving as composition guides for poets and, more recently, rappers. | Prospect Magazine
• “I’ve never read a writer more skilled at weaving unlikely, startling, or wholly bonkers plot threads together into beautiful allegorical tapestries.” Quarantine reading recommendation: children’s fantasy author Frances Hardinge. | Vox
• “Like everyone else on planet earth, we are thinking nonstop about the future.” Maira Kalman reports from quarantine. | The Paris Review
• “The presence of an expert diminishes his power, so he rejects experts, unless he can control everything they say.” Roxana Robinson on Trump, the coronavirus, and the criminal culture. | Scoundrel Time

Also on Lit Hub: Wendy Liu: Wall Street’s problem is Silicon Valley’s too • Why are we obsessed with writers’ houses? • Read a story from Julian Jarboe’s collection Everyone on the Moon Is Essential Personnel.