Judith Krantz, a towering figure in American popular culture who defined her era in a series of bestselling novels filled with sexual escapades and over-the-top luxury, has died at 91.

When Laura R. Fisher began the research that would become her recently released book, Reading for Reform: The Social Work of Literature in the Progressive Era, she thought she was looking for something precious and illuminating: an overlooked manuscript, an instance of brilliance almost lost and now found.

The story begins as too many stories starring women do: Daphne didn’t want to have sex. She was a nymph, a minor goddess of sorts, daughter of a river god, and beautiful to boot. According to Ovid, her father wanted grandchildren, but Daphne wanted to stay free, her body untouched by lust, forever her own. “Dearest…

The intersection of social media and feminism can at times be a dark, depressingly hypocritical place. The temptation to capitalize on viral liberal sentiments in the Trump era, combined with a desire to make everything cute and Instagrammable, leads to a sea of hollow progressive-sounding tweets and photos of smiling…

The phrase “midcentury kitchen” conjures an array of images, each more dazzling than the last: Needlessly complex gadgets designed to appeal to technoptimistic Americans of the 1950s! Formica in a bewildering array of colors! An outrageous landscape of avocado and—heaven help us—harvest gold!

Before everyone heads off to the nearest body of water to show off their cute new swim looks, you should know that a century ago, many visitors to Coney Island rented their bathing suits.

The Victorians have been notoriously stereotyped as a staid bunch. Feast your eyes upon a magnificent piece of evidence to the contrary: A replica of Prince Edward’s lavish, custom-made sex chair.

Watching Tyrion and Varys argue on a recent Game of Thrones episode about whether a cock is a necessary qualification for a monarch in the universe of Westeros, I wondered how this argument had played out in medieval England, which provided much of George R.R. Martin’s source material. While the highly successful show…

One of the last remaining great Hollywood stars of the midcentury, Doris Day, has died.

The British television network ITV has announced that it’s partnering with the BBC and Aardman Animations to develop a massive theme park around their various properties, such as Thunderbirds, a scifi show from the 1960s featuring puppets, and also Doctor Who.

Cambridge University is embarking on a two-year investigation into the extent to which it benefitted from the slave trade over the centuries. The question is: What are they going to do when they inevitably discover their institutional ancestors were up to their necks in it?

If, for some inexplicable reason, you are a Margaret Thatcher superfan and reading this website, I’m about to make your day: Christie’s is auctioning off a bunch of her personal effects, largely related to her time at 10 Downing Street.

During last year’s state visit by Emmanuel Macron, the very intellectually curious—perhaps the most intellectually curious man of all time? some say so!—Donald Trump took the French president on a guided tour of Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. Apparently, Trump wasn’t too impressed!

Anybody who knows anything about Jack the Ripper knows this: He killed “streetwalkers” working the roughest area of Victorian London. With her new book, The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, Hallie Rubenhold complicates that narrative—and wrenches the story away from a serial killer who’s…

Apparently, one of the hottest songs of 1840 was a ballad, a jaunty little bop that waxes poetic about a life of crime and basically translates to: “Keep Robbing, Boys!”

So much of the stereotypical view of mid to late 19th century Brooklyn and America more generally could be summed up by the cover of David McCullough’s The Great Bridge: serious, and very safe as a gift for straight, middle-aged white dads. Hugh Ryan’s When Brooklyn Was Queer is a stone thrown into the middle of that…

Thrilled to report that Jezebel has found the ideal new headquarters: An absolutely ridiculous Upper East Side townhouse with a dining room inspired by Versailles that will look magnificent festooned in discarded gummy candy wrappers. All we need now is $88 million, but that is the merest trifling detail.

In a first, the Discovery show Expedition Unknown will be opening a sarcophagus LIVE from Egypt. Hey, it worked for Geraldo, and he didn’t even find anything in Al Capone’s vault!

Free fast-casual restaurant concept: just straight ripping off an ancient Roman snack bar recently excavated at Pompeii. Fish! Frescos! We’re halfway to an Instagrammable experience already!

Wonderful news for everyone who dreams of slicing across snowy landscapes under starry skies, tucked into a nest of damask and velvet: luxury sleeper trains are back!