LitHub Daily: November 12, 2015

TODAY: In 1865, writer Elizabeth Gaskell, who wrote the first biography of Charlotte Bronte, dies. 

• Was Robert Walser the original art blogger? “Never before has an illustrator reproduced the flickering of a candle in so candle-like a manner, so flickery.” | Literary Hub
• Meet the judges for the 2016 PEN Literary Awards. | Literary Hub
• Not sure why so many authors lost so much writing, but here is another undiscovered story (by Edith Wharton). | The Atlantic
• Thomas Pynchon’s earliest colonial ancestor wrote America’s first banned book, from which the modern reader “need only fear boredom.” | The Public Domain Review
• Harrowing visions of the California dream rotting in the scorching sun: Reading Gold Fame Citrus in drought-afflicted Los Angeles. | Full Stop
• “Othello may have started in conversation with Shakespeare’s definition of blackness, but today, he speaks with ours.” On race and identity in Othello. | Slate
• On the origins of sequential art (or, less fancily, graphic novels). | Vulture
• “Kanye, if only I could write a poem for you and not about you.” On Sarah Blake’s poetry collection Mr. West. | Rain Taxi
• Evading persecution, capitalism, and arrogant knowingness: Does philosophy need to be obscure? | The Times Literary Supplement
• Now that we’ve moved past the Baby Hitler dilemma: Should Mein Kampf be retranslated? | Forward

Also on Literary Hub: 30 questions for 30 writers attending the Miami Book Fair · Sheila Heti on the woman who changed her life · On creating a literary community in Pittsburg · An interview with this year’s charming National Book Award underdog, Karen E. Bender · More “spinglish” from the 323rd Republican debate · From Eli Horowitz’s The Pickle Index

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