Nick's Essays, Reviews, and OpEds
Humanities Magazine
Summer 2020:
A Beautiful Ending: On Dying and Heaven in the Time of Longfellow. Read Here
A Romantic Notion
One scholar’s lifetime of devotion to the letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Read Here
January/February 2014:
Paper Trail: On letters, diaries, and other records of the American story at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Read Here
Summer Camp for Book Nerds: Why I Keep Returning to Rare Book School. Read Here
Notable Selections From the Archive
April 14, 1991, "Bibliophilia: Still No Cure in Sight," New York Times Sunday Book Review . Read Here
July 1999, "Mount Athos, 'Where Every Stone Breathes Prayers," Smithsonian. Read Here
January 12, 2004, "Fragile Guardians of Culture," Los Angeles Times. Read Here
February 29. 2004, "A Bitter End to Hub Gem," Boston Globe. Read Here
May 6, 2004, "Honorable Death for a Rusty Warrior," Los Angeles Times. Read Here
April 24, 2006, "Bibliophiles Inside the Wire," Los Angeles Times. Read Here
May 8, 2006, "Iraq: The Cradle of the Written Word," Christian Science Monitor. Read Here
May 26, 2006, "When We Said Goodbye to the USS Oriskany," Christian Science Monitor. Read Here
February 2007, "Famous Once Again," Smithsonian Read Here
June 2007, "The Bard Out Loud," Bates Magazine, reprinted from The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them (Gotham Books, 2006). Read Here
February 2009, "Rules He Lived By: Honest Abe's Book of Grammar," Fine Books & Collections. Read Here
December 8, 2013, "A Paperless Society? Not So Fast," Los Angeles Times Read Here
Summer 2016, "A Dante Devotee," Fine Books & Collections Read Here
July 21, 2016, “Cultivating Beauty: A New Exhibit Unites Celia Thaxter’s Splendid Illustrated Book, An Island Garden, with Childe Hassam’s Paintings From the Isles of Shoals,” special report of interest to bibliophiles, Fine Books & Collections. Read Here
February 2017, “Washington—and Longfellow—Slept Here,” Fine Books & Collections, special report of interest to bibliophiles, Fine Books & Collections. Read Here
March 14, 2020, "'The Hunt for History' Review: A Textual Detective," Wall Street Journal. Read Here
August 6, 2020, Introduction to The Widening Stain, by W. Bolingbroke Johnson (pseudonym of Morris Bishop), first published in 1942, newly released by Otto Penzler Publishers in American Mystery Classics series. Read Here
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August 21, 2020, "Five Best: Nicholas A. Basbanes on the American Renaissance Poets, From the Author, most Recently, of 'Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,' Wall Street Journal Read Here
January/February 2021 (Vol XXIX, No.1), "The Longfellows and Their Books,"Caxtonian Read Here
Autumn 2021 (Vol. 70.2), The Book Collector, “Thanks for the Memories: Recalling Authors and Their Inscriptions,” Part I.
Winter 2021 (Vol. 70.3), Part II, The Book Collector, “Thanks for the Memories: Recalling Authors and Their Inscriptions,” Part II.
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