10,807 articles
La Vie de saint Alexis
La Vie de saint Alexis, also called the Chanson de saint Alexis, is a mid-eleventh-century Old French hagiographic poem and one of the earliest monuments of French literature.
La vorágine
La vorágine is a 1924 novel by the Colombian writer José Eustasio Rivera, his only published one, following Arturo Cova and Alicia as the Amazon rubber boom swallows them.
La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos
La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos is a two-volume 1967 collage book by the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, made with artist Julio Silva and published by Siglo XXI in Mexico.
Labbaik
Labbaik (لبیک) is a 1975 Urdu travelogue by the Pakistani writer Mumtaz Mufti, recounting his 1968 Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina with Qudrat Ullah Shahab.
Laberinto de Fortuna
Laberinto de Fortuna, also known as Las Trescientas, is an allegorical-narrative poem in Castilian completed in 1444 by Juan de Mena for King Juan II of Castile.
Labyrinths
Labyrinths is the first collected edition of the poetry of the Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo, published by Heinemann in 1971, containing the sequence Path of Thunder.
Lace (novel)
Lace is Shirley Conran's 1982 debut novel, a defining 'bonkbuster' in which film star Lili asks four women, 'which one of you bitches is my mother?'; adapted as a 1984 ABC miniseries with Phoebe Cates.
Laços de Família
Laços de Família (Family Ties) is a collection of 13 short stories by the Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, published in 1960 and awarded the Jabuti prize in 1961.
Lacustră
Lacustră is a 1903 poem by the Romanian symbolist poet George Bacovia, first published in Viața nouă and collected in his debut volume Plumb in 1916, its image of a dwelling on water symbolizing isolation.
Ladera este
Ladera este is a 1969 poetry collection by the Mexican writer Octavio Paz, composed between 1962 and 1968 during his service as Mexico's ambassador to India and closing with the long poem Blanco.
Lady Anne
Lady Anne is a 1989 epic poem in Afrikaans by the South African poet Antjie Krog, her seventh volume, using the life of Lady Anne Barnard at the Cape.
Lady Audley's Secret
Lady Audley's Secret is an 1862 three-volume sensation novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon about a governess who bigamously marries the wealthy baronet Sir Michael Audley.
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Lady Chatterley's Lover, D. H. Lawrence's final novel (Tenderness), privately printed in Florence 1928, banned until Grove 1959 and Penguin 1960, whose R v Penguin Books obscenity acquittal sold three million copies in three months.
Lady Death
Lady Death is a supernatural antiheroine comic character created by Brian Pulido and Steven Hughes, first appearing in Evil Ernie #1 (December 1991), a defining 1990s bad girl title published by Chaos!, later CrossGen, Avatar/Boundless, and Coffin Comics.
Lady in the Lake (TV series)
Lady in the Lake is a 2024 American neo-noir mystery limited series for Apple TV+, adapted from Laura Lippman's 2019 novel and starring Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram.
Lady Lazarus
"Lady Lazarus" is a confessional poem by Sylvia Plath, written in October 1962 and first published in her 1965 collection Ariel, about a woman rising from death.
Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth is Shakespeare's wife character in Macbeth (First Folio, 1623), who incites Duncan's murder via the 'unsex me here' speech and collapses into the 'Out, damned spot' sleepwalking scene; famous on stage for actresses from Siddons and Terry to Cotillard and, in Verdi's opera, Lise Davidsen.
Lady Susan
Lady Susan is Jane Austen's short epistolary novella about the charming, manipulative widow Lady Susan Vernon, written around 1794-95, unpublished until 1871, and surviving as the only complete Austen fiction manuscript, in the Morgan Library.
Ladybird Books
Ladybird Books is a British children's publishing imprint, founded 1914 by Wills & Hepworth, now part of Penguin Random House. Known for its 56-page wartime hardback format, the Key Words with Peter and Jane reading scheme (about 95 million copies sold), and educational series such as Ladybird Readers.
Lagar
Lagar is a 1954 poetry collection by the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral, her fourth book and the last published in her lifetime, and the only one first published in Chile.
Lais of Marie de France
The Lais of Marie de France are twelve narrative poems in Anglo-Norman French composed around 1160, the earliest known secular writing by a woman in medieval Europe.
Lake Wobegon
Lake Wobegon is Garrison Keillor's fictional Minnesota town from A Prairie Home Companion, where all the children are above average; also namesake of the Lake Wobegon testing effect.
Lakshmana (लक्ष्मण)
Lakshmana (लक्ष्मण, Lakshman/Laxman) is Rama's younger half-brother in the Ramayana, son of Dasaratha and Sumitra, twin of Shatrughna, husband of Urmila, who follows Rama into exile, fights Indrajit, and is linked to the Lakshmana Rekha episode.
Lal Teen ki Chhat
Lal Teen ki Chhat (लाल टीन की छत), a 1974 Hindi novel by Nirmal Verma, follows a girl named Kaya between childhood and adolescence in Shimla.
Lalita Sahasranama (ललिता सहस्रनाम)
Lalita Sahasranama (ललिता सहस्रनाम), also called Lalitha Sahasranamam, is the hymn of 1,000 names of goddess Lalita Tripurasundari in the Brahmanda Purana's Lalitopakhyana, taught by Hayagriva to Agastya; 182.5 anushṭubh stanzas, no repeated names, central Sri Vidya text, chief commentary Bhaskararaya's Saubhagyabhaskara.
Lalitamadhava
Lalitamadhava (Lalita-madhava, ललितमाधव) is a Sanskrit drama by Rupa Gosvami, written in sixteenth-century Vraja, that depicts Krishna's pastimes in Dvaraka rather than his boyhood in Vrindavana.
Lalsalu
Lalsalu (লাল সালু, "Red Cloth") is a 1948 Bengali novel by Syed Waliullah, whose character Majid exploits village faith by presenting an ordinary grave as a saint's shrine.
Lamb to the Slaughter
Lamb to the Slaughter, Roald Dahl's 1953 black-comedy short story: Mary Maloney kills her husband with a frozen leg of lamb and feeds it to the police; adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Tales of the Unexpected.
Lambro
Lambro is a narrative poem by Polish Romantic writer Juliusz Słowacki, written in Paris in 1832, about a Greek corsair sworn to hatred of the Turks.
Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions
Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions is a 1972 autobiography by Lakota medicine man John Lame Deer and writer Richard Erdoes, published by Simon and Schuster.