Every now and then, we like to present vin­tage clips of great authors read­ing clas­sic lit­er­ary works – works they have often writ­ten them­selves. These clips can be fair­ly reveal­ing. Through them, you can recap­ture the voic­es of lit­er­ary greats, most long since passed. And you can hear how they give char­ac­ter and expres­sion to their own works … or those of oth­ers. In response to a read­er’s request, we have pulled togeth­er some of the finest exam­ples pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here. And, for good mea­sure, we’ve added prime clips of famous celebri­ties giv­ing lit­er­ary read­ings too. Hope you enjoy (and share):

1) William Faulkn­er Reads from As I Lay Dying

2) James Joyce Read­ing Finnegans Wake

3) Vin­tage Radio: Aldous Hux­ley Nar­rates Brave New World

4) Dominic West (aka Jim­my McNul­ty) Reads Jane Austen

5) Tru­man Capote Reads from Break­fast at Tiffany’s

6) Joyce Car­ol Oates Reads Eudo­ra Wel­ty’s “Where Is the Voice Com­ing From?”

7) Orson Welles Reads Moby Dick

8) John­ny Depp Reads Let­ters from Hunter S. Thomp­son

9) Ernest Hem­ing­way Reads “In Harry’s Bar in Venice”

10) T.S. Eliot Read­ing from The Waste­land

11) F. Scott Fitzger­ald Reads Shake­speare Out Loud

12) Den­nis Hop­per Reads Rud­yard Kipling on John­ny Cash Show

13) Kurt Von­negut Reads from Slaugh­ter­house-Five

14) Tom Waits Reads Charles Bukows­ki

15) William Car­los Williams Reads His Poet­ry (1954)

16) Orhan Pamuk Reads Vladimir Nabokov

17) Charles Bukows­ki “Blue­bird”

18) Wal­lace Stevens Reads His Own Poet­ry

19) Tobias Wolff Reads From His New Short Sto­ry Col­lec­tion

20) Lis­ten­ing to Famous Poets Read­ing Their Own Work

First pub­lished in The Atlantic Month­ly in Feb­ru­ary 1940, “A Worn Path” is per­haps Eudo­ra Wel­ty’s most prized piece of short fic­tion. In this video, Wel­ty talks with drama­tist Beth Hen­ley about the writ­ing of the famous short sto­ry. The two women, it’s worth not­ing, share a good deal in com­mon. Both are Pulitzer Prize win­ners who have their com­mon roots in Jack­son, Mis­sis­sip­pi. Thanks to Mike S. for send­ing our way…

Image by Carl Van Vecht­en, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

In 1957 and 1958, the great Amer­i­can writer William Faulkn­er spent two years as Writer-in-Res­i­dence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia. Dur­ing this stint, he pre­sent­ed sev­er­al pub­lic speech­es, gave many read­ings from his lit­er­ary works, spoke at count­less pub­lic events, and answered ques­tions from hun­dreds of stu­dents. The talks were orig­i­nal­ly record­ed on reel-to-reel tapes, and now UVA has dig­i­tized the audio col­lec­tion and made it avail­able through a new web site: Faulkn­er at Vir­ginia: An Audio Archive. In total, the archive presents 1690 min­utes (over 28 hours) of Faulkn­er record­ings. It also includes an archive of pho­tos and news­pa­per items, as well as an audio record­ing of a press con­fer­ence the Eng­lish depart­ment gave when Faulkn­er died on July 6, 1962. A real trea­sure. You can dive into the audio trove right here.

Note: To access the audio, you will need a Quick­Time play­er. If your brows­er does­n’t already sup­port Quick­Time, you can down­load a free Quick­Time plug-in here.

via NPR

Mark Twain died a good cen­tu­ry ago. But new Twain writ­ings keep com­ing out. Lat­er this fall, his auto­bi­og­ra­phy will hit book­stores for the first time. And just this week, PBS pub­lished online a new Twain essay called “Con­cern­ing the Inter­view.” It begins:

No one likes to be inter­viewed, and yet no one likes to say no; for inter­view­ers are cour­te­ous and gen­tle-man­nered, even when they come to destroy.

You can read a high res­o­lu­tion, hand-writ­ten copy of the essay here.

via @alyssa_milano