“When it comes to referring to Dickens's life, performing plays with yo...” — Matthew Pearl Quote

When it comes to referring to Dickens's life, performing plays with your nine children for friends and family during Christmas is Dickensian.

The book I'm working on next, which will be my fifth, returns to literary history. I really do love literary history, and I have plenty more ideas on it.

What's most explosive about historical fiction is to use the fictional elements to pressure the history to new insights.

I was fortunate that Yale has a very open and creative law school. I took many courses outside the law school, and every semester, the students had a literature reading group. I was asked to lead one on 'Dante and the Concept of Justice,' and it was around that time that I began writing the novel.

I was thrilled one year when I was younger when not only did my brothers get hockey sticks for Christmas - but I did too!

My sister, mom, and I always make holiday treats like Christmas cutout cookies and red and green chocolate chip cookies.

When I was six years old, I fell in love with magic. For Christmas, I got a magic box and a very old book on card manipulation. Somehow, I was more interested in pure manipulation than in all the silly little tricks in the box.

I went to Sunday School and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn't believe them.