The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) is a canonical piece of children's literature and one of the best-selling books ever published.

Literature broadly is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role.

Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoir, letters, and the essay. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other printed information on a particular subject. (Full article...)

Through the stories of Lad's adventures, Terhune expresses his views on parenting, obtaining perfect obedience without force, and the nature and rights of the "well-bred". Terhune began writing the stories in 1915 at the suggestion of his Red Book Magazine editor. They gained in popularity and, as Terhune was under contractual obligation to submit something to Doubleday-Page, he collected them into novel form. After Doubleday rejected the novel, he solicited other publishers until it was picked up by Dutton. After a slow start, the novel became a best seller in the adult fiction and children's fiction markets, having been repositioned as a young adult novel by Grosset and Dunlap in the 1960s and 1970s. Selling over one million copies, it is Terhune's best-selling work and the one that propelled him to fame.

• ... that literary critics credit William Shakespeare's Hamlet as a significant contributor to Sigmund Freud's idea of the Oedipus complex?
• ... that the only copy of the book La Promenade du sceptique by Denis Diderot was confiscated by police on two occasions?
• ... that shenmo, the "gods and demons" genre of Chinese literature, includes fantasy novels such as Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods?
• ... that singer Morrissey's Autobiography was published in Penguin Classics, an imprint normally reserved for venerated and long-dead authors?
• ... that The Gentleman Usher is the only play in which late 16th-century playwright George Chapman takes a positive view of women?

• ... that Frances Theresa Peet Russell may have written the first book to examine satire in Victorian literature?
• ... that some works by the Baltic-German writer Laura Marholm were part of "feminist literary criticism", known as gynocriticism, 70 years before the term was coined?
• ... that Children's Fantasy Literature is the first work to address the genre's 500-year history in depth?
• ... that the Mandinka douga, the "dance of the vulture" described in 20th-century African literature, may go back to Sundiata, and reach across to American Gullah culture, buck dance, and the minstrel show?
• ... that Gunhild Bergh was the second woman in Sweden to be awarded a PhD in literary history?
• ... that the cultural scholar Hermann Bausinger wrote a book about the history of literature from Swabia from the 18th century to the present, published for his 90th birthday?

31 July

• 1843 - Peter Rosegger, Austrian poet born
• 1904 - Brett Halliday, American writer born
• 1929 - Lynne Reid Banks, British author born
• 1933 - Cees Nooteboom, Dutch writer born
• 1952 - João Barreiros, Portuguese writer born
• 1965 - J. K. Rowling, British novelist (Harry Potter series) born
• 2001 - Poul Anderson, American author died