Timeline of Writers thru 1919
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wiki: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_years_in_literature
496BC
Sophocles (d.406BC), the 2nd Greek dramatist after
Aeschylus, was born about this time. He is considered by some as the
greatest of the Greek dramatists. His works include: "Oedipus Rex" and
"Antigone."
(eawc, p.11)(SFC, 1/10/04, p.D6)
8BCE Horace (b.65BCE), Roman poet,
died. In 2002 J.D. McClatchy edited "Horace: The Odes, New Translations
by Contemporary Poets.
(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.M2)
79CE Aug 25, Gaius Plinius
Secundus, [Plinius Maior], Roman admiral, writer, died in the eruption
of Mount Vesuvius. [see Aug 24]
(MC, 8/25/02)
430 Augustine (b.354) died in
Hippo with a Vandal army outside the gates of the city. His writings
included "The Confessions." In 1999 Garry Wills authored the biography
"St. Augustine." Augustine had developed the theory of a "just war" and
said a nation’s leaders must consider among other things, anticipated
loss of civilian life and whether all peaceful options have been
exhausted before war starts. In 2003 Garry Wills authored "Saint
Augustine's Sin."
(V.D.-H.K.p.94)(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.M2)(SFC, 10/12/02,
p.A16)(SSFC, 12/21/03, p.M6)
833 Jul 20, Ansegis (Ansegius,
63), French abbot of Fontenelle, author, died.
(MC, 7/20/02)
840 Mar 14, Eginhard (69), French
nobleman, biographer (Vita Karoli Magni), died.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1002-1019 In Japan Lady Murasaki Shikibu wrote her
classic court novel "The Tale of Genji." The novel "Genji Monogatari"
(Genji the Shining One) was later considered the world's 1st novel. The
long work explored the imperial court of the Heian period through the
life and many loves of Genji, son of the emperor's favorite concubine.
Arthur Waley made an English translation in 6 installments between 1925
and 1933. Edward Seidensticker made a translation in 1976. Royall Tyler
made a new translation in 2001. In 2000 Liza Dalby authored her
novel "The Tale of Murasaki."
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 214)(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A20)(WSJ,
1/11/99, p.R34)(WSJ, 7/5/00, p.A20)(WSJ, 11/16/01, p.W14)(SFEC,
7/16/00, BR p.3)
1265 May 9, Dante Alighieri,
Italian poet (Divine Comedy), was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.367)(MC, 5/9/02)
1321 Sep 14, Dante Alighieri,
author of the "Divine Comedy," died of malaria just hours after
finishing writing "Paradiso." The poem was completed in Italian rather
than Latin. It helped make Italian the dominant linguistic force in
European literature for the next few centuries. In 2006 Barbara
Reynolds authored “Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man.”
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/04628a.htm)(WSJ, 3/26/99,
p.W2)(Econ, 12/2/06, p.84)
1425 Jul 21, Manuel Palaeologus,
Byzantine Emperor (1391-1425), writer, died.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1457 Aug 14, The first book ever
printed was published by a German astrologer named Faust. He was thrown
in jail while trying to sell books in Paris. Authorities concluded that
all the identical books meant Faust had dealt with the devil. This is
the oldest known exactly dated printed book. [see 1452]
(HN, 8/14/00)(MC, 8/14/02)
1466 Oct 26, Desiderius Erasmus
(d.1536), scholar and author (In Praise of Folly), was born in
Rotterdam. He was of illegitimate birth, but became a priest and a
monk. He excelled in philology, the study of ancient languages, namely
Latin and Greek and worked on a new translation of the New Testament.
The more he studied it, the more he came to doubt the accuracy of the
Vulgate, St. Jerome's translation into Latin, dating from around 400.
"In Praise of Folly" is his most famous work... In it Erasmus had the
freedom to discourse, in the ironic style of Lucian (the Greek author
whose works he translated), concerning all the foolishness and
misguided pompousness of the world.
(V.D.-H.K.p.159-160)(MC, 10/26/01)
1469 May 3, Nicolo Machiavelli
(d.1527), political advisor and author, was born. He was a historian
and author of "The Prince." He saw in Cesare Borgia, the bastard son of
Pope Alexander VI, the prospect of an Italy free of foreign control.
"Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their
particular observations."
(V.D.-H.K.p.109)(AP, 11/15/98)(HN, 5/3/99)
1471 May 1, Thomas A. Kempis (91),
spiritual writer, died.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1471 Jul 25, Thomas A. Kempis
(91), [Thomas Hammerken von Kempen], German writer, monk, died. His
popular "Imitation of Christ" went through 99 editions by the end of
the century.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(Internet)
1476/1477 The first edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales (1387-1400) was printed by William Caxton. A copy of the red,
leather-bound edition sold at auction in 1998 for $7.5 million. In 1905
the Caxton Club in Chicago published the leaf book “William Caxton” by
E. Gordon Duff. Each book contained one of 148 leaves from a Caxton 1st
edition of the Canterbury Tales.
(SFC, 7/9/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 5/12/05, p.D8)
1483-1505 Trithemius, author and monk, served as the
abbot of a Benedictine monastery. His work included "De Laude
Scriptorium" (In Praise of Scribes).
(SSFC, 2/22/04, p.M6)
1490 Mar 23, 1st dated edition of
Maimonides "Mishna Torah" was published.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1500 Apr 11, Michael T. Marullus,
Greeks poet, drowned.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1513 Niccolo Machiavelli wrote
"The Prince" in which he gave reasons for the rise and fall of states.
He dedicated it to Lorenzo de Medici, the successor to Giuliano. It was
not published until 1532. In it he justified the ruthless subjection of
religion and morality to politics. A 1998 translation by Prof. Angelo
M. Codevilla included 428 footnotes and attempted to maintain the
peculiar language of Machiavelli.
(WSJ, 2/18/98, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A15)(ON,
11/04, p.5)
1531 Michael Servetus (1511-1553)
published his 1st book: "De Trinitatis Erroribus." He was forced
underground by the Inquisition emerged as Michael Villeneuve in Lyons.
He later undertook medical studies in Paris. In 2002 Lawrence and Nancy
Goldstone authored "Out of the Flames."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)(HN, 10/27/98)(WSJ, 9/18/02, p.D8)
1536 Desiderius Erasmus (b.1469 in
Rotterdam) died. His most famous works included "In Praise of Folly"
and a Greek text of the New Testament. In 1999 Prof. Charles Trinkaus
published "Collected Works of Erasmus: Controversies," an examination
of the religious conflict between humanism and the Reformation.
(V.D.-H.K.p.159-160)(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A26)(WSJ,
1/31/03, p.W13)
1538 Apr 26, Giovanni P. Lomazzo,
Italian writer, poet (Trattato), was born.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1544 Mar 11, Torquato Tasso,
Italian Renaissance poet (Aminta, Apologia), was born.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1546 Aug 3, French printer Etienne
Dolet, accused of heresy, blasphemy and sedition, was hanged and burned
at the stake for printing reformist literature.
(HN, 8/3/98)
1547 Sep 29, Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra (d.1616) was born, at Alcala de Henares, near Madrid. "He was
first a soldier and was captured by Barbary pirates in 1575. His family
was unable to raise the ransom money until 1580. He was not initially
successful as a writer until he wrote "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don
Quixote de la Mancha" (1604).
(V.D.-H.K.p.150)(HN, 9/29/02)
1569 May 10, Juan Avila, Spanish
minister, writer, died.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1580 Apr 18, Thomas Middleton,
English playwright (Game of Chess), was born.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1582 Apr 8, Phineas Fletcher,
poet, was born.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1586 Apr 17, John Ford (d.1640),
English dramatist ('Tis Pity She's a Whore), was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.554)(MC, 4/17/02)
1593 Apr 3, George Herbert
(d.1633), English metaphysical poet (5 Mystical Songs), was born. "The
best mirror is an old friend."
(AP, 4/16/98)(MC, 4/3/02)
1593 May 30, Christopher Marlowe
(b.Feb 26, 1564), British dramatist (Tamburlaine the Great), poet, was
murdered. Marlowe reportedly died in a barfight. It was later
speculated that his death was faked and that he fled to Italy and
continued writing plays that were produced by Shakespeare. In 2004
Rodney Bolt authored “History Play: The Lives and Afterlife of
Christopher Marlowe.”
(SFC, 1/2/03, p.E11)(www.canterbury.co.uk)(Econ,
9/4/04, p.78)
1593 Aug 9, Izaak Walton (d.1683),
biographer, fisherman, writer (Compleat Angler), was born in England.
"That which is everybody's business is nobody's business."
(AP, 8/29/98)(MC, 8/9/02)
1601 Aug 22, Georges de Scudery,
French writer (Observations sur le Cid), was born.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1602 Apr 30, William Lilly,
astrologer, author, almanac compiler, was born in England.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1604 Apr 4, Thomas Churchyard,
poet, pamphleteer, died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1604 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
(1547-1616) published the first part of "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don
Quixote de la Mancha." Don Quixote and his friend Sancho Panza seek
what a modern poet has called an impossible dream, a dream of justice
in an earthly paradise, a contradiction in terms, as practical men have
always known... Cervantes was the first to see that the new world
coming into being needed such heroes; otherwise it would go mad." In
2006 Manuel Duran and Fay R. Rogg authored “Fighting Windmills.”
(V.D.-H.K.p.150)(HN, 9/29/02)(WSJ, 6/10/06, p.P8)
1612 Feb 7, Thomas Killigrew,
English humorist, playwright, leader (King's Men), was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1613 Sep 15, Francois, duc de la
Rochefoucauld (d.1680), writer (Memoires), was born in Paris, France.
"When we cannot find contentment in ourselves it is useless to seek it
elsewhere."
(AP, 12/2/98)(www.bookrags.com)
1616 Mar 6, Francis Beaumont
(b.1584), Elizabethan playwright, died.
(WUD, 1994 p.131)(MC, 3/6/02)
1616 Apr 23, Miguel de Cervantes
(b.1547), Spanish poet and novelist, died in Madrid.
(AP, 4/23/97)
1616 Apr 23, William Shakespeare
(b.1564), poet and playwright, died in Stratford-on-Avon, England. In
2004 Stephen Greenblatt authored “Will In the World.” In 2006 Colin
McGinn authored “Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays.”
(AP, 4/23/97)(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.W7)(SSFC, 12/24/06,
p.M1)
1619 Mar 6, Cyrano de Bergerac
(d.1655), French poet, playwright (Voyage to the Moon), swordsman, was
born. His radical writings prefigured Voltaire and Diderot. His noted
nose was an invention of the poet Theophile Gautier introduced in an
1844 book. Edmond Rostand’s play on Cyrano was unveiled in 1897.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, DB p.3)(MC, 3/6/02)
1620 Mar 9, Aegidius Albertinus
(59), German writer (Lucifer's Kingdom), died.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1621 Mar 31, Andrew Marvell,
English poet and politician, was born.
(HN, 3/31/01)
1622 Apr 17, Henry Vaughan
(d.1695), English poet and mystic, was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.1582)(HN, 4/17/98)
1631 Mar 31, John Donne,
metaphysical poet, died.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1635 May 5, Philippe Quinault,
French playwright (L'amant indiscret), was born.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1635 Aug 27, Lope Felix de Vega
(72), playwright, poet (Angelica, Arcadia), died.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1645 Aug 16, Jean de la Bruyere,
French writer and moralist famous for his work "Characters of
Theophratus," was born.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1649 Sep 6, Robert Dudley, English
navigator and writer (Arcano del Mare), died.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1651 Aug 6, Francois Fenelon
(d.1715), French theologian and writer (Playing for Time), was born.
"Nothing is more despicable than a professional talker who uses his
words as a quack uses his remedies."
(AP, 11/27/98)(MC, 8/6/02)
1651 Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679),
English philosopher, authored “Leviathan.” In it he tried to deduce
from 1st principles the shape that society should take.
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.M3)
1653 Izaak Walton (b.1593-1683)
wrote "The Compleat Angler."
(SFEC, 11/3/96, Par p.19)
1655 Jul 28, French dramatist and
novelist Cyrano de Bergerac, the inspiration for a play by Edmond
Rostand, died in Paris.
(AP, 7/28/05)
1666 Apr 19, Sarah Kembel Knight,
diarist, was born.
(HN, 4/1901)
1667 Apr 29, John Arbuthnot,
Scottish writer (Alexander Pope), was born.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1668 Apr 13, John Dryden (36)
became 1st English poet laureate.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1668 May 8, Alain Rene Lesage,
French novelist and dramatist, was born. He is best known for his works
"The Adventures of Gil Blas" and "Turcaret."
(HN, 5/8/99)
1671 Apr 6, Jean-Baptiste
Rousseau, French playwright, poet (Sacred Odes & Songs), was born.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1672 May 1, Joseph Addison
(d.1719), English essayist (Spectator) and poet, was born. "We are
always doing, says he, something for posterity, but I would fain see
posterity do something for us." "A man must be both stupid and
uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own
side."
(AHD, 1971, p.14)(AP, 11/21/97)(AP, 7/14/98)(MC,
5/1/02)
1679 Thomas Hobbes (b.1588),
English philosopher and author of Leviathan, died. "The reputation of
power IS power."
(HN, 5/5/97)(AP, 5/31/99)(WSJ, 7/30/03, p.A12)
1681 May 25, Caldéron de la
Barca (b.1600), Spanish dramatist & poet, died.
(WUD, 1994 p.210)(SC, 5/25/02)
1688 May 21, Alexander Pope
(d.1744), England, poet (Rape of the Lock), was born. His "Essay on
Criticism" contains the line: "A little learning is a dangerous
thing..."
(NH, 9/97, p.24)(MC, 5/21/02)
1689 May 26, Mary Wortley Montagu,
English essayist, feminist, eccentric, was born.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1689 Aug 19, Samuel Richardson
(d.1761), English novelist (Pamela, Clarissa), was born in Derbyshire.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1694 Nov 21, Francois Marie Arouet
Voltaire (d.1778), French philosopher, historian, dramatist and
essayist, was born. Born to middle class parents, he later attended the
Jesuit college of Louis-le-Grand in Paris. The environment exposed him
to the world of society and the arts. After the success of his tragedy
"Oedipe" in 1718, he was pronounced the successor to the great
dramatist Racine. He adopted the pen name Voltaire, though its exact
origins and meaning are uncertain. The author of "Candide" (1759) and
the "Philosophical Dictionary" (1764), Voltaire's works often attacked
injustice and intolerance and epitomized the Age of Enlightenment. He
wrote that "Self-love resembles the instrument by which we perpetuate
the species. It is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure
and it has to be concealed." "All styles are good except the tiresome
sort." "Love truth, but pardon error." "The great errors of the past
are useful in many ways. One cannot remind oneself too often of crimes
and disasters. These, no matter what people say, can be forestalled."
S.G. Tellentyre said on Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I
will defend to the death your right to say it."
(WUD, 1994, p.1600) (G&M,
2/1/96, p.A-22)(AP, 7/17/97)(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.8)(HNQ, 10/1/98)(SFEC,
10/11/98, Z1 p.8)(HN, 11/21/98)(HNQ, 11/8/00)
1695 Apr 13-14, Jean de la
Fontaine (73), French poet (Fables), died.
(MC, 4/13/02)(MC, 4/14/02)
1697 Apr 1, Abbe Prevost, French
novelist, journalist (Manon Lescaut), was born.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1699 Apr 17, Robert Blair,
Scottish poet (Grave), was born.
(MC, 4/17/02)
1699 Apr 21, Jean Racine (59),
French playwright (Phèdre), died.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1700 May 1, John Dryden (b.1631),
English poet, playwright (Rival Ladies), died.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1703 May 26, Samuel Pepys
(b.1633), English diarist, died. In the 1930s Sir Arthur Bryant
authored a 3-volume biography. In the 1970s Richard Ollard authored a
single volume biography. In 2001 Stephen Coote authored "Samuel Pepys:
A Life" and another was expected by Claire Tomalin. In 2002 Claire
Tomalin authored "Samuel Pepys: The Unequaled Self."
(WSJ, 6/2/99, p.A24)(HN, 2/23/01)(SSFC, 12/22/02,
p.M3)(MC, 5/26/02)
1703 Jul 31, English novelist
Daniel Defoe was made to stand in the pillory as punishment for
offending the government and church with his satire "The Shortest Way
With Dissenters."
(HN, 7/31/01)
1707 Apr 22, Henry Fielding
(d.1754), English novelist and essayist, was born in Sharpham Park,
Somerset, England. His work included "Tom Jones."
(WUD, 1994 p.528)(AP, 4/22/07)
1708 Apr 23, Friedrich von
Hagedorn, German poet (Versuch einiger Poem), was born.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1708 Apr 30, Simon de Vries, book
seller, writer (Unequal), died.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1715 Mar 7, Ewald Christian von
Kleist, German lyric poet (Der Freuhling), was born.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1717-1718 Voltaire (1694-1778), French writer, was
imprisoned in the Bastille for his lampoons of the Regency.
(www.online-literature.com/voltaire/)
1719 Apr 25, Daniel Defoe's novel
"Robinson Crusoe" was published in London. Crusoe was based on the
story of Alexander Selkirk, a man who was voluntarily put ashore on a
desert island.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A12)(HN, 4/25/01)
1721 Mar 19, Tobias George
Smollett, Scottish satirical author and physician (Roderick Random,
Humphrey Clinker), was born (baptized).
(HN, 3/19/01)(MC, 3/19/02)
1731 Apr 26, Daniel Defoe (~70),
English author, died. His work included the novels "Robinson Crusoe,"
"Roxana" and the pamphlet "The Shortest Way With Dissenters." In
1998 Richard West published the biography "Daniel Defoe: The Life and
Strange Surprising Adventures."
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A12)(MC, 4/24/02)(MC, 4/26/02)
1735 Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
translated a book on Abyssinia by a Portuguese Jesuit: “A Voyage to
Abyssinia.” In 1759 Johnson authored his prose fiction “The History of
Rasellas, Prince of Abissinia.” In the novel morality and happiness are
shown not as matters of simple alternatives but sometimes impossible
ones.
(www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_se/personal/cjmm/Rasselas.html)(http://tinyurl.com/ld7bp)
1738 May 9, John Pindar, [Peter],
physician, poet, was born.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1740 Jun 2, Donatien Alphonse
Francois, writer, Marquis de Sade, was born in Paris. He was the French
nobleman who was imprisoned for holding orgies in which he whipped and
sodomized prostitutes. He wrote "The 120 Days of Sodom" and "Justine."
In 1998 Francine du Plessix Gray authored "At Home With the Marquis de
Sade."
(http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/3539/)
(WUD, 1994, p.1259)(WSJ, 2/7/96, p.A-12)(WSJ,
11/5/98, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/7/96, p.A-12)(HN, 6/2/99)
1740 Henry Fielding began working
as a lawyer and read "Pamela or Virtue Rewarded" by Samuel Richardson.
Fielding soon authored his satire "Shamela" in response.
(ON, 9/03, p.1)
1741 Apr 8, Jose B. da Gama,
Portuguese poet (O Uraguai), was born.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1742 Henry Fielding authored his
novel "Joseph Andrews." It dealt seriously with moral issues using a
comic approach and was later regarded as a milestone in English
literature.
(ON, 9/03, p.1)
1745 Oct 19, Jonathan Swift
(b.1667), Irish born clergyman and English writer (Gulliver's Travels),
died. In 1963 Prof. Edward Rosenheim (1918-2005) authored “Swift and
the Satirist’s Art.” In 1999 Victoria Glendinning published the
biography: "Jonathan Swift: A Portrait."
(WUD, 1994, p.1437)(SFEC, 8/1/99, BR p.8)(SFC,
12/1/05, p.B7)
1749 Feb 28, The 1st edition of
"The History of Tom Jones: A foundling" was published. Henry Fielding
(1707-1754) wrote the book and a film based on the novel was made in
1963. A TV production premiered in 1998.
(SFEM, 11/24/96, p.59)(SFC, 4/2/98, p.E1)(MC,
2/28/02)(ON, 9/03, p.9)
1749 Aug 28, German author Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe (d.1832), "the master spirit of the German people,"
was born at Frankfurt am Main. Scientist, philosopher, novelist, and
critic as well as lyric, dramatic, and epic poet, he was the leading
figure of his age after Napoleon. He had early pretensions in the
visual arts and was an avid draftsman into old age. He is best known
for "Faust."
(V.D.-H.K.p.239)(AP, 8/28/97)(WSJ, 7/16/98,
p.A16)(HN, 8/28/98)
1753 Mar 25, Voltaire left the
court of Frederik II of Prussia.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1755 Apr 15, English lexicographer
Dr. Samuel Johnson publishes his Dictionary of the English Language, a
selective English dictionary.
(WSJ, 9/14/98, p.A30)(HN, 4/15/01)
1758 Apr 17, Frances Williams, the
first African-American to graduate for a college in the western
hemisphere, published a collection of Latin poems.
(HN, 4/17/99)
1759 Apr 27, Mary Wollstonecraft
Godwin (d.1797), English writer, feminist (Female Reader), was born.
"The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on,
and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no
barriers to break its force."
(AP, 11/10/97)(MC, 4/27/02)
1759 Samuel Johnson (1709-1784),
English lexicographer, authored his novel “History of Rasselas,” on the
elusive nature of happiness.
(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A23)
1760 May 10, Claude-Joseph Rouget
de Lisle, soldier, author, composer ("La Marseillaise"), was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1761 May 13, Adrian Loosjes Pzn
(1818, Dutch publisher, writer (Mauritius Lijnslager), was born.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1761 Jul 4, Samuel Richardson,
English novelist, died at 72 in London.
(WUD, 1994, p.1231)
1762 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
published his didactic novel "Emile," which spelled out his idea of his
"natural system," and his work of political philosophy "The Social
Contract." The books were banned in France and he was forced to leave.
(WSJ, 2/18/97, p.A18)(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.M2)
1763 Feb 12, Pierre de Mariveaux
(b.1688), French novelist and playwright, died.
(SFC, 5/30/09,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Marivaux)
1763 May 16, The English
lexicographer, author and wit Samuel Johnson first met his future
biographer, James Boswell.
(AP, 5/16/97)
1764 Jul 9, Ann Radcliffe,
novelist who wrote Gothic romances set in Italy, was born.
(HN, 7/9/98)
1765 Apr 5, Edward Young (81),
English poet (Love of Fame), died.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1766 Jul 9, J. Schopenhauer,
writer, was born.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1770 Apr 7, William Wordsworth,
English poet laureate, was born. He wrote "The Prelude" and "Lyrical
Ballads." In 1998 Kenneth R. Johnston published "The Hidden Wordsworth:
Poet, Lover, Rebel, Spy." The biography covered the first 30 years of
the poet’s life. In 1896 Emile Legouis also published a biography of
the poet’s youth. The poet was responsible for such phrases as: "love
of nature," "love of man," and "emotion recollected in tranquility."
(V.D.-H.K.p.230)(WSJ, 6/23/98, p.A18)(SFEC, 8/23/98,
BR p.5)(HN, 4/7/99)
1771 Aug 15, Sir Walter Scott
(d.1832), Scottish novelist who wrote "Ivanhoe" and "Rob Roy," was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.1281)(HN, 8/15/98)
1772 Mar 10, Friedrich Von
Schlegel (d.1829) was born. He was a German romantic poet and critic
whose books included "Philosophy of History" and "History of
Literature." "A historian is a prophet in reverse."
(AP, 5/25/97)(HN, 3/10/99)
1772 Apr 11, Manuel Jose Quintana,
Spanish author, poet (El Duque de Viseo), was born.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1774 Apr 4, Oliver Goldsmith,
Irish poet (She Stoops to Conquer), died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1774 Goethe published his novel
"Werther." It was later turned into an opera by Massenet.
(WSJ, 1/21/98, p.A16)
1776 Jan 10, Thomas Paine
(1737-1809), British émigré and propagandist, anonymously
published "Common Sense," a scathing attack on King George III's reign
over the colonies and a call for complete independence. It sold some
120,000 copies in just a few months, greatly affecting public sentiment
and the deliberations of the Continental Congress leading up to the
Declaration of Independence. He advocated an immediate declaration of
independence from Britain. An instant bestseller in both the colonies
and in Britain, Paine baldly stated that King George III was a tyrant
and that Americans should shed any sentimental attachment to the
monarchy. America, he argued, had a moral obligation to reject monarchy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine)(AP,
1/10/98)
1776 Feb 17, Edward Gibbon
(1737-1794), English historian, published his 1st volume of " The
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." He completed the
6-volume classic in 1788.
(WUD, 1994 p.596)(WSJ, 5/26/07, p.P6)
1776 Mar 10, "Common Sense" by
Thomas Paine was published.
(HN, 3/10/98)
1777 Jul 27, Thomas Campbell,
Scottish writer (The Pleasures of Hope), was born.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1778 Apr 10, William Hazlitt
(d.1830), essayist, critic, was born in Maidstone, Kent, England.
(AP,
11/10/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hazlitt)
1778 May 30, Voltaire (b.1694),
French writer born as Francois-Marie Arouet, died. His books included
Candide (1759).
(www.online-literature.com/voltaire/)
1779 May 28, Thomas Moore, Irish
poet, was born.
(HN, 5/28/01)
1781 Samuel Johnson (1709-1784),
English lexicographer, essayist and poet, authored “Lives of the
English Poets.”
(ON, 11/06, p.9)(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A23)
1782 French writer Pierre
Choderlos de Laclos wrote his novel "Les Liaison Dangereuses." It was
made into the opera "The Dangerous Liaisons" in 1994 by Conrad Susa and
Philip Littell.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A20)
1783 Apr 3, Washington Irving
(d.Nov 28, 1859), essayist, author, historian, biographer,
attorney/lawyer, American writer (Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Rip Van
Winkle), was born in New York City. "No man is so methodical as a
complete idler, and none so scrupulous in measuring out his time as he
whose time is worth nothing."
(DTnet, 11/28/97)(HN, 4/3/98)(AP, 9/10/98)
1784 Dec 13, Samuel Johnson
(b.1709), English lexicographer, essayist, poet and moralist best known
for "The Dictionary of the English Language," died. "Patriotism is the
last refuge of a scoundrel." -- (To which Ambrose Bierce replied, "I
beg to submit that it is the first.") Johnson, an antagonist of
slavery, left behind an annuity and much of his personal property to
his black valet, Francis Barber (b.1735-1801). In 1791 Boswell wrote
the celebrated "The Life of Samuel Johnson." In 1955 Walter Jackson
Bate (1918-1999) published "The Achievement of Samuel Johnson" and in
1977 the biography "Samuel Johnson." In 2000 Adam Potkay authored "The
Passion for Happiness," in which he argued that Samuel Johnson should
be included in the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment along with David Hume,
Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon. In 2000 Peter Martin authored "A Life of
James Boswell." In 2008 Peter Martin authored “Samuel Johnson: A
biography.”
(AP, 10/8/97)(WSJ, 11/29/00, p.A24)(ON, 11/06,
p.10)(SSFC, 10/28/07, p.M3)(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A23)
1785 Mar 7, Alessandro Manzoni,
poet, novelist (Betrothed), was born in Italy.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1785 Aug 15, Thomas De Quincey,
English writer (Confessions of English Opium Eater), was born.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1787 Peter Markoe (1752?-1792)
authored “An Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania.” His satirical provocation
helped to push the US Congress authorized a Navy and to dispatch
Marines to subdue the pirates of Tripoli.
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.P8)
1789 Sep 15, James Fenimore Cooper
(d.1851), American novelist, was born in Burlington, NJ. He is best
known for "The Pioneers" and "Last of the Mohicans." "The press, like
fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master."
(AP, 6/25/97)(HN, 9/15/99)
1789 Rev. Gilbert White
(1720-1793) authored “The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne,
in the County of Southampton.” One chapter was about a local tortoise
named Timothy. In 2006 Verlyn Klinkenborg authored “Timothy; Or, Notes
Of an Abject Reptile,” a look at the parson from the point of view of
the tortoise.
(WSJ, 2/11/06, p.P11)
1791 May 9, Francis Hopkinson
(53), US writer, music, lawyer, died.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1791 May 16, James Boswell’s
celebrated 2-volume work, "The Life of Samuel Johnson," was published.
In 2001 Adam Sisman authored "Boswell’s Presumptuous Task," an account
of how Boswell came to write the Johnson biography.
(WSJ, 8/24/01, p.W8)(ON, 11/06, p.10)
1794 William Blake painted "The
Ancient of Days." "He formed golden com-passes / And began to explore
the Abyss." From the epic "The First Book of Urizen." Urizen is a pun
and stands for "Your Reason." On display at the Whitworth Art Gallery,
Manchester, England.
(T&L, 10/1980, p.42)(WSJ, 4/2397, p.A16)
1796 Mar 31, Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe's "Egmont," premiered in Weimar.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1796 Jane Austen began her novel
“Pride and Prejudice.”
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.104)
1797 Jul 9, Edmund Burke (68),
Irish-British author, parliament leader (Reflections), died.
(WUD, 1994 p.198)(MC, 7/9/02)
1797 Aug 30, The creator of
"Frankenstein," or the Modern Prometheus, Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin)
Shelley (d.1851), was born in London.
(AHD, p.1193)(AP, 8/30/97)(HN, 8/30/98)
1798 Jun 4, Giovanni Jacopo
Casanova (b.1725), fabled Italian seducer, adventurer, spy, librarian,
died of prostate cancer in Dux, Bohemia. While at Dux he authored his
memoirs: “History of My Life.” The standard English edition runs over
3,600 pages. In 2008 Ian Kelly authored “Casanova: Actor, Lover,
Priest, Spy.”
(www.1911encyclopedia.org/Giovanni_Jacopo_Casanova_de_Seingalt)(WSJ,
10/24/08, p.W5)
1799 May 20, Honore de Balzac,
French novelist, was born in Tours, France. He is considered the
founder of the realistic school and wrote "The Human Comedy" and "Lost
Illusions."
(AP, 5/20/99)(HN, 5/20/99)
1799 May 23, Thomas Hood (d.1845),
English poet, composer (Song of the Shirt), was born. "I saw old Autumn
in the misty morn Stand shadowless like silence, listening To silence."
(AP, 9/23/98)(MC, 5/23/02)
1799 May 26, Alexander Pushkin,
Russian poet (d.1837), was born. His bicentennial in Russia was
celebrated Jun 6,1999. [see Jun 6]
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AHD, p.1062)(SFC, 6/3/99, p.C2)
1801 Francois Rene de
Chateaubriand (1768-1848), French writer, authored his novel “Atala”
following a trip to the US.
(WSJ, 5/8/08, p.A13)
1801 Friedrich von Hardenberg
(b.1772), German poet (Novalis), died. He was later known as the father
of German romantic nationalism.
(WUD, 1994 p.645)(WSJ, 4/8/03, p.D4)
1802 Jul 24, Alexandre Dumas
(d.1870), French novelist and dramatist who wrote "The Count of Monte
Cristo" and "The Three Musketeers," was born. Alexandre Dumas, pere,
French author of romantic plays and novels. He wrote "The Man in the
Iron Mask." He was the father of Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-1895),
French author of plays of social realism.
(HFA, '96, p.34)(AHD, 1971, p.403)(WUD, 1994,
p.441)(HN, 7/24/98)
1803 Mar 14, Friedrich Gottlieb
Klopstock (78), German poet, died.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1803 Mar 19, Johann von Schiller's
"Die Braut von Messina," premiered in Weimar.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1803 May 25, Ralph Waldo Emerson
(d.1882), American essayist and philosopher, was born. A biography of
Emerson that includes information about his friends was written in 1996
by Carlos Baker and titled: "Emerson Among the Eccentrics: A Group
Portrait." It includes such people as: the transcendental visionary
Bronson Alcott, essayist Henry David Thoreau, mad poet Jones Very,
activist Margaret Fuller, poet Ellery Channing. Other people included
are Hawthorne, Melville, Theodore Parker, and the family of Henry
James. "Money often costs too much."
(AP, 10/22/97)(HN, 5/25/98)
1803 Sep 28, Prosper Merimee
(d.1870), archeologist and playwright (Carmen-1845), was born in Paris,
France.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/merimee.htm)(www.nndb.com/people/584/000107263/)
1804 Jul 1, George Sand
(Amandine-Aurore Lucille Dupin de Francueil, d.1876), French novelist,
was born in Paris. She wrote some 80 novels that included “Consuelo”
(1842) and “La Comtesse de Rudolstadt” (1843). In 1975 Curtis Cate
published the biography: "George Sand." "I would rather believe that
God did not exist than believe that He was indifferent."
(WUD, 1994, p.1265)(HN, 7/1/01) (AP, 10/17/98)(HN,
7/1/01)(Econ, 7/31/04, p.72)
1804 Jul 4, Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804-1864) American novelist and short-story writer, was born in
Marblehead, [Salem], Massachusetts. Hawthorne was born to a prominent
but decaying family. One of his ancestors, a judge in the Salem
witchcraft trials, became the model for the accursed founder of The
House of the Seven Gables. Hawthorne would often wonder whether the
decline of his family’s fortune was a punishment for the sins of his
"sable-cloaked steeple-crowned progenitors. "Marblehead is also the
location of the house in his book "The House of Seven Gables." He also
wrote "The Scarlet Letter."
(WUD, 1994, p.651)(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T9)(HN, 7/4/98)
(IB, 12/7/98)
1805 Apr 2, Hans Christian
Andersen (d.1875), author of 150 fairy tales, was born in Odense,
Denmark.
(CFA, '96, p.44)(HN, 4/2/98)(AP, 4/2/99)
1805 May 9, Johann Christoph
Friedrich von Schiller (45), poet, playwright, died.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1807 Feb 27, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow (d.1882), was born in Portland, Maine. He was an American
poet famous for "The Children's Hour," and "Evangeline." "What is time?
The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the
sand, day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries—these
are but arbitrary and outward signs, the measure of Time, not Time
itself. Time is the Life of the soul."
(AP, 10/11/97)(AP, 2/27/98)(HN, 2/27/99)
1807 Apr 18, Erasmus Darwin,
physician, writer (Influence), died.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1807 Apr 20, Aloysius Bertrand
("Gaspard de la Nuit"), French poet, was born.
(HN, 4/20/01)
1809 Mar 31, Edward Fitzgerald,
American writer, was born. He is famous for writing "Rubaiyat of Omar
Khayyam."
(HN, 3/31/99)
1809 Mar 31, Nikolai V. Gogol
(d.1852), Ukrainian-born Russian writer, was born (NS) in Sorochyntsi,
Poltava Governorate (later Ukraine). Some sources give April 1 as his
birthday. His work included the play “The Inspector General” (1836) and
the novels “Taras Bulba” (1835) and “Dead Souls” (1842).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Gogol)(WSJ,
4/14/09, p.D7)
1809 Aug 29, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Sr., poet, essayist and father of Supreme Court Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Jr., was born.
(HN, 8/29/98)
1810 A German folk tale appeared
in “Gespensterbuch” (The Book of Ghosts), which formed the basis for
the 1821 opera “Der Freishutz” (The Free-Shooter) by Carl Maria von
Weber. In 1991 American writer William Burroughs wrote “The Black
Rider,” an English version of the story with music by Tom Waits.
(SFC, 8/31/04, p.E7)
1811 Jul 18, William Makepeace
Thackeray (d.1863), English novelist and satirist, was born. His books
were published as monthly serials. "Next to excellence is the
appreciation of it."
(HN, 7/18/98)(AP, 10/28/00)
1811 Aug 31, Théophile
Gautier, French poet, novelist and author of "Art for Art's Sake," was
born.
(HN, 8/31/98)
1812 Feb 7, Charles Dickens
(d.1870), English novelist, was born in Portsmouth, England. His
stories reflected life in Victorian England. In his novel "Dombey &
Son," Dickens confronted the subject of money, and its use as a measure
of success. His work also included "Master Humphrey’s Clock," published
in installments like most of his novels. The closing line of A
Christmas Carol: "And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every
One!" Some of his more famous novels include "Oliver Twist" and "A Tale
of Two Cities."
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.E3)(AP, 2/7/97)(HN, 2/7/99)
1812 Feb 7, Lord Byron made his
maiden speech in House of Lords.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1812 Mar 25, Alexander Herzen
(d.1870), Russian author: "Life has taught me to think, but thinking
has not taught me how to live."
(AP,
8/15/99)(www.bookrags.com/biography/aleksandr-ivanovich-herzen/)
1812 May 7, Poet Robert Browning
was born in London. His works include "The Piper of Hamelin" and "The
Ring and the Book."
(AP, 5/7/97)(HN, 5/7/99)
1812 May 12, Edward Lear, English
writer, was born (d.1888).
(HFA, '96, p.30)(WUD, 1994, p.815)
1815 Apr 24, Anthony Trollope
(d.1882), British novelist, was born. His 47 novels included "The
American Senator." His 33rd novel was "The Way We Live Now." "Nobody
holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself." An
essay by Cynthia Ozick on the novel is in her 1996 book "Fame and
Folly."
(WUD, 1994, p.1517)(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-18)(AP,
10/13/97)(WSJ, 6/9/00, p.W17)(HN, 4/24/01)
1815 May 5, Eugene-Marin Labiche,
French playwright, was born.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1815 Aug 1, Richard Henry Dana
(d.1882), US jurist, novelist, lawyer and sailor, was born. He wrote
"Two Years Before the Mast."
(WUD, 1994, p.366)(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W5)(MC, 8/1/02)
1816 Apr 21, Charlotte Bronte
(d.1855), English novelist, writer of "Jane Eyre," was born in
Thornton, England. Her sister Emily wrote "Wuthering Heights": "Better
to be without logic than without feeling."
(WP, 1952, p.37)(AP, 9/13/99)(HN, 4/21/98)
1816 Lord Byron, English romantic
poet, separated from his wife Annabella (d.1860) following an
incestuous relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh (d.1851). In
2002 David Crane authored "The Kindness of Sisters: Annabella Milbanke
and the Destruction of the Byrons."
(SSFC, 10/27/02, p.M2)
1817 Apr 18, George Henry Lewes,
philosophical writer, was born.
(HN, 4/18/98)
1817 Jul 12, Henry David Thoreau
(d.1862), essayist, naturalist and poet, was born in Concord, Mass. His
work included "On Walden Pond." He referred to the three Greek
goddesses of fate: Clotho (spinner of the thread of destiny), Lachesis
(disposer of lots) and especially Atropos (who holds the scissors that
will cut endeavor short). "We have constructed a fate, an Atropos, that
never turns aside." He was also the author of the essays "Civil
Disobedience and Slavery in Massachusetts."
(AHD, p.1339)(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.66)(HFA, '96,
p.34)(HN, 7/12/98)
1817 Jul 14, Madame de Stael (51),
writer and daughter of former French finance minister Jacques Necker,
died. She was intimate with Benjamin Constant and their intellectual
collaboration made them one of the most important intellectual pairs of
their time. In 2005 Maria Fairweather authored “Madame de Stael.” In
2008 Renee Winegarten authored the dual biography “Germaine de Stael
& Benjamin Constant.”
(Econ, 3/19/05,
p.88)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/stael.htm)(WSJ, 6/23/08, p.A15)
1817 Jul 18, Jane Austen (b.1775),
English writer, died at age 41.
(SFEC,11/9/97, BR
p.3)(www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/janelife.html)
1817 Aug 24, Aleksei K. Tolstoy,
[Kozjma Prutkov], Russian poet, writer, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1817 Dec 28, Benjamin Robert
Haydon (d.1846), British painter, threw a dinner party in London to
show his nearly completed painting "Christ’s Entry Into Jerusalem" and
to introduce poet John Keats to William Wordsworth. Other guests
included essayist Charles Lamb. In 2002 Penelope Hughes-Hallett
authored "The Immortal Dinner."
(WSJ, 9/13/02, p.W10)
1817 Dec, The book “Northanger
Abbey,” by English novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817), was published
following her death in July. It was written around 1798-1799 and
revised in 1803.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northanger_Abbey)
1818 Jan 1, The novel
"Frankenstein" by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was published
anonymously. It was an attack on industrialization. The work stemmed
from a contest in 1816 at Byron’s Villa Diodati in Geneva, between
Byron, Shelley and Mary to produce a ghost story. In 1998 Joan Kane
Nichols published "Mary Shelley: Frankenstein’s Creator." In 2006
Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler authored “The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the
Curse of Frankenstein.” In 2007 Susan Tyler Hitchcock authored
“Frankenstein: A Cultural History.”
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(SSFC, 5/21/06, p.M6)(WSJ,
10/30/07, p.D6)(ON, 11/07, p.8)
1818 Apr, Dr. John William
Polidori published “The Vampyre,” a novel based on an unpublished story
fragment by Lord Byron. Polidori was Byron’s personal physician.
(ON, 11/07, p.8)
1818 Oct 28, Ivan Turgenev
(d.1883), Russian novelist, poet, playwright (Fathers & Sons), was
born. [Old Style date]
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9073831)
1818 Nov 9, Ivan Turgenev, Russian
author, was born. His work includes "Fathers and Sons" and "A Month in
the Country." [New Style date]
(HN, 11/9/00)
1819 Mar 26, Louise Otto, German
feminist author, was born.
(HN, 3/25/98)
1819 May 31, Poet Walt Whitman
(d.1892) was born in West Hill, N.Y. He became America’s national poet
with vibrant works such as 1855’s Leaves of Grass. He poems included:
"When Lilacs Last in the Doorway Bloomed." Some of Whitman’s poems were
inspired by his Civil War experience as a hospital volunteer in
Washington. Although a staunch supporter of the Union cause, Whitman
comforted dying soldiers of both sides, as described in one of the
poet's wartime newspaper dispatches: "I stayed a long time by the
bedside of a new patient.... In an adjoining ward I found his
brother...It was in the same battle both were hit. One was a strong
Unionist, the other Secesh; both fought for their respective sides,
both badly wounded, and both brought together after a separation of
four years. Each died for his cause."
(AP, 5/31/97)(HN, 5/31/98)(HNQ,
6/1/98)(V.D.-H.K.p.278)(HNPD, 5/25/99)(HN, 5/31/99)
1819 Nov 22, George Eliot
(d.1880), English writer, was born. Her books included “Adam Bede” and
“Silas Marner.” She was driven out of England with her companion, G.H.
Lewes, for a while for not being married. Her books tore away the
curtain of Victorian life and revealed its bitter small-mindedness for
anyone to see. "The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no
history."
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gelliot.htm)(HN, 11/22/98)
1820 Mar 30, Anna Sewell, English
novelist, was born. Her "Black Beauty" has become the classic story
about horses.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1820 Apr 20, Arthur Young, author
(Annals of Agriculture), died.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1820 May 4, Joseph Whitaker,
bookseller and publisher, was born. He founded Whitaker's Almanac.
(HN, 5/4/99)
1821 Apr 9, Charles Baudelaire
(d.1867), French poet, was born. His works were censored and he was
considered a pathetic psychopath; he also became the most acute critic
of his age in France. He was photographed by Felix Nadar in 1855.
(V.D.-H.K.p.278)(Smith., 5/95, p.72)(HN, 4/9/01)
1822 May 26, Edmond de Goncourt,
writer, was born.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1822 Jun 25, Ernst Theodor Amadeus
(ETA) Hoffmann (46), German writer, judge, composer, died.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1824 Apr 19, George Gordon, (6th
Baron Byron, b.1788) aka Lord Byron, English poet, died of malaria in
Greece at Missolonghi on the gulf of Patras preparing to fight for
Greek independence. In 1999 Benita Eisler published the biography
"Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame." In 2002 Fiona MacCarthy
authored "Byron : Life and Legend."
(WUD, 1994, p.204,917)(SFC, 6/9/97, p.D3)(WSJ,
4/26/99, p.A16)(HN, 4/1901)(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.M2)
1824 Jul 27, Alexandre Dumas fils,
French playwright, novelist (Camille), was born.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1824 Lydia Maria Child of Wayland,
Mass., authored "Hobomok," a novel of a Puritan girl who falls in love
with an Indian after her fiancé is lost at sea. She later
founded Juvenile Miscellany, the 1st children’s magazine in the US. She
later authored "The Frugal Housewife" and "An Appeal in Favor of That
Class of Americans Called Africans" (1833) and the poem: "The New
England’s Boy’s Song About Thanksgiving Day" (Over the river, and
through the woods…). In 1994 Carolyn Karcher authored her biography:
"The First Woman in the Republic."
(WSJ, 11/21/02, p.A1)
1824 James Morier authored “The
Adventures of Haji Bab of Ispahan,” the tale of a barber’s son who
seeks his fortunes in Persia.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.W8)
1825 Jun 7, R.D. Blackmore, author
(Norie), was born.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1825 Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
(1755-1826), French lawyer and professor, invented the genre of food
writing with his book “The Physiology of Taste.”
(WSJ, 5/5/07, p.P10)
1827 Apr 10, Lewis Wallace
(d.1905), soldier, lawyer, diplomat and author (Ben Hur), was born. "As
a rule, there is no surer way to the dislike of men than to behave well
where they have behaved badly."
(HN, 4/10/98)(AP, 12/5/00)
1828 Mar 20, Henrik Ibsen
(d.1906), Norwegian dramatist was born. His work included "Peer Gynt"
and "Hedda Gabler." "The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our
society is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal
majority." In 1971 the 3rd and final volume of "Ibsen: A Biography" by
Michael Meyer (d.2000) was published.
(HFA, '96, p.26)(HN, 3/20/98)(AP, 7/22/98)(SFC,
8/10/00, p.D2)
1828 May 12, Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, English poet and painter, was born.
(HN, 5/12/01)
1828 Aug 28, Leo Tolstoy (d.1910),
Russian novelist, was born near Tula. His work included "War and Peace"
and "Anna Karenina." "History would be an excellent thing if only
it were true." "It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty
is goodness." [see Sep 9]
(WUD, 1994 p.1491)(AP, 4/15/97)(AP, 10/14/99)(HN,
8/28/00)
1828 Sep 9, Leo Tolstoy, Russian
novelist, was born. His work included “War and Peace” and “Anna
Karenina.” [see Aug 28]
(HN, 9/9/00)
1829 Sep 12, Charles Dudley
Warner, essayist and novelist who, with Mark Twain, wrote "The Guilded
Age," was born.
(HN, 9/12/98)
1829 Hans Christian Andersen
(1805-1875) published his first literary work: “A Walking Tour from
Holmen’s Canal to the Eastern Point of Amager.”
(ON, 7/06, p.7)
1829 William Cobbett, British
writer, authored “The Emigrant’s Guide,” offering advice on settling in
the New World.
(WSJ, 12/22/08, p.A17)
1830 Apr 5, Alexander Muir, poet
(Maple Leaf Forever), was born in Lesmahagow, Scotland.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1830 May 24, "Mary Had a Little
Lamb," was written. Sarah Josepha Hale of Newport, N.H., published a
collection of poems "Poems for Our Children," that included "Mary Had a
Little Lamb." [see 1815]
(SFC, 8/24/98, p.B6)(MC, 5/24/02)
1830 May 25, Jules de Geyter,
Belgian poet (International), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1830 Sep 18, William Hazlitt
(b.1778), in his time England’s finest essayist, died. "A nickname is
the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man." In 2008 Duncan
Wu authored “William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man.”
(AP, 11/10/99)(WSJ, 1/16/09,
p.W10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hazlitt)
1830 Dec 8, Henri-Benjamin
Constant de Rebecque (b.1767), Swiss-born thinker, writer and French
politician, died. He was intimate with Anne Louise Germaine de
Staël and their intellectual collaboration made them one of the
most important intellectual pairs of their time. In 2008 Renee
Winegarten authored the dual biography “Germaine de Stael &
Benjamin Constant.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Constant)
1830 Stendhal (1783-1842), the nom
de plume of French author Henri Beyle, authored “The Red and the
Black,” the story of a peasant who reaches for upward mobility through
the favors of two mistresses.
(WSJ, 3/15/08, p.W10)
1831 Mar 6, Edgar Allan Poe failed
out of West Point. He was discharged from West Point for "gross neglect
of duty." His parade uniform was supposedly incorrect.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, Z1 p.4)(HN, 3/6/98)
1832 Feb 22, Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe (b.1749), poet, (Faust, Egmont) died in Weimar, Germany. Goethe
had served as minister of mines under Bismarck. He completed "Faust"
just before his death: "When Ideas fail, words come in handy." In 1988
Kenneth Weisinger authored "The Classical Facade: A Non-Classical
Reading of Goethe's Criticism." In 2006 John Armstrong authored “Love,
Life, Goethe: How to Be Happy in an Imperfect World.”
(SFEC, 4/26/98, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 8/7/03, p.A19)(SFC,
12/14/04, p.B1)(WSJ, 1/13/07, p.P10)
1832 Sep 21, Sir Walter Scott
(b.1771), Scottish novelist who wrote "Ivanhoe" and "Rob Roy," died at
Abbotsford near Melrose in the Scottish Borders. Scott was later
credited with inventing the genre of historical fiction.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott)(SSFC,
3/11/07, p.G3)
1832 Nov 29, Louisa May Alcott
(d.1888), American author who wrote "Little Women," was born in
Germantown, Pa. Under the pen name A.M. Barnard she wrote stories of
violence and revenge that included "Pauline’s Passion and Punishment."
"It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and
genius, especially ambitious young men and women."
(WUD, 1994, p.35)(SFC, 6/17/97, p.E3)(AP,
7/12/98)(HN, 11/29/98)
1833 James Boardman (1801-1855),
English traveler and writer, authored “America and the Americans.”
(http://tinyurl.com/2olhxh)
1834 Frederick Marryat authored
the novel “Jacob Faithfully.” The term Shiver My Timbers!, an expletive
denoting surprise or disbelief, was first seen in this book. It alluded
to a ship's striking a rock or shoal so hard that her timbers shiver.
In 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson found the term to be the perfect
exclamation for the irascible Long John Silver: "So! Shiver me timbers,
here's Jim Hawkins!" This stereotypical expletive became extremely
popular with writers of sea yarns and Hollywood swashbucklers.
(www.answerbag.com/q_view.php/16871)
1835 Apr, Hans Christian Andersen
(1805-1875) published novel “Improvisatore,” an alternative version of
his own life based on his travel experiences in Italy.
(ON, 7/06, p.7)
1836 Feb 7, The essays "Sketches
by Boz" were published by Charles Dickens.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1836 Mar 31, The first monthly
installment of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens was published in
London.
(HN, 3/31/01)
1836 Aug 14, Walter Besant
(d.1901), English writer, philanthropist (Rebel Queen), was born.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1836 Aug 25, Bret Harte (d.1902),
American author and journalist (Outcasts of Poker Flat), was born in
Albany, NY. "The only sure thing about luck is that it will change."
[1839 also given as a birth date]
(WUD, 1994 p.648)(AP, 4/2/98)(SFEC, 9/3/00, BR p.6)
1837 Apr 3, John Burroughs
(d.1921), American author and naturalist, was born. "Time does not
become sacred to us until we have lived it, until it has passed over us
and taken with it a part of ourselves."
(HN, 4/3/01)(AP, 5/28/98)
1837 Apr 5, Algernon Charles
Swinburne, English poet (Atalanta in Calydon), was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1837 Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804-1864) wrote "Twice Told Tales."
(www.novelguide.com)
1838 Apr 17, J. Schopenhauer (71),
writer, died.
(MC, 4/17/02)
1838 Jun 27, Bankim Chandra
Chatterjee, Bengali novelist (Anandamath), was born.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1838 Charlotte Bronte authored her
novella "Stancliffe’s Hotel." It was published for the 1st time in 2003.
(SFC, 3/15/03, p.A2)
1839 Apr 11, John Galt (59),
Scottish writer (Last of the Lairds), died.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1839 Mikhail Lermontov
(1814-1841), Russian writer, authored “A Hero of Our Time.” It is an
example of the superfluous man novel, noted for its compelling Byronic
hero (or anti-hero) Pechorin and for the beautiful descriptions of the
Caucasus.
(Econ, 10/18/08,
p.35)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hero_of_Our_Time)
1840 Apr 2, Emile Zola (d.1902),
French novelist, reporter (Nana) , was born. He tried to wake the
consciousness of the fin de siecle.
(HN, 4/2/98)(SFC, 12/29/00, p.C6)(V.D.-H.K.p.279)
1840 May 13, Alphonse Daudet,
writer, was born.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1840 Jun 2, Thomas Hardy, English
novelist and poet, was born in Higher Bockhampton and almost given up
for dead until an observant midwife noticed he was breathing. He was
driven by a sense of somber doom by the failure of his readers to wake
up to the dreary fraud of their beliefs, and he devoted the last half
of his long life to writing poems that expressed his haunted vision.
When Hardy died (1928) his heart was removed and buried in the
churchyard of St. Michael’s in Stinsford in the grave of his first
wife, Emma, and his second wife, Florence. His ashes were buried in the
Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey in London. His work included "Tess
of D'Ubervilles" and "Jude the Obscure."
(SFC, 12/4/94, p. T-4)(V.D.-H.K.p.279)(HN, 6/2/99)
1840 Aug 13, Giovanni Verga,
Italian writer (Eros), was born.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1840s Julia Ward Howe wrote her
“Laurence Manuscript.” In 2004 it was edited by Gary Williams and
published for the 1st time as “The Hermaphrodite.”
(SSFC, 10/17/04, p.M4)
1841 Mar 20, Edgar Allen Poe's The
Murders in the Rue Morgue, considered the first detective story, was
published. [see April 14, 20, 1841]
(HN, 3/20/01)
1841 Apr 14, Edgar Allen Poe's
"Murders in the Rue Morgue," published. [see Mar 20, Apr 20]
(MC, 4/14/02)
1841 Apr 20, Edgar Allen Poe’s
first detective story, "Murders in Rue Morgue," was published. Poe
published in this year 2 secret messages, as the work of W.B. Tyler,
that were not deciphered until 1992 and 2000. [see Mar 20, Apr 14 1841]
(HN, 4/20/98)(SFC, 12/1/00, p.A3)(MC, 4/20/02)
1841 Jul 27, Mikhail Yuryevich
Lermontov (b.1814), poet, novelist, died.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1842 Mar 18, Stephane Mallarme
(d.1898), French essayist and symbolist poet, was born. "Every soul is
a melody which needs renewing."
(AP, 7/17/98)(HN, 3/18/01)
1842 Mar 23, Stendhal [Marie-Henri
Beyle], French author (b.1783), died at 59.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal)
1842 Nikolai V. Gogol (1809-1852),
Ukrainian-born Russian writer, published his novel “Dead Souls.” It
appeared in Moscow under the title, imposed by the censorship, of “The
Adventures of Chichikov.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Gogol)(WSJ,
4/14/09, p.D7)
1843 Apr 15, Henry James (d.1916),
US novelist, writer and critic, was born in England. His older brother
was William James, the psychologist and philosopher. Henry James Sr. in
the 1850s dragged his 4 sons and daughter across Europe in search a
“sensual education.” Henry’s first 40 years are documented by Sheldon
M. Novick in "Henry James: The Young Master." There is also a 5-vol.
biography by William Edel. His novels included "The Princess
Casamassima," a work about the folly of radical politics. "It takes a
great deal of history to produce a little literature." In 2008 Paul
Fisher authored “House of Wits: An Intimate Portrait of the James
Family.”
(WSJ, 10/17/96, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/24/97, p.A20)(HN,
4/15/98)(AP, 8/3/98)(WSJ, 6/17/08, p.A21)
1844 Apr 16, Anatole France
(d.1924), French novelist and essayist, was born. He won the Nobel
Prize in literature in 1921. His love for Madame de Caillavet, whose
salon helped make him famous, formed the backdrop for his novel "Le Lys
Rouge," (The Red Lily). "All the historical books which contain no lies
are extremely tedious."
(WSJ, 2/20/96, p.A-14)(AP, 10/11/98)(HN, 4/16/01)
1844 Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
authored his novel “Coningsby.” Disraeli used his young friend George
Smythe as the model for the novel’s scrupulously upright hero.
(WSJ, 9/2/06,
p.P9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coningsby_%28novel%29)
1844 Englishman Alexander Kinglake
(25) authored his travel book “Eothen.” The name was from the Greek for
“from the east.” It told of his adventures traveling across the Ottoman
Empire.
(WSJ, 9/23/06, p.P8)
1845 May 12, August Wilhelm
Schlegel (77), German poet, interpreter, critic, died.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1845 Jul 4, American writer Henry
David Thoreau began his 26 month experiment in simple living at Walden
Pond, near Concord, Mass. He chose this day to move to a rustic hut in
the peace and quiet of Walden Pond. He doubted that there was a spot in
Massachusetts where one could not hear a train whistle. The Fitchburg
trains passed Walden Pond about a hundred rods south of his cabin. He
lived there until September 6, 1947. His writings about his thoughts
and experiences there are still read and remembered by millions around
the world. "I went to the woods because I wished to see if I could not
learn what it [life] had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived."
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.76) (NOHY, Weiner, 3/90,
p.53)(AP, 7/4/97)(IB, 12/7/98)
1845 Benjamin Disraeli, future
British prime minister, authored his novel “Sybil,” a look at class
through the lens of a romance between the daughter of a working class
activist and the aristocratic hero.
(WSJ, 1/10/08, p.W2)
1845 Der Struwwelpeter, a popular
German children's book, was published by Heinrich Hoffmann. It
comprises ten illustrated and rhymed stories, mostly about children.
Each has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequences of
misbehavior in an exaggerated way. The title of the first story
provides the title of the whole book. Literally translated,
Struwwel-Peter means Shaggy-Peter.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter)
1846 May 5, Henryk Sienkiewicz
(d.1916), author (Quo Vadis, Nobel 1905), was born in Poland: "The
greater the philosopher, the harder it is for him to answer the
questions of common people."
(AP, 2/5/97)(MC, 5/5/02)
1846 Charles Dickens authored
"Pictures from Italy."
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.C8)
1847 May 20, Mary Lamb, writer,
died.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1847 Sep 6, Henry David Thoreau
left Walden Pond and moved back into town, to Concord, Massachusetts.
(HN, 9/6/00)
1847 George Bush, a professor of
Hebrew at New York Univ., authored “The Valley of Vision,” in which he
called on the US government to militarily wrench Palestine from the
Turks and return it to the Jews.
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.P8)
1847 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882),
British writer, published his first novel.
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)
1848 Jul 4,
Vicomte Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (b.1768), French writer and
statesman, 79, died in Paris.
(WUD, 1994, p.250)
1848 Turgenev authored his comedy
"A Poor Gentleman." A 2002 Broadway production of the play was called
"Fortune’s Fool."
(WSJ, 4/3/02, p.A20)
1849 In Canada Josiah Henson
(b.1789), former Maryland slave, authored his autobiography. It became
the model for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
(SSFC, 12/18/05, p.A31)
1849 Alphonse Karr authored the
novel “Les Guepes.” It included the classic line: “The more things
change, the more they stay the same.”
(SSFC, 2/20/05, p.C1)
1850 Mar 16, Nathaniel
Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter" was first published. It was
about adultery, revenge and redemption in Puritan Massachusetts.
(AP, 3/16/00)
1850 Mar 26, Edward Bellamy
(d.1898), writer, was born. His work included the utopian novel
"Looking Backward, 2000-1887," which forecast what America might look
like if people worked together for the common good.
(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W17)(HN, 3/26/01)
1850 Apr 23, William Wordsworth
(80), poet, died.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1850 Jun 27, Lafcadio Hearn
(d.1904), Irish-American journalist, author, was born in Greece.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafcadio_Hearn)
1850 Jun 27, Ivan Vazov, poet,
novelist, playwright (Under the Yoke), was born in Bulgaria.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1850 Aug 18, Honore de Balzac
(b.1799), French novelist, died at age 51.
(WUD, 1994, p.115)(MC, 8/18/02)
1850 Aug 22, Nikolaus Lenau (48),
writer, died.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1850 Sep 2, Eugene Field, author,
poet and journalist, was born. His work included "Little Boy Blue."
(HN, 9/2/00)(MC, 9/2/01)
1850 Nov 13, Robert Lewis
Stevenson (d.1894), novelist, was born in Scotland. His books included:
"Treasure Island" and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." In
1996 R.C. Terry edited and published “Robert Louis Stevenson:
Interviews and Recollections."
(Smith., 8/95, p.54)(SFC, 9/1/96, Par. p.12)(HN,
11/13/98)
1851 Nov 14, Herman Melville’s
novel "Moby Dick" was published in the US. The 1st publication was in
London on October 18.
(AP,
11/14/97)(www.mobylives.com/Happy_Birthday_Moby.html)
1852 Feb 21, Nikolai Gogol
(b.1809), Russian novelist and playwright, died (OS) [see Mar 4].
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Gogol)
1852 Mar 4, Nikolai Gogol, Russian
writer (b.1809), died (NS) [see Feb 21].
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Gogol)
1852 Mar 20, Harriet Beecher
Stowe's (1811-1896) "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was first published in book
form after being serialized. It based on the theme that slavery is
incompatible with Christianity.
(SFC, 3/30/97, Z1. p.6)(HN, 3/20/98)(AP, 3/20/08)
1852 Apr 23, Edwin Markham, US
poet and 1st winner of Amer Acad of Poets Award in 1937, ("Man with a
Hoe"), was born.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1852 Apr 29, The first edition of
Peter Roget's Thesaurus was published.
(HN, 4/29/98)
1852-1853 Charles Dickens (1812-1870) authored his
novel Bleak House in 20 monthly installments. It castigated the
insufferable delays of the legal process in Britain. In the novel he
describes a fictional court case, Jarndyce v Jarndyce, which concerns
the fate of a large inheritance. It has dragged on for many generations
prior to the action of the novel, so that, by the time it is resolved
late in the narrative, legal costs have devoured nearly the entire
estate. The case is thus a byword for an interminable legal proceeding.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarndyce_and_Jarndyce)(WSJ, 2/24/07,
p.P10)
1853 Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
authored his novel “Bleak House,” which castigated the insufferable
delays of the legal process in Britain.
(WSJ, 2/24/07, p.P10)
1854 Aug 9, Henry David Thoreau
published "Walden," in which he described his experiences while living
near Walden Pond on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.44)(AP, 8/9/97)
1854 Oct 16, Oscar Wilde (born as
Fingal O'Flahertie Wills, d.1900), dramatist, poet, novelist and
critic, was born in Dublin. His work included "The Picture of Dorian
Gray." "Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it."
[see 1856-1900]
(HN, 10/16/98)(AP, 2/16/99)
1855 Jan 25, Dorothy Wordsworth
(b.1771), English prose writer and the sister of poet William
Wordsworth (1770-1850), died. In 2009 Frances Wilson authored “The
Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth.”
(WSJ, 2/19/09,
p.A17)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dwordsw.htm)
1855 Mar 31, Charlotte Bronte
(b.1816), English author (Jane Eyre), died.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1856 Feb 17, Heinrich Heine
(b.1797), German journalist and poet, died in Paris. His prose work
included a series of travel memoirs that began in 1826 with “The Harz
Journey.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine)
1856 May 15, Lyman Frank Baum
(d.1919) was born in Chittenango, NY. He had been a failed storekeeper,
a reporter and, when his first children's book was published in 1897, a
traveling china salesman. Two years later, Baum teamed with poster
artist William Wallace Denslow to produce “Father Goose, His Book,” the
best-selling children's book of the year. “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”
in 1900 was the second collaboration for Baum and Denslow. This color
woodcut, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" is one of 24 full-page
color plates that illustrated the first edition of the beloved
children's classic [see 1891].
(HNPD, 5/14/99)(AP, 5/15/07)
1856 Jun 19, Elbert Hubbard
(d.1915), US, editor, publisher, author (Message to Garcia), was born.
"The love we give away is the only love we keep." "If you want work
well done, select a busy man -- the other kind has not time." "To
escape criticism -- do nothing, say nothing, be nothing."
(AP, 7/22/97)(AP, 9/29/97)(AP, 12/12/98)(MC, 6/19/02)
1856 Jul 26, George Bernard Shaw
(d.1950), Irish-born, English dramatist, critic and social reformer
(Pygmalion-Nobel 1925), was born. "The worst sin toward our fellow
creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's
the essence of inhumanity."
(V.D.-H.K.p.237)(HN, 7/26/98)(AP, 3/15/00)(MC,
7/26/02)
1856 Oct 1, The first installment
of Gustav Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary (Emma Bovary) appeared in the
Revue de Paris after the publisher refused to print a passage in which
the character Emma has a tryst in the back seat of a carriage. It was
later considered as the first novel of a liberated woman in modern
literature. In 1998 Dacia Maraini published "Searching for Emma." A TV
version for Masterpiece Theater was shown in 2000.
(HN, 10/1/00)(SFEC, 6/28/98, Par p.18)(WSJ, 2/4/00,
p.W6)
1857 Feb 7, A French court
acquitted author Gustave Flaubert of obscenity for his serialized novel
"Madame Bovary."
(AP, 2/7/08)
1857 Jun 2, Karl Gjellerup, poet,
novelist (Nobel 1917), was born in Denmark.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1857 Dec 3, Joseph Conrad
(d.1924), novelist, was born in Berdychiv, Poland, as Teodor Jozef
Konrad Korzeniowski. He is best known for “Heart of Darkness.” His work
“The Secret Agent” had a profound effect on Unabomber Theodore J.
Kaszynski in the late 20th cent. Conrad also wrote the short story “The
Informer.”
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A3)(HN, 12/3/98)(AP, 12/3/07)
1857 Thomas Brewer wrote "North
American Oology," a work on bird eggs.
(AH, 6/02, p.40)
1857 Charles Dickens (1812-1870),
English novelist, completed his serial novel “Little Dorrit.”
(WSJ, 7/19/08,
p.W6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Dorrit)
1857 Thomas Hughes authored "Tom
Brown’s School Days." Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman is a
fictional character originally created by the author Thomas Hughes in
his semi-autobiographical work Tom Brown's Schooldays. In this book,
set at Rugby School, Flashman is the notorious bully, who persecutes
its eponymous hero Tom Brown.
(WSJ, 7/111/00,
p.A26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Paget_Flashman)
1857 Fitz Hugh Ludlow authored
"The Hasheesh Eater."
(SFEC, 1/24/99, BR p.4)
1857 Adalbert Stifter (1805-1868),
Austrian writer, authored his novel “Indian Summer.” He noted the issue
of bureaucracy long before it was covered by sociologists.
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.P8)
1857 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882),
British novelist, authored his novel “Barchester Towers," which
explored the mixed motives of various characters. The book established
his fame.
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)(WSJ, 9/1/07, p.P9)
1859 Mar 8, Kenneth Grahame,
Scottish author who created the children’s classic "The Wind in the
Willows," was born.
(HN, 3/8/99)
1859 Mar 26, A.E. Houseman
(d.1936), critic, classics scholar and poet (A Shropshire Lad), was
born. A 1997 fictionalized portrait of Alfred Edward Housman, "The
Invention of Love: Memory Play," was written by Tom Stoppard. He is
best known for his work "A Shropshire Lad."
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.T9)(SFC, 1/15/00, p.B1)(HN,
3/26/01)
1859 Apr 14, Charles Dickens' "A
Tale Of Two Cities" was published.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1859 May 22, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle (d.1930), author of the Sherlock Holmes series, was born in
Edinburgh, Scotland. He wrote 4 novels featuring Sherlock Holmes.
"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly
recognizes genius." In 1999 Daniel Stashower published the biography:
"Teller of Tales."
(AP, 6/17/97)(HN, 5/22/98)(WSJ, 4/12/99, p.A21)
1859 Aug 28, Leigh Hunt, English
poet and essayist, died.
(RTH, 8/28/99)
1859 Nov 28, Washington Irving (b.
Apr 3,1783) American essayist, author, historian, biographer,
attorney/lawyer, died. He was buried in the Hudson Valley Old Dutch
Church cemetery in Tarrytown. He was born in New York City and wrote
the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle." In 2007 Andrew
Burstein authored “The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington
Irving.”
(USAT, 11/12/99, p.2D)(WSJ, 2/27/07, p.D5)
1860 May 9, James Matthew Barrie
(d.1937), novelist (Margaret Ogilvy, Peter Pan), was born in
Kirriemuir, Scotland.
(www.angus.gov.uk)
1860 Jun
9, The first dime novel: "Malaeska: The Indian Wife of the White
Hunter," written by Ann Sophia Stephens (1813-1886), was published by
Beadle and Adams in NYC.
(AP, 6/9/02)(www.niulib.niu.edu/badndp/dn01.html)
1860 Jul 14, Owen Wister (d.1938),
novelist, was born in Germantown, Pa. His 1902 novel "The
Virginian" inspired 5 films.
(HN, 7/14/01)(SFC, 1/9/02, p.D8)(AH, 10/02, p.18)
1861 Jun 29, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning (55), writer, died.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1861 Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897)
authored “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” under the pseudonym
Linda Brent. Jacobs grew up in North Carolina and later escaped to NY.
In 2004 Jean Fagan Yellin (73) authored “Harriet Jacobs: A Life.”
(SFC, 6/23/04, p.E1)
1861 Sam Beeton and his wife
Isabella Mayson (1840-1868) published “Beeton’s Book of Household
Management.” Mayson was a columnist for the Englishwoman’s Domestic
Magazine.” Beeton had made his fortune publishing the British edition
of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” In 2005 Kathryn Hughes authored “The Short Life
and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton.”
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.93)
1861 Rebecca Harding Davis
authored “Life in the Iron Mills.”
(SFC, 1/10/08, p.E1)
1861 The book "Great Expectations"
by Charles Dickens was published.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, DB p.43)
1861 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882),
British novelist, authored his novel “Orley Farm," which told the story
of an unjust will.
(WSJ, 2/24/07, p.P10)
1862 May 1, Marcel Prevost, French
publisher, writer (Les demis-vierges), was born.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1862 May 6, Henry David Thoreau
(44), American writer, died of tuberculosis. In 1999 his unfinished
manuscript "Wild Fruits," a catalog of his observations on local plants
and fruits, was published.
(WP, 1952, p.42)(SFC, 9/7/99, p.A3)(HN, 5/6/01)
1862 May 15, Arthur Schnitzler,
playwright, novelist (La Ronde), was born in Austria.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1862 Jun 30, Gustave Flaubert
completed "Salammbo."
(MC, 6/30/02)
1862 Jul 4, Charles Dodgson, an
Oxford mathematician whose penname of Lewis Carroll would make him
world famous, told little Alice Liddell on a boat trip the fairy tale
he had dreamed up for her called "Alice's Adventures Underground." He
later wrote it out for her and it became the classic children's tale,
"Alice in Wonderland."
(IB, 12/7/98)
1862 Aug 29, P.M.B. Maurice
Maeterlinck, Belgium, poet (Blue Bird, Nobel 1911), was born.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1862 Sep 11, O. Henry was born.
This was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, short story writer, who
wrote “The Gift of the Magi,” and “The Last Leaf.” The name was taken
from a French chemist, Ossian Henry, that he noticed while working at a
pharmacy.
(HN, 9/11/98)(SFEC, 9/3/00, Z1 p.2)
1862 Oct 4, Edward Stratemeyer,
author, was born. He created the Hardy Boys, Rover Boys, Nancy Drew and
the Bobbsey Twins. The first series of books written/produced by
Stratemeyer was The Rover Boys, written under the pseudonym of Arthur
M. Winfield. There were 30 volumes, written between 1899 and 1926. The
Bobbsey Twins series (Laura Lee Hope) was next, and is the oldest
"surviving" series, extending to 72 volumes, written between 1904 and
1979. Tom Swift, attributed to Victor Appleton, began in 1910 and there
were 40 volumes before the series ended in 1941. (There was also a Tom
Swift, Jr. series, by Victor Appleton II.) The Hardy Boys (Franklin W.
Dixon, 85 volumes from 1927 to 1985) and Nancy Drew (Carolyn Keene, 78
volumes from 1930 to 1985) are the other best-known Stratemeyer books.
(HN,
10/4/00)(http://pw2.netcom.com/~drmike99/aboutbobbsey.html)
1862 Victor Hugo published "Les
Miserables." The novel covers events in France from 1815 to 1833. In
2004 Mario Vargas Llosa authored his book-length Spanish essay: “The
Temptation of the Impossible: Victor Hugo and ‘Les Miserables.’ The
English translation came out in 2007.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A17)(SFC, 6/30/07, p.E2)
1863 Feb 3, Samuel Clemens became
Mark Twain for 1st time. In Nevada the Territorial Enterprise in
Comstock printed some humorous letters from a reader named “Josh.” The
editor hired the man, who was Samuel Clemens, for $25 a week. Clemens
accepted and changed his pen name to Mark Twain. Sam had dropped the
penname "Josh" and first signed himself "Mark Twain" in a letter
written on January 31, 1863. The Territorial Enterprise published the
letter in its Tuesday, February 3, 1863 issue
(http://www.twainquotes.com/18630203t.html).
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1863 Jul 10, Clement Clarke Moore
(83), (alleged author of "'Twas the Night Before Xmas"), died in NYC.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1863 Jules Verne (1828-1905)
authored his novel “Five Weeks in a Balloon.” This was his first
published book.
(WSJ, 9/18/07, p.D8)
1864 May 19, Nathaniel Hawthorne
(b.1804), US writer (Scarlet Letter), died in Plymouth, New Hampshire.
Friend and former US Pres. Franklin Pierce was at his bedside. In 2003
Brenda Wineapple authored "Hawthorne: A Life."
(MC, 5/19/02)(http://www.gradesaver.com/)(SSFC,
10/5/03, p.M1)
1864 Henry David Thoreau authored
“The Maine Woods” (1864), based on 3 previous visits to Maine in 1846,
1853 and 1857.
(SSFC, 7/29/07,
p.G8)(http://thoreau.eserver.org/mewoods.html)
1865 Jul 4, 1st edition of "Alice
in Wonderland" was published. English mathematician Charles Lutwidge
Dodgson is best known for writing the children’s book Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland under the pen name Lewis Carroll. Born in
1832, also a skilled portrait photographer, Dodgson pioneered in the
art of photographing children.
(SFEM, 11/24/96, p.59)(HNQ, 6/12/98)(Maggio, 98)
1865 Sep 23, Emmuska Orczy
(d.1947), baroness and writer, was born in Tarnaors, Hungary. Her
family moved to London in 1880. Her books included "The Scarlet
Pimpernel" (1905).
(HN,
9/23/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroness_Orczy)
1865 The Dante Club formed in
Boston to help Henry Wadsworth Longfellow complete the 1st top-notch
English translation of Dante’s "Inferno."
(SSFC, 2/2/03, p.M6)
1866 Jul 28, Beatrix Potter
(d.1943), English author of children's stories (The Tale of Peter
Rabbit), was born.
(HN, 7/28/98)
1866 Aug 12, Jacinto Benavente y
Martinez, Spanish dramatist (Nobel 1922), was born.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1866 Sep 8, Siegfried Sassoon,
British author and poet famous for his anti-war writing about World War
I, was born. His work included “Counterattack.”
(HN, 9/8/98)(MC, 9/8/01)
1866 Sep 21, H.G. Wells (b.1946),
science fiction writer best known for "The Time Machine," "The
Invisible Man" and "The War of the Worlds," was born in Bromley, Kent,
England
(HN, 9/21/98)(www.online-literature.com/wellshg/)
1867 Feb 7, Laura Ingalls Wilder,
author, was born. She wrote "Little House in the Big Woods" which was
basis for television's "Little House on the Prairie."
(HN, 2/7/99)
1867 Apr 10, A.E. (George William
Russell), Irish poet and mystic, was born.
(HN, 4/10/01)
1867 May 27, Arnold Bennett
(d.1931), English novelist, playwright and critic, was born. His books
included “Riceyman Steps” (1923) in which he probes the unsettling and
symbolic depths of a marriage that becomes too close.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Bennett)
1867 Aug 12, Edith Hamilton, US
writer (Mythology), was born.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1867 Aug 14, John Galsworthy
(d.1933), English novelist and dramatist (Forsyth Saga, Nobel 1932),
was born in England. He was reported to have thrown a brick through a
glass window in order to be arrested so that he could have time to
write. His play "Justice" was the result of this experience.
(WUD, 1994, p.581)(SFC, 12/5/98, p.E4)(MC, 8/14/02)
1867 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)
authored “Phineas Finn,” the 2nd of his 6 Palliser novels, which
chronicled political life in Victorian England.
(WSJ, 8/18/07, p.P14)
1867 Mark Twain was commissioned
to report on the voyage of the steamship Quaker City, which sailed for
the Middle East. In 1869 he authored “The Innocents Abroad,” an account
of his observations.
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.P8)
1868 Mar 16(OS), Maxim Gorkei
(Aleksvey Maksimovich Pyeshkov [aka Gorky], d.1936], Russian dramatist,
was born. "A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man
must have brains." [see Mar 28]
(WUD, 1994 p.611)(HN, 3/16/98)(AP, 2/23/01)
1868 Mar 28(NS), Maxim Gorki,
Russian writer, was born. [see Mar 16]
(HN, 3/28/98)
1868 Apr 26, Robert Herrick, US
writer (Common lot), was born.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1868 May 6, Gaston Leroux, French
novelist (The Phantom of the Opera), was born.
(HN, 5/6/01)
1868 Aug 23, Edgar Lee Masters
(d.1950), poet, novelist, was born in Garnett, Kansas.
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/3088)
1868 Louisa May Alcott (d.1888)
authored "Little Women," while living in Concord, Mass. In 1998 "Little
Women" premiered in Houston as an opera by Mark Adomo.
(WSJ, 8/29/01, p.A12)(SSFC, 9/18/05, p.E2)
1869 Jul 29, Booth Tarkington
(d.1946), US dramatist and novelist (17, Magnificent Ambersons), was
born. "Mystics always hope that science will some day overtake them."
(AP, 1/31/00)(MC, 7/29/02)
1870 Jan 9, Alexander Herzen
(b.1812), Russian author, died in France. In 1961 US Prof. Martin Malia
(1924-2004) authored “Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian
Socialism (1812-1855).
(www.bookrags.com/biography/aleksandr-ivanovich-herzen/)(SFC, 11/24/04,
p.B6)
1870 Mar 5, Frank Norris, novelist
(McTeague, The Octopus), was born.
(HN, 3/5/01)
1870 Jun 9, Charles Dickens (58),
writer, died in Gad’s Hill, England. His work included the book
"Pictures from Italy."
(www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/CD-Chro.html)(AP,
6/9/07)
1870 Jul 27, Hilaire Belloc,
French writer (Cautionary Tales), was born.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1871 Mar 26, Serafín
Alvarez Quintéro, Spanish dramatist, playwright (El Flechazo),
was born.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1871 Mar 27, Heinrich Mann,
Germany, novelist, essayist (Blue Angel); brother of Thomas Mann, was
born.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1871 Jul 10, Marcel Proust
(d.1922), French novelist was born. His masterpiece was "Remembrance of
Things Past." In 1998 it was turned into a comic book series. In 1999
Edmund White published the biography "Marcel Proust" for the Penguin
Lives series. "We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to
the full."
(SFC, 9/16/98, p.A10)(SFEC, 2/7/99, Par p.14)(AP,
8/2/99)(HN, 7/10/01)
1871 Aug 3, Vernon Louis
Parrington, critic, educator, author (Pulitzer 1928), was born.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1871 Aug 27, Theodore Dreiser
(d.1945), American novelist (Sister Carrie, American Tragedy), was
born. "Our civilization is still in a middle stage, no longer wholly
guided by instinct, not yet wholly guided by reason."
(AP, 1/4/00)(HN, 8/27/00)
1871-1872 George Eliot (1819-1880), English writer
born as Mary Ann Evans, published her novel "Middlemarch" in 8 parts.
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.P8)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gelliot.htm)
1872 Aug 24, Max Beerbohm
(d.1956), critic, caricaturist, writer, wit (Saturday Review), was born
in England. His work included "Nobody ever died of laughter."
(AP, 4/9/97)(MC, 8/24/02)
1872 Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897),
French novelist, authored “Tartarin of Tarascon,” the comic story of a
big-hearted braggart.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.W7)
1872 Fyodor Dostoevsky
(1821-1881), Russian author, completed his novel “The Possessed,” also
known as “Besy” or “The Devils.” In it he foresaw political terrorism
on the eve of its birth among revolutionary groups.
(WSJ, 1/28/06, p.P12)
1872 Mark Twain’s "Roughing It"
was published. It chronicles the night he and 2 friends spent in a
blizzard only 15 steps from the Desert Wells Trading Station in Nevada.
(SFEM, 9/15/96, p.24)(AM, Jul/Aug '97
p.19)(http://tinyurl.com/2wvbxd)
1873 Mar 10, Jakob Wassermann
(d.1934), novelist (My Life as German & Jew), was born in Germany.
"In every person, even in such as appear most reckless, there is an
inherent desire to attain balance."
(AP, 3/25/97)(MC, 3/10/02)
1873
Apr 1, Mehmed Kemals play "Vatan" premiered in
Constantinople.
(OTD)
1873 Apr 22, Ellen Glassgow,
American novelist, was born.
(HN, 4/22/01)
1873 Apr 25, Howard R. Garis,
children's writer, was born.
(HN, 4/25/01)
1873 Apr 25, Walther de la Mare,
poet and novelist (Memoir of a Midget, Come Hither), was born.
(HN, 4/25/01)
1873 Apr 28, A. Manzoni (88),
writer, died. Giuseppi Verdi dedicated his "Requiem" to his memory.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1873 Mark Twain and Charles Dudley
Warner authored “The Gilded Age,” a novel set in the scandalous Grant
administration.
(WSJ, 9/16/06, p.P10)
1874 Jan, 25, The birthday of
Somerset Maugham (d.1965), English author and playwright.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AHD, p.807)
1874 Mar 26, Robert Frost, poet
(d.1963), was born in San Francisco. Robert Lee Frost, American poet.
In a biography of Frost by Jeffrey Myers: "Robert Frost: A Biography,"
the author claims that Frost moved his birthday up a year to make
himself legitimate. A 3-volume biography by Lawrence Thompson was
completed in 1976. Myers reveals that Frost’s lover, Kay Morrison, was
also involved with Lawrence Thompson, but that that would not be
disclosed in the Thompson biography. "Before I built a wall I'd ask to
know What I was walling in or walling out." [see Mar 26, 1875]
(WUD, 1994, p.571)(HN, 3/25/98)(AP, 3/26/97)(AP,
11/9/98)
1874 May 29, G.K. Chesterton
(d.1936), English poet-essayist, was born. "Every man is dangerous who
only cares for one thing."
(AP, 8/4/99)(HN, 5/29/01)
1874 Jul 12, Start of Sherlock
Holmes Adventure, "Gloria Scott."
(MC, 7/12/02)
1875 Mar 26, Poet Robert Frost was
born in San Francisco. [see Mar 26, 1874]
(AP, 3/26/97)
1875 Apr 1, Edgar Wallace,
novelist, playwright, journalist (Terror), was born in England.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1875 Aug 4, Hans Christian
Andersen (b.1805), Danish fairy tale writer, died. Over his life he
wrote 156 fairy tales as well as numerous novels and travel books. His
biography was later written by Elias Bredsdorff (d.2002 at 90).
(SFC, 8/23/02, p.A27)(ON, 7/06, p.8)
1875 Aug 26, John Buchan (d.1940),
Lord Tweedsmuir, was born in Perth, Scotland. He became a writer and
governor general of Canada (1935), and was famous for his spy story
"The Thirty-Nine Steps" (1915). "There may be Peace without Joy, and
Joy without Peace, but the two combined make Happiness."
(HN, 8/26/99)(WSJ, 12/9/06, p.P12)(AP, 1/7/98)
1875 Sep 1, Edgar Rice Burroughs,
novelist, was born. He created Tarzan, the Ape Man.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1875 Anthony Trollope authored
“The Way We Live Now,” a scathing satirical novel published in London.
It was regarded by many of Trollope's contemporaries as his finest
work. The story includes the description of a great railroad stock
swindle by Augustus Melmotte, a foreign-born financier with a
mysterious past.
(Econ, 4/25/09,
p.88)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_We_Live_Now)
1876 Apr 22, O.E. Rolvaag,
novelist (Giants in the Earth), was born.
(HN, 4/22/01)
1876 Jun 8, French author George
Sand (b.1804 as Lucile Aurore Dupin Dudevant) died in Nohant, France.
In 1975 Curtis Cate published the biography: "George Sand." French
author. In 1993 Francis Steegmuller and Barbara Bray published their
translation of correspondence between Flaubert and Sand. In 2000
Belinda Jack authored "George Sand: A Woman’s Life Writ Large." "I
would rather believe that God did not exist than believe that He was
indifferent."
(AP, 6/8/00)(AP, 10/17/98)(SFEC, 8/27/00, BR
p.5)(WSJ, 5/12/07, p.P10)
1876 Aug 12, Mary Roberts
Rinehart, mystery writer (Miss Pinkerton), was born.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1876 Sep 13, Sherwood Anderson
(d.1941), author, poet and publisher (Winesburg), was born in
Winesburg, Ohio. "Sometimes I think we Americans are the loneliest
people in the world. To be sure, we hunger for the power of affection,
the self-acceptance that gives life. It is the oldest and strongest
hunger in the world. But hungering is not enough."
(AP, 9/28/00)(MC, 9/13/01)
1876 George Eliot (1819-1880),
Englishwoman writer, authored “Daniel Deronda,” the story of man who
discovers his Jewish origins.
(WSJ, 9/22/07, p.W6)
1876 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)
authored “The Prime Minister,” the 5th of a sextet of novels known as
“The Pallisers.” It offered sharp insights on power, sex, love and
money.
(WSJ, 8/26/06, p.P8 )
1876 Emile Zola wrote
"L’Assommoir" and gave voice to Parisian slum-dwellers. In the novel he
imitated their vulgar slang.
(WSJ, 8/1/96 p.A13)
1877 Mar 25, Alphonse de
Chateaubriand, French writer (Instantanes aux Pays-Bas), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1877 Apr 30, Alice B. Toklas
(d.1967), expatriate American, was born. She was associated with
Gertrude Stein, who wrote "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas"
(1933).
(HN,
4/30/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_B._Toklas)
1877 Jul 2, Herman Hesse (d.1962),
German philosopher poet and author, was born in Switzerland. His work
included "Steppenwolf" and he won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1946.
(HN, 7/2/99)(WUD, 1994, p.666)(SC, 7/2/02)
1878 Apr 1, Carl Sternheim, German
playwright (Hyperion, Tabula Rasa), was born.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1878 Jul 29, Don Marquis (d.1937),
American dramatist, journalist, novelist and poet, was born. "The
trouble with the public is that there is too much of it."
(AP, 7/31/99)(HN, 7/29/01)
1879 Edmond de Goncourt published
his French novel "Les Freres Zemganno."
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.75)
1879 Robert Louis Stevenson
(1850-1894), the future author of "The Amateur Emigrant" and other
works, authored “Travels with a Donkey.” It covered 12 days spent
trekking in the Cevennes Mountains in France with the donkey,
Celestine. He embarked this year on a 6,000-mile journey from his
native Scotland to see his ailing-and married-lover in California.
Stevenson, the author of "Treasure Island," must have realized the
recklessness of this venture. There was no guarantee that the object of
his affection-Frances (Fanny) Vandegrift Osbourne, would abandon her
comfortable life and run off with the then-little-known author. Yet he
seemed compelled to make the appeal, telling a friend that "No man is
of any use until he has dared everything." The pair married on May 19,
1880.
(HNQ, 9/6/98)(WSJ, 9/23/06, p.P8)
1880 Mar 30, Sean O'Casey (d.
1964), Irish playwright, was born. "It is my rule never to lose me
temper till it would be detrimental to keep it."
(AP, 3/17/00)(HN, 3/30/01)
1880 May 8, Gustave Flaubert
(b.1821), French novelist, died. He revealed in painful detail the
small foibles of a bourgeois life and believed in perfection of form
and the absolute value of art. His work included "Madam Bovary,"
"Salammbo" and "A Simple Heart." "Our ignorance of history causes us to
slander our own times." In 2006 Frederick Brown authored “Flaubert : A
Biography.”
(V.D.-H.K.p.278)(AP, 6/19/99)(HN, 12/12/99)(WSJ,
4/15/06, p.P8)
1880 Sep 12, H.L. Mencken (Henry
Louis Mencken, d.1956), American author, social satirist, was born in
Baltimore, Md. He worked for the "Baltimore Sun" and later edited the
"Smart Set" magazine with George Jean Nathan. He wrote a philological
work entitled "The American Language." Nietzschean iconoclast H.L.
Mencken referred to "Boobus Americanus" and was cynical about American
democracy. Mencken won fame as a journalist with the Baltimore Morning
Herald and Baltimore Sun, editor of The American Mercury magazine and
as a literary critic. Mencken's criticism was often directed at the
American middle class and members of what he called...the "boobeoisie
(BOOB-WA-ZEE)." Very popular in the post-WWI period, Mencken’s literary
criticism was instrumental in bringing writers such as D.H. Lawrence,
Ford Madox Ford and Sherwood Anderson to the fore.
(AP, 9/12/97)(HNQ, 6/20/98)(HN,
9/12/98)(www.todayinliterature.com)
1880 Nov 25, Leonard Sidney Woolf
(d.1969), English publisher, writer, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Woolf)
1880 Henry James, American writer,
authored his novel “Washington Square,” in which he depicts the insular
world of his NYC childhood.
(WSJ, 4/19/08, p.W8)
1881 Mar 23, Roger Martin du
Guard, French novelist (Les Thibault-Nobel 1937), was born.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1881 Apr 19, Benjamin Disraeli,
1st Earl of Beaconsfield, British PM (1868, 1874-1880), novelist, died.
(WUD, 1994
p.415)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Disraeli)
1881 Jul 22, Margery Williams
Bianco, author (The Velveteen Rabbit), was born.
(HN, 7/22/02)
1882 Mar 24, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow (b.1807), US poet (Song of Hiawatha), died. He is the sole
American honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.
In 2000 J.D. McClatchy edited "Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings."
(WSJ, 10/31/00, p.A24)(MC, 3/24/02)
1882 Apr 27, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
US poet, philosopher, author, essayist, died. He was one of the
original members of the Transcendental Club with Thoreau and Orestes
Brownson.
(HNQ, 6/14/98)(WSJ, 5/28/99, p.W11)(MC, 4/27/02)
1882 May 20, Sigrid Undset,
Norwegian novelist (Kristin Lavransdatter), was born.
(HN, 5/20/01)
1882 Jul 1, Susan Glaspell
(d.1948), novelist and playwright, author of "Alison’s House," was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.600)(HN, 7/1/98)
1882 Oct 19, Vincas Kreve
(d.1954), Lithuanian writer and poet, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincas_Kr%C4%97v%C4%97-Mickevi%C4%8Dius)
1882 Friedrich Nietzsche authored
“Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft” (The Gay Science), in which he
pronounced the death of God.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/nietzsch.htm)
1883 Apr 24, Jaroslav Hasek, Czech
writer (Brave soldier Schweik), was born.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1883 Jul 3, Franz Kafka (d.1924),
Czech novelist, author of "The Metamorphosis," was born in Prague. "The
Castle" and "The Trial," were both published after his death. He died
of tuberculosis.
(V.D.-H.K.p.367-368)(WSJ, 10/10/96, p.A1)(WSJ,
3/14/97, p.A11)(HN, 7/3/98)
1883 Sep 3, Ivan Turgenev
(b.1818), Russian writer, died in France. In 1977 V.S. Pritchett
authored the biography “The Gentle Barbarian: The Life and Work of
Turgenev.” In 2005 Robert Dessaiz authored “Twilight of Love: Travels
With Turgenev,” an exploration of Turgenev’s work.
(www.nndb.com/people/697/000055532/)(SSFC, 9/18/05,
p.F2)
1883 Arthur Conan Doyle published
his short story "The Captain of the Pole-Star."
(PacDisc. Spring/’96, p.18)
1883 Mary Hallock Foote (b1847),
American author and illustrator, published her first novel: “Led-Horse
Claim: A Romance of a Mining Camp,” written while living in Leadville,
Colo.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Hallock_Foote)
1883 Frederick Spencer Oliver in
Yreka, Ca., authored "Dweller on Two Planets," an occult classic that
told the story of the Lemurians, an ancient race who abandoned their
Atlantis-like continent, when it sank beneath the Pacific Ocean, and
formed a mystical brotherhood inside Mount Shasta.
(SSFC, 10/12/02, p.C5)
1884 Jun 19, Juan Bautista Alberdi
(b.1810), Argentine politician, writer, died in Paris. His writings
inspired Argentina’s 1853 constitution.
(www.taringa.net/posts/21963/Juan-B.-Alberdi---El-Gran-Pensador.html)(Econ,
3/10/07, p.35)
1884 Aug 12, Frank Swinnerton,
novelist (Summer Storm, Sanctuary), was born in England.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1884 Aug 16, Hugo Gernsback
(d.1967), sci-fi writer, publisher (1960 Hugo), was born in Luxembourg.
(www.nndb.com/people/381/000045246/)
1884 Aug 26, Earl Biggers, author
("Charlie Chan" detective series), was born.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1884 Henry James (1843-1916) wrote
his novella “The Author of Beltraffio.”
(WSJ, 7/8/06, p.P8)
1884 Mark Twain published his
classic “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
(WSJ, 12/2/06, p.P8)
1885 Feb 7, Sinclair Lewis
(d.1951), American novelist of satire and realism, was born in Sauk
Centre, Minnesota. His books include "Arrowsmith" and "Elmer Gantry."
"There are two insults which no human will endure: the assertion that
he hasn’t a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that
he has never known trouble." "Winter is not a season, it's an
occupation."
(AP, 6/26/98)(AP, 12/22/99)(HNQ, 5/18/98)(HN, 2/7/99)
1885 Mar 6, Ring Lardner (d.1933),
American humorist and writer, was born. His books included You
Know Me Al (1916). "The family you come from isn't as important as the
family you're going to have."
(AP, 5/14/99)(HN, 3/6/01)(WSJ, 12/2/06, p.P8)
1885 Mar 31, Madame Blavatsky was
hoisted in an invalid chair onto a steamer in the Madras harbor of
India and departed for London. In England she wrote "The Secret
Doctrine" and had as guests to her salon William Butler Yeats, Annie
Besant and the young Mohandas K. Gandhi.
(Smith., 5/95, p.127)
1885 Apr 17, Karen Blixen-Finecke
(Isak Dinesen, d.1962), Danish writer (Out of Africa), was born. "God
made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the
road."
(AP, 9/15/00)(HN, 4/17/01)(MC, 4/17/02)
1885 May 22, Victor-Marie Hugo
(b.1802), French novelist (Les Miserables) and poet, died. In 1998
Graham Robb published the biography: "Victor Hugo." Hugo also did a
number of drawings, later appreciated by Andre Breton and Max Ernst,
and in 1914 Henri Focillon published the first critical study of them.
In 1998 Pierre Georgel and Marie-Laure Prevost published "Shadows of a
Hand: The Drawings of Victor Hugo."
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A16)(HN, 2/26/98)(SFEC, 5/31/98, BR
p.4)(MC, 5/22/02)
1885 Jun 26, Andre Maurois
(d.1967), French writer (Balzac), was born as Émile Herzog.
"Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy man has no time
to form."
(AP, 7/6/00)(MC, 6/26/02)
1885 Aug 31, Duboise Heyward,
novelist, poet and dramatist best know for "Porgy" which was the basis
for the opera "Porgy and Bess," was born.
(HN, 8/31/98)
1885 Sep 11, D.H. Laurence (David
Herbert Lawrence d.1930), English novelist, author of “Lady
Chatterley's Lover” and “Sons and Lovers,” was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.812)(HN, 9/11/98)
1885 Thomas Hardy, English writer,
built his own home, Max Gate, outside Dorchester on the Wareham Road.
It was here that he wrote "Tess of the D’Ubbervilles" and "Jude the
Obscure."
(SFC, 12/4/94, p.T-4)
1885 William Dean Howells authored
his novel “The Rise of Silas Lapham,” about a self-made industrialist,
who slips from the high rung of success just as he attempts to enter
the exclusive precincts of Boston’s elite.
(WSJ, 3/15/08, p.W10)
1885 Helen Hunt Jackson (b.1830),
author and social reformer, died. Her books included "Ramona" (1984).
In 2003 Kate Phillips authored Helen Hunt Jackson: A Literary Life."
(SFEC, 12/20/98, BR p.5)(SFC, 4/19/03, p.D4)
1885 Emile Zola (1840-1902)
authored his novel “Germinal,” a fictional account of a French mining
strike. It was the 13th novel in Zola's 20-volume series Les
Rougon-Macquart.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germinal_%28novel%29)(WSJ, 10/7/97, p.A20)
1886 May 15, Poet Emily Dickinson
(b.1830) died in Amherst, Mass., where she had lived in seclusion for
the previous 24 years. In 2001 Alfred Habegger authored her biography:
"My Wars Are laid Away in Books."
(AP, 5/15/97)(HN, 5/15/01)(WSJ, 11/2/01, p.W11)
1886 Sep 13, Alain Locke, writer
and first African-American Rhodes scholar, was born.
(HN, 9/13/98)
1886 Thomas Hardy, English writer,
authored "The Mayor of Casterbridge."
(SFC, 8/16/03, p.D1)
1886 Robert Louis Stevenson wrote
"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Kidnapped." His work
also included "Silverado Squatters" based on his experiences in
Calistoga, Ca. Stevenson used Mount St. Helena and the Palisades for
story scenes in "Treasure Island."
(Article on Calistoga by Cybil McCabe, 7/95)(WSJ,
4/24/98, p.W1)
1886 Jules Verne (1828-1905)
authored his novel “The Clipper of the Clouds.”
(ON, 3/06, p.3)
1886 Emile Zola wrote "The
Masterpiece," the story of an artist in pursuit of his vision. Zola
described the horror felt by much of the general public when presented
with the work of the new Impressionists.
(WSJ, 4/29/06, p.P10)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.85)
1887 Apr 14, Start of Sherlock
Holmes adventure "Reigate Squires."
(MC, 4/14/02)
1887 Aug 15, Edna Ferber (d.1968),
American novelist, short-story writer and playwright (American Beauty,
Cimarron), was born. The "Ice Palace" is a 1950s Ferber novel inspired
by the Northward Building in Fairbanks, Alaska. "There are only two
kinds of people in the world that really count. One kind’s wheat and
the other kind’s emeralds."
(WUD, 1994, p.523)(AP, 3/14/98)(MC, 8/15/02)
1887 Dec 1, Sherlock Holmes 1st
appeared in print: "Study in Scarlet." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first
story about the detective he named Sherlock Holmes was published in
Beeton’s Christmas Annual. It wasn’t until a London magazine called the
Strand began publishing Doyle’s shorter Holmes adventures in 1891
that the detective became a phenomenon. Today hundreds of books,
articles and movies have been devoted to the great detective and his
biographer, Dr. John Watson, at 221b Baker Street, London.
(HNQ, 4/7/01)(ON, 3/06, p.11)
1887 H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925),
English author and poet, wrote his novel "She."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Rider_Haggard)
1888 Mar 5, Friedrich Schnack,
German journalist, writer (Rosewood), was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1888 Mar 6, Louisa May Alcott
(1832) died in Boston just hours after the burial of her father. Her
novels included "Little Women" (1868). In 1998 "Little Women" premiered
in Houston as an opera by Mark Adomo.
(HN, 3/6/01)(WSJ, 8/29/01, p.A12)
1888 Mar 20, Start of the Sherlock
Holmes Adventure, "A Scandal in Bohemia."
(MC, 3/20/02)
1888 Apr 7, Start of Sherlock
Holmes adventure "Yellow Face."
(MC, 4/7/02)
1888 Apr 15, Matthew Arnold (65),
English poet, died.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1888 Apr 30, John Crowe Ransom,
poet and critic, was born.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1888 Jul 17, S.Y. Agnon, Israeli
writer (The Day Before Yesterday), was born.
(HN, 7/17/01)
1888 Jul 23, Raymond Chandler,
writer of detective stories, creator of the character Philip Marlow,
was born.
(HN, 7/23/98)
1889 Mar 19, Sarah Gertrude
Millina, South African writer (The Dark River, God's Stepchildren), was
born.
(HN, 3/19/01)
1889 Jul 5, Jean Cocteau (d.1963),
French artist, writer and actor, was born. "History is a combination of
reality of History becomes a lie. The unreality of the fable becomes
the truth."
(AP, 11/16/00)(HN, 7/5/01)
1889 Jul 17, Erle Stanley Gardner,
writer of detective stories and creator of Perry Mason, was born.
(HN, 7/17/98)
1889 Oscar Wilde wrote his novella
“The Portrait of Mr. W.H.”
(WSJ, 7/8/06, p.P8)
1890 May 5, Christopher Morley
(d.1957), author-journalist (Kitty Foyle), was born. "Religion is an
attempt, a noble attempt, to suggest in human terms more-than-human
realities." "My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated
but not signed." "Truth is not a diet but a condiment."
(HN, 5/5/01)(AP, 11/1697)(AP, 11/25/98)(AP, 1/19/99)
1890 Aug 20, H.P. Lovecraft
(d.1937), author of horror tales, was born in Providence, RI.
(HN, 8/20/98)(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.B1)
1890 Sep 10, Franz Werfel, author
(40 Days of Musa Dagh), was born in Austria.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1890 Daisy Ashford (9) wrote a
novel for her ailing mother titled “The Young Visiters.” Discovered 29
years later, it was turned into a real book and became a British
classic.
(SFC, 11/1/04, p.E1)
1890 Joseph Conrad published "Lord
Jim."
(WSJ, 4/24/98, p.W1)
1890 Arthur Conan Doyle’s 2nd
Sherlock Holmes novel, “The Sign of Four,” was published.
(ON, 3/06, p.11)
1890 William James authored his
2-volume work: “The Principles of Psychology.”
(WSJ, 2/23/08, p.W8)
1890 Leo Tolstoy wrote his novel
"The Kreutzer Sonata."
(WUD, 1994, p.795)
1891 Apr 24, Start of Sherlock
Holmes adventure "Final Problem."
(MC, 4/24/02)
1891 May 4, Sherlock Holmes,
Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective, "died" at Reichenbach Falls.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1891 May 15, Mikhail Bulgakov
(d.1940), Russian novelist (Notes of a Dead Man, Heart of a Dog), was
born.
(HN, 5/15/01)(Econ, 3/13/04, p.86)
1891 May 23, Par Lagerkvist,
Swedish writer (The Dwarf, Barabbas), was born.
(HN, 5/23/01)
1891 Sep 28, Herman Melville
(b.1819), writer (Billy Budd, Moby Dick), died at 72. In 1921 Raymond
Weaver authored a pioneering study of Melville. In 2002 Hershel Parker
authored "Herman Melville: A Biography, Volume 2." In 2005 Andrew
Delbanco authored “Melville: His World and Work.”
(SSFC, 7/14/02, p.M5)(SSFC, 10/2/05, p.F6)(WSJ,
10/6/05, p.D8)
1891 Dec 26, Henry Miller
(d.1980), American writer, was born. His work included "Tropic of
Cancer" and "Tropic of Capricorn". "Until we lose ourselves there is no
hope of finding ourselves." "Like ships, men founder time and again."
(AP, 3/16/97)(AP, 5/2/98)(HN, 12/26/98)
1891 Arthur Conan Doyle’s
historical novel, “The White Company,” was published. It was about the
wartime adventures of a medieval band of English archers.
(ON, 3/06, p.11)
1891 Emile Zola (1840-1902),
French novelist, authored “L’Argent” (Money), the story of a scheming
financier. It was first published a a newspaper serial.
(WSJ, 7/19/08, p.W6)
1892 Mar 9, David Garnett,
novelist, editor (Lady into Fox), was born in England.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1892 Mar 9, Joseph Weinheber,
Austrian poet, writer (Adel und Untergang), was born.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1892 Mar 9, Vita Sackville-West
(d.1962), English poet and writer, was born. "Summer makes a silence
after spring."
(AP, 6/21/97)(HN, 3/9/01)
1892 Mar 13, Janet Flanner, writer
("Letter from Paris"), was born.
(HN, 3/13/01)
1892 Mar 26, Poet Walt Whitman
died in Camden, N.J. In 1997 Gary Schmidgall published the biography:
"Walt Whitman: A Gay Life." It focused on the poet’s homosexuality. In
1999 a critical biography: Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself" by Jerome
Loving was published along with "A Whitman Chronology" by Joann P.
Krieg.
(AP, 3/26/97)(SFEC, 9/14/97, BR p.7)(SFC, 3/3/99,
p.E4)(SFEC, 4/4/99, Par p.15)
1892 Mar 27, Thorne Smith, author
(Topper, Rain in the Doorway, Stray Lamb), was born.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1892 Apr 12, George C.
Blickensderfer patented a portable typewriter.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1892 Apr 25, Maud Hart Lovelace,
children's author, was born.
(HN, 4/25/01)
1892 May 7, Archibald MacLeish,
American poet and statesman, was born.
(HN, 5/7/02)
1892 May 29, Alfonsina Storni,
Argentine poet (La inquietud del rosal), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1892 Jul 1, James M. Cain
(d.1977), fiction writer, was born in Annapolis, Maryland. His work
included "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1934) and "Mildred Pierce."
As a member of the "hard-boiled" school of crime fiction of the 1930s
and 1940s he is often associated with the equally popular writers
Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
(HN, 7/1/98)(iUniv. 7/1/00)
1892 Anatole France wrote his
novella “Le Procurateur de Judee.“
(WSJ, 7/8/06, p.P8)
1893 Mar 18, Wilfred Owen
(d.1918), World War I English poet, was born. He was killed one week
before Armistice Day of WW I. His fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon
published Owen’s single slim volume of poetry.
(NH, 10/98, p.18)(HN, 3/18/01)
1893 Jul 7, Guy de Maupassant
(42), writer, died.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1893 Sep 4, Beatrix Potter
(1866-1943), English author, first told the story of Peter Rabbit in
the form of a "picture letter" to Noel Moore, the son of Potter's
former governess. A 2nd illustrated letter the same month later became
“The Tale of Jeremy Fisher.” The “Tale of Peter Rabbit” was published
in 1901.
(HN, 9/4/00)(AP, 9/4/04)(Econ, 1/6/07, p.67)
1893 Dec, Arthur Conan Doyle’s
Sherlock Holmes story, “The Adventures of the Final Problem,” appeared
in The Strand Magazine. In it Holmes and his archenemy, Prof. Moriarty,
plunged to their death at the Reichenbach Falls.
(ON, 3/06, p.12)
1894 Apr 5, Start of Sherlock
Holmes' "Adventure of Empty House."
(MC, 4/5/02)
1894 May 15, Katherine Anne
Porter (d.1980), American author, was born. She is best remembered for
her book "Ship of Fools." "Love must be learned, and learned again and
again; there is no end to it. Hate needs no instruction, but wants only
to be provoked." "I do not understand the world, but I watch its
progress."
(WUD, 1994 p.1120)(AP, 1/25/98)(AP, 3/4/99)(HN,
5/15/99)
1894 May 25, Dirk Vansina, Flemish
playwright (Verschaeve Gives Evidence), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1894 May 27, (Samuel) Dashiell
Hammett (d.1961), detective writer was born in Maryland. His work
include "The Maltese Falcon," "The Continental Op," and "The Dain
Curse."
(WUD, 1994, p.641)(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A15)(HNPD,
9/24/98)(HN, 5/27/01)
1894 Jul 9, Dorothy Thompson,
journalist, writer and radio commentator, was born.
(HN, 7/9/98)
1894 Jul 26, Aldous L. Huxley
(d.1963), author (Brave New World), was born in Surrey, England. "Most
human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for
granted." "Parodies and caricatures are the most penetrating of
criticisms."
(AP, 7/13/97)(AP, 7/26/98)(MC, 7/26/02)
1894 Sep 13, J.B. Priestley
(d.1984), British novelist and playwright, was born. "The weakness of
American civilization, and perhaps the chief reason why it creates so
much discontent, is that it is so curiously abstract. It is a bloodless
extrapolation of a satisfying life. ... You dine off the advertiser's
'sizzling' and not the meat of the steak."
(AP, 9/13/98)(HN, 9/13/00)
1894 Dec 3, Robert Louis Stevenson
(b.1850), Scottish-American writer, died in Samoa. He was the author of
such works as "Treasure Island," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," "The Master
of Ballantrae," "The Silverado Squatters, "Kidnapped" and "Travels with
a Donkey." In 2005 Clair Harman authored “Robert Louis Stevenson: A
Biography.”
(Smith., 8/95, p.51-58)(AP, 12/3/97)(Econ, 1/29/05,
p.79)
1895 Mar 9, Leopold von
Sacher-Masoch, Austrian writer (Masochism), died.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1895 Mar 31, Vardis A. Fisher, US
author (Darkness & Deep), was born.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1895 Apr 5, Start of Sherlock
Holmes' "Adventure of 3 Students."
(MC, 4/5/02)
1895 Apr 5, Playwright Oscar Wilde
lost his criminal libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, who
had accused the writer of homosexual practices.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1895 Apr 13, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of Solitary Cyclist."
(MC, 4/13/02)
1895 May 8, Edmund Wilson,
American critic and essayist, was born.
(HN, 5/7/02)
1895 May 25, Playwright Oscar
Wilde was convicted of a morals charge in London; he was sentenced to 2
years hard labor.
(AP, 5/25/97)(SC, 5/25/02)
1895 Jul 24, Robert Graves, poet
and novelist (Goodbye to All That, I Claudius), was born.
(HN, 7/24/02)
1895 Aug 20, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of Norwood Builder."
(MC, 8/20/02)
1895 Theodore Fontane (1819-1898),
German novelist and poet, authored Effi Briest, the last of the great
19th-century novels of adultery.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effi_Briest)
1896 Apr 4, Tristan Tzara, [Samuel
Rosenfeld] French poet (Approximate Man), was born.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1896 Jul 1, Harriet Beecher Stowe
(85), US author (Uncle Tom's Cabin), died.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1896 Jul 16, William Hamilton
Gibson, illustrator, author, novelist, died.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1896 Jul 19, A.J. Cronin, Scottish
novelist (The Citadel, The Keys of the Kingdom), was born.
(HN, 7/19/01)
1896 Aug 8, Marjorie Kinnan
Rawlings (d.1953), author of "The Yearling," was born.
(HN, 8/8/00)
1896 Aug 21, Roark Bradford,
writer, humorist (Ol' Man Adan an' His Chillun), was born.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1896 Aug 28, Liam O’Flaherty,
Irish novelist, was born.
(RTH, 8/28/99)
1896 Sep 24, American author F.
Scott Fitzgerald (d.1940) was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. He wrote
about the "Jazz Age" between World War I and World War II. He published
his first novel in 1920, "This Side of Paradise," and gained instant
acclaim and celebrity, marrying Zelda Sayre shortly afterward. In 1924,
Fitzgerald wrote what has become his best-known novel, "The Great
Gatsby." Although it was not especially popular at the time, as more
readers began to appreciate the novel for its perspective of how
materialism drives people, it became an American classic. As years
passed, Fitzgerald battled alcoholism and his wife sought treatment for
her mental illness. He died in Hollywood at age 45 in 1940. "If you're
strong enough, there are no precedents."
(HFA, ‘96, p.38)(AP, 9/24/97)(HNPD, 9/24/98)(HN,
9/24/98)(AP, 8/16/99)
1896 Arthur Conan Doyle published
2 historical novels, “The Exploits of the Brigadier Gerard” and “Rodney
Stone.”
(ON, 3/06, p.12)
1897 Mar 24, Wilhelm Reich
(d.1957), Austrian-US psychoanalyst (character analysis), was born. In
1999 Farrar, Straus & Giroux published: "American Odyssey: Letters
and Journals 1940-1947."
(WUD, 1994, p.1209)(MC, 3/24/02)
1897 Apr 17, Thornton Wilder
(d.1975), novelist and playwright, was born. His work included "Our
Town" and "The Bridge of San Luis Rey."
(HN, 4/17/99)(WSJ, 10/4/08, p.W8)
1897 May 18, A public reading of
Bram Stoker’s new novel, "Dracula, or, The Un-dead," was staged at the
Royal Lyceum Theatre in London, an event that roughly coincided with
the book’s publication.
(WUD, 1994 p.432)(AP, 5/18/97)
1897 Jun 2, Responding to rumors
that he was dying or perhaps even dead, humorist Mark Twain, 61, was
quoted by the New York Journal in London as saying that "the report of
my death was an exaggeration."
(AP, 6/2/97)
1897 Sep 25, William Faulkner
(d.1962), American author, was born in New Albany, Miss. His books were
mostly set in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. and include “The Sound
and The Fury” and “Intruder in the Dust.” "The poet's voice need not
merely be the record of man; it can be one of the props, the pillars to
help him endure and prevail."
(AP, 9/25/97)(HN, 9/25/98)
1897 Alphonse Daudet (b.1840),
French novelist, died. In 2002 Julian Barnes translated writings from
his last 12 years, "In the Land of Pain," in which he conveyed his
thoughts on pain from his tertiary-stage syphilis.
(WUD, 1994 p.369)(WSJ, 1/24/03, p.W9)
1897-1955 Bernard De Voto, American author,
journalist and critic: "History abhors determinism, but cannot tolerate
chance." Determinism refers to the notion that a cause precedes every
event.
(AP, 8/20/97)(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.M5)
1898 Jan 14, Author Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson -- better known as "Alice in Wonderland" creator
Lewis Carroll -- died in Guildford, England. In 2008 Robin Wilson
authored “Lewis Carroll in Numberland: His Fantastical Mathematical
Logical Life.”
(AP, 1/14/98)(Econ, 7/5/08, p.93)
1898 Jan, Henry James (1843-1916),
England-born US novelist, writer and critic, published his novella "The
Turn of the Screw."
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.C1)(WSJ, 10/25/08, p.W8)
1898 Apr 28, William Soutar,
Scottish poet, was born.
(HN, 4/28/01)
1898 May 10, Ariel Durant, writer
(Story of Civilization), was born in Proskurov, Russia.
(www.willdurant.com/ariel.htm)
1898 May 18, Juan J. Domenchina,
Spanish poet, interpreter (sombra desterrada), was born.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1898 May 25, Gustav Regler,
writer, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1898 May 28, Edward Bellamy, US
author (Looking Backward), died.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1898 May 31, Norman Vincent Peale
(d1993), American religious leader, was born in Ohio. He later authored
"The Power of Positive Thinking."
(HN, 5/31/01)(MC, 5/31/02)
1898 Jul 8, Alec Waugh (d.1981),
novelist (Island in the Sun); brother of Evelyn, was born in London.
"If we knew where opinion ended and fact began, we should have
discovered, I suppose, the absolute."
(AP, 2/9/00)(MC, 7/8/02)
1898 Sep 20, Theodore Fontane
(b.1819), German novelist and poet, died. He is regarded by many to be
the most important 19th-century German-language realist writer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Fontane)
1898 Mark Twain authored the play
"Is He Dead: A Comedy in Three Parts." It did not get published until
2003.
(SSFC, 5/18/03, p.M2)
1898 H.G. Wells (1866-1946)
published the classic "War of the Worlds." It was about an invasion of
Earth by Martians.
(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A16)
1899 Apr 23, Edith Ngaio Marsh,
Kiwi mystery writer (Black Beech & Honeydew), was born in NZ.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1899 Apr 23, Vladimir Nabokov
(d.1977), writer, was born in Russia. His work included "Lolita,"
"Pnin," and "Pale Fire." He was an avid butterfly collector. "There is
no science without fancy, and no art without facts."
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A5)(WSJ, 4/22/99,
A20)(http://lib.ru/NABOKOW/nabokr.txt)
1899 Jun 7, Elizabeth Bowen
(d.1973), Irish-British novelist and short story writer (The Death of
the Heart), was born in Dublin. "One can live in the shadow of an idea
without grasping it." "The charm, one might say the genius of memory,
is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental: it rejects the edifying
cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a
hunk of melon in the dust."
(AP, 4/19/97)(AP, 8/5/97)(HN, 6/7/01)
1899 Jun 11, Yasonari Kawabata
(d.1972), Japanese novelist (Thousand Cranes)(Nobel 1968), was born in
Osaka.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1899 Jul 11, E. B. White (Elwyn
Brooks White, d.1985), writer, author of "Charlotte's Web" and "The
Elements of Style," was born.
(HN, 7/11/98)(PGA, 12/9/98)(MC, 7/11/02)
1899 Jul 18, Horatio Alger Jr.
(67), American clergyman, author (Disagreeable Woman), died. His books,
reissued in cheaper editions, became huge bestsellers. In 1928 Herbert
Mayes authored a biography that was highly fabricated. In 1985 Gary
Scharnhorst and Jack Bales authored "The Lost Life of Horatio Alger,
Jr."
(WSJ, 8/27/03, p.B1)(MC, 7/18/02)
1899 Jul 21, Ernest Hemingway
(d.1961), American novelist and short-story writer, was born in Oak
Park, Ill. "Never confuse motion with action."
(AP, 7/21/97)(HN, 7/21/98)(AP, 11/21/98)
1899 Aug 27, C.S. Forester (Cecil
Scott Forester), novelist, was born in England. He authored the
"Horatio Hornblower" series.
(HN, 8/27/00)(MC, 8/27/02)
1899 Aug 31, Lynn Riggs, writer,
was born. Her book "Green Grow the Lilacs" was adapted by Rodgers and
Hammerstein to become "Oklahoma."
(HN, 8/31/00)
1899 Dec 9, Jean de Brunhoff
(d.1937), illustrator and author, creator of the Babar series of books,
was born.
(HN, 12/9/00)(SFC, 4/15/03, p.A16)
1899 Horatio Alger (67), writer,
died. His books, reissued in cheaper editions, became huge bestsellers.
In 1928 Herbert Mayes authored a biography that was highly fabricated.
In 1985 Gary Scharnhorst and Jack Bales authored "The Lost Life of
Horatio Alger, Jr."
(WSJ, 8/27/03, p.B1)
1900 Mar 13, George Seferis, Greek
poet, was born.
(HN, 3/13/01)
1900 Apr 19, Richard Hughes,
English novelist and playwright (A High Wind in Jamaica), was born.
(HN, 4/1901)
1900 Apr 24, Elizabeth Goudge,
English author, was born.
(HN, 4/24/01)
1900 May 13, Jos Panhuysen, author
(Pornographer), was born.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1900 Jun 5, Stephen Crane (28),
author (Red Badge of Courage), died.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1900 Jul 24, Zelda Sayre, writer
(Save me the Waltz) was born.
(HN, 7/24/02)
1900 Jul 29, Owen Lattimore,
writer, was born.
(HN, 7/29/01)
1900 Aug 3, Ernie Pyle (d.1945),
World War II correspondent who wrote about the common soldier, was
born. "One of the paradoxes of war is that those in the rear want to
get up into the fight, while those in the lines want to get out."
(HN, 8/3/98)(AP, 4/18/99)
1900 Sep 7, Taylor Caldwell,
novelist, was born.
(HN, 9/7/00)
1900 Sep 9, James Hilton, British
novelist who authored "Lost Horizon" and "Goodbye Mr. Chips," was born.
In Lost Horizon he created the imaginary world of "Shangri-La.”
(HN, 9/9/98)
1900 Nov 30, Irish author Oscar
Wilde (b.1856) died in a Paris hotel room after saying of the room's
wallpaper: "One of us had to go." In 2000 “the Complete Letters of
Oscar Wilde,” edited by Merlin Holland, Wilde’s grandson, was published
(V.D.-H.K.p.279)(AP, 11/30/97)(HN, 11/30/00)(SFC,
12/1/00, p.C12)
1901 Apr 5, Chester Bowles,
ambassador, writer (Conscience of a Liberal), was born in Mass.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1901 Apr 11, Glenway Wescott,
writer, was born.
(HN, 4/11/01)
1901 Aug, Arthur Conan Doyle
published the 1st installment of his book "Hound of the Baskervilles"
in The Strand Magazine. It was later reported that he had stolen the
idea for the novel from his friend Bertram Fletcher Robinson. A 1st
edition copy with dust jacket sold at auction for $131,541 in 1998.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W14)(WSJ, 9/20/00, p.A24)(ON,
3/06, p.12)
1902 Feb 1, Langston Hughes
(d.1967), African-American poet. was born. (author: Way Down South)
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)(HN, 2/1/99)
1902 Apr 23, Halldór
Laxness, Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic novelist (The Fish Can Sing,
Paradise Reclaimed), was born.
(HN, 4/23/01)
1902 Apr 28, Johan Borgen,
Norwegian novelist, was born.
(HN, 4/28/01)
1902 May 5, Bret Harte, American
writer (b.1836), died in England. In 2000 Axel Nissen authored "Bret
Harte: Prince and Pauper."
(WUD, 1994, p.648)(SFEC, 9/3/00, BR p.6)(MC, 5/5/02)
1902 May 6, Harry Golden, Jewish
humorist, writer (2 Cents Plain, Only in America), was born.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 May 6, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place."
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 May 10, Joachim Prinz,
author, Rabbi of Berlin (1926-37), was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1902 Jul 1, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax."
(MC, 7/1/02)
1902 Jul 17, Christina E. Stead,
novelist and screenwriter who wrote "The Man Who Loved Women," was born.
(HN, 7/17/98)
1902 Jul 18, Jessamyn West,
American author (The Friendly Persuasion), was born.
(HN, 7/18/01)
1902 Jul 28, Kenneth Fearing, poet
and novelist (The Big Clock), was born.
(HN, 7/28/01)
1902 Aug 31, Mathilde Wesendonk
(73), German author and poetess, died.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1902 J.M. Barrie featured Peter
Pan as a minor character in his book “The Little White Bird.”
(USAT, 9/2/04, p.2D)
1902 Arthur Conan Doyle was
knighted by King Edward VII for his work in South Africa as a physician
in a field hospital and his scholarly book about the Boer War.
(ON, 3/06, p.12)
1902 Owen Wister (1860-1938)
authored "The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains." In 1929 Paramount
adopted it into a movie with Walter Huston and Gary Cooper. A TV series
began in 1962.
(AH, 10/02, p.18)
1903 Apr 15, Erich Arendt, writer,
was born.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1903 May 26, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of 3 Gables."
(MC, 5/26/02)
1903 Jun 25, George Orwell
(d.1950), English novelist, essayist and critic, was born in India as
Eric Arthur Blair. He took his pen name in 1932. His books included
"Animal Farm" (1945) and "1984" (1949), which attacked totalitarianism.
"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one
that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
(HN, 6/25/99)(AP,
9/23/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell)
1903 Jul 14, Irving Stone,
biographical novelist, was born.
(HN, 7/14/01)
1903 Aug 19, James Gould Cozzens
(d.1978), US novelist, was born in Chicago. His novels included
"Farewell to Cuba" and "Guard of Honor" for which he won a 1949
Pulitzer.
(MC, 8/19/02)(Internet)
1903 Henry James (1843-1916),
England-born US novelist, writer and critic, authored his novel “the
Ambassadors.”
(WSJ, 10/25/08, p.W8)
1904 Feb 27, James T. Farrell
(d.1979), author (Young Lonigan), was born. In 2004 Robert K. Landers
authored "The Life and Times of James T. Farrell."
(HN, 2/27/01)(SFC, 2/26/04, p.E1)
1904 Mar 26, Joseph Campbell,
mythologist (Mythic Image), was born.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1904 Apr 27, Cecil Day-Lewis,
Irish poet, father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis, was born.
(HN, 4/27/01)
1904 Jul 14, Isaac Singer (1991),
Polish-born American author (Enemies-Nobel 1978), was born. "God is the
sum of all possibilities." "When you betray somebody else, you also
betray yourself."
(AP, 3/30/97)(AP, 6/4/99)(HN, 7/14/01)(MC, 7/14/02)
1904 Jul 15, Anton Pavlovich
Chekhov (44), Russian writer (Uncle Vanya), died of tuberculosis.
Chekhov wrote his play "The Cherry Orchard" in this year. In 1998
Donald Rayfield published "Anton Chekhov: A Life." An assay of his
plays was written by Maurice Vallency: "The Breaking string." Vladimir
Nabokov examined his short stories in "Lectures on Russian Literature."
In 1988 V.S. Pritchett wrote a biography. In 1998 Philip Callow
published "Chekhov: The Hidden Ground," and Donald Rayfield published
"Anton Chekhov: A Life." In 1999 Peter Constantine translated and
published "Undiscovered Chekhov: Thirty-Eight New Stories."
(WUD, 1994, p.252)(WSJ, 11/5/97, p.A20)(WSJ, 3/9/98,
p.A16)(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.8)(SFEC, 2/14/99, BR p.6)(MC, 7/15/02)
1904 Sep 26, Lafcadio Hearn
(b.1850), Greece-born, Irish-American travel writer, died in Japan. He
moved to Japan in 1890 and is especially well-known for his collections
of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as “Kwaidan: Stories and
Studies of Strange Things” (1904). In 2009 Christopher Benfey edited
“Lafcadio Hearn: American Writings.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafcadio_Hearn)
1904 Oct 2, Graham Greene
(d.1991), British author, was born. His work included "The Power and
the Glory," "The Heart of the Matter" and "Ministry of Fear," which was
made into a 1940s movie by Fritz Lang. "I didn't invent the world I
write about- it's all true." In 2004 Norman Sherry concluded his
3-volume biography: “The Life of Graham Greene.”
(SFEC,10/26/97, DB p.44)(AP, 4/3/00)(HN,
10/2/00)(SFC, 10/2/04, p.E1)
1904 Ida Tarbell (1857-1944),
journalist, published the 2-volume "History of the Standard Oil
Company." It revealed the illegal means used by John D. Rockefeller to
gain a monopoly and control oil prices and began as a series in
McClure's Magazine in 1902. This led to a federal investigation and the
1911 order by the Supreme Court for the breakup of Standard Oil.
(WSJ, 12/15/98, p.B1)(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.R4)(HNQ,
6/22/00)
1905 Jan 31, John O'Hara, novelist
(Appointment at Samarra), was born in Pottsville, Penn.
(SSFC, 8/31/03, p.M2)
1905 Mar 9, Rex Warner, English
poet, writer (Wild Goose Chase), was born.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1905 Mar 24, Jules Verne (b.1828),
French sci-fi author (Around the World in 80 Days), died in Amiens.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/verne.htm)
1905 Apr 19, Tom Hopkinson,
British writer, was born.
(HN, 4/1901)
1905 Apr 24, Robert Penn Warren,
first U.S. poet laureate, was born.
(HN, 4/24/98)
1905 May 24, Mikhail Sholokhov,
Russian novelist (And Quiet Flows the Don), was born. He won a Nobel
Prize in 1965.
(HN, 5/24/01)(MC, 5/24/02)
1905 Jul 4, Lionel Trilling
(d.1975), literary critic and educator, was born. His work included
"The Liberal Imagination" and "Sincerity and Authenticity." He wrote
the 1947 novel "Middle of the Journey."
(WSJ, 6/4/99, p.W15)(HN, 7/4/01)
1905 Jul 17, Edgar Snow, American
author and journalist, was born in Kansas City, Missouri.
(www.umkc.edu)
1905 Jul 25, Elias Canetti,
Bulgarian-British novelist, essayist (Nobel 1981), was born.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1905 Sep 4, Mary Renault (Mary
Challans), author who wrote about her wartime experiences in “The Last
of the Wine” and “The King Must Die,” was born. She also wrote “Funeral
Games.”
(HN, 9/4/98)(MC, 9/4/01)
1905 Sep 5, Arthur Koestler
(d.1983), Hungarian novelist and essayist, was born. He wrote about
communism in “Darkness at Noon” (1941) and “The Ghost in the Machine.”
(HN, 9/5/98)(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.5)(WSJ, 8/26/06,
p.P8)
1905 H.G. Wells (1866-1946)
authored his novel “Kipps,” the story of an oppressed draper’s
apprentice and his rise under the English class system.
(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.W8)
1905 Baroness Emmuska Orczy
authored her novel “The Scarlet Pimpernal,” set in the French
Revolution.
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.P10)
1905 Edith Wharton authored her
2nd novel "The House of Mirth," in which Lily Bart attempts to monetize
her beauty and gambles on Wall Street.
(SSFC, 1/14/01, BR p.8)(WSJ, 3/14/09, p.W8)
1906 Mar 20, George B. Shaw's
"Captain Brassbound's Conversion," premiered in London.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1906 Apr 6, John Betjeman, English
Poet Laureate 1972-1984 (Mount Zion), was born.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1906 Apr 23, Maria Arnoldo,
[Adrianus Broeders], photographer, writer, was born.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1906 May 29, Terence Hanbury White
(T.H. White), novelist (The Sword in the Stone, England Have My Bones),
was born in Bombay, India.
(HN, 5/29/01)(SC, 5/29/02)
1906 Jul 17, American playwright
Clifford Odets was born in Philadelphia.
(AP, 7/18/06)
1906 Aug 26, Christopher
Isherwood, English-US novelist and playwright, was born. He wrote
"Goodbye to Berlin" (Berlin Stories), the inspiration for the play "I
am a Camera" and the musical and film "Cabaret." [1904 also given as
birth year]
(WUD, 1994 p.755)(HN, 8/26/00)
1906 Felix Salten (1869-1945),
Austrian writer, authored the novel “Josephine Mutzenbacher,” the
fictional autobiography of a Vienna prostitute, a notorious
pornographic novel. In 1923 he authored “Bambi.”
(Econ, 11/8/08,
p.102)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Salten)
1907 Mar 7, Rolf Jacobsen,
Norwegian poet, was born.
(HN, 3/7/01)
1907 May 9, Baldur von Schirach,
German writer, Nazi Youth leader, convicted war criminal, was born.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1907 May 12, J.K. Huysmans (59),
writer, died.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1907 May 13, Daphne du Maurier
(d.1989), author (Rebecca), was born in England.
(HN, 5/13/01)(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.W4)
1907 May 25, Rachel Carson,
conservationist, writer (silent springs), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1907 Jun 22, Anne Morrow
Lindbergh, author (Gift from the Sea), was born.
(MC, 6/22/02)
1907 Jul 7, Robert Heinlein
(d.1988), science-fiction author, was born in Butler, Miss. "Goodness
without wisdom always accomplishes evil."
(V.D.-H.K.p.383)(AP, 5/25/99)(AP, 7/7/07)
1907 Nov 30, Jacques Barzun,
French author, was born. Hi books included “The House of Intellect”
(1959).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Barzun)
1907 Henri Bergson wrote "Creative
Evolution." He saw evolution activated by a creative inner experience
that he called the "elan vital," the power of life to overcome fixed
and rigid forms.
(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A22)
1907 The first Hopalong Cassidy
book was published. Clarence Mulford began his Cassidy stories in 1905.
The first Cassidy movie with William Boyd was released in 1935. The
series moved on to radio and TV.
(SFC, 1/21/98, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 7/8/98, Z1 p.3)
1907 "The Secret Agent" by Joseph
Conrad was published.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A3)
1907 Alfred Russel Wallace wrote
his book "Is Mars Habitable."
(NH, 12/96, p.28)
1907 Edith Wharton (1862-1937)
authored her novella "Madame de Treymes."
(WSJ, 7/8/06,
p.P8)(www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/6741/chronology.html)
1908 Mar 22, Louis L’Amour
(d.1998), American author, was born in Jamestown, North Dakota. He
wrote 116 western novels.
(HN, 3/22/97)(USAT, 6/10/98, p.1D)(MC, 3/22/02)
1908 Apr 11, Leo Rosten, writer,
humorist, was born.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1908 May 25, Theodore Rothke,
poet, was born.
(HN, 5/25/01)
1908 May 28, Ian Fleming (d.1964),
author of James Bond novels, was born in Mayfair, London. He also wrote
the children’s book "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1964).
(HN,
5/28/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitty_Chitty_Bang_Bang)(AP,
5/28/08)
1908 Jul 3, Joel Chandler Harris
(59), author and creator of Uncle Remus, died in Atlanta.
(AP, 7/3/08)
1908 Jul 27, Joseph Mitchell
(d.1996), writer for The New Yorker, was born. He pursued the "general
of nuisance: flops, drunks, con-artists, panhandlers, gin-mill owners
and their bellicose bartenders..."
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A19)(HN, 7/27/01)
1908 Aug 5, Miriam Rothschild,
English scientist and writer, was born.
(HN, 8/5/00)
1908 Aug 18, Edgar Faure (d.1988),
thriller writer, PM of France (1952, 52-56), was born.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1908 Aug 28, Roger Tory Peterson,
author, was born. His work included the innovative bird book "A Field
Guide to Birds."
(HN, 8/28/00)
1908 Aug 31, William Saroyan
(d.1981), American writer, was born outside Fresno, Ca., to Armenian
parents. "He was a prolific and bombastic writer who never threw
anything away." He was a native of Fresno, Ca. and his unpublished
materials, held by the Saroyan Foundation, were turned over to Stanford
Univ. in 1996. His work included "The Human Comedy."
(HFA, ‘96, p.36)(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A1)(WUD, 1994,
p.1269)(HN, 8/31/00)(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.M1)
1908 Sep 4, Richard Wright
(d.1960), novelist who wrote about the abuses of blacks in white
society, best known for “Native Son” (1940), was born near Natchez,
Miss.
(SSFC, 8/12/01, DB p.61)(AP, 9/4/08)
1908 Oct 14, The E.M.
Forster novel "A Room With a View" was first published.
(AP, 10/14/08)
1908 Arnold Bennet, English
writer, published “the Old Wives’ Tale,“ later regarded as his finest
novel.
(WSJ, 8/22/08, p.W8)
1908 Elsa Bernstein (d.1949),
Austrian-Jewish playwright (Ernst Rosmer), authored "Maria Arndt." The
1st English production was made in 2002.
(WSJ, 3/11/02, p.A16)
1908 Kenneth Grahame (1859-1952)
of Edinburgh, Scotland, wrote the classic British children’s book "Wind
in the Willows." It was made into a movie in 1997.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.D3)(WSJ, 11/24/07, p.W8)
1908 The novel "Anne of Green
Gables" by L.M. Montgomery was published.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
1909 Mar 10, Kathryn McLean
(Forbes), author (Mama's Bank Account), was born.
(HN, 3/10/01)
1909 Mar 28, Nelson Algren
(d.1981, novelist (The Man with the Golden Arm, A Walk on the Wild
Side), was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Algren)
1909 Apr 10, Algernon Charles
Swinburne (b.1837), English poet, died.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1909 Apr 13, Eudora Welty
(d.2001), Southern writer, was born in Jackson, Miss. Her books
included “Delta Wedding” and “The Optimist's Daughter” (1972). In
1998 Ann Waldron published "Eudora Welty: A Writer’s Life."
(SFEC, 11/22/98, BR p.4)(SFEC, 12/6/98, BR p.8)(HN,
4/13/01)
1909 May 5, Carlos Baker,
biographer, was born.
(HN, 5/5/01)
1909 May 18, George Meredith (81),
English poet, writer (Diana of Crossways), died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1909 May 29, Neil R[onald] Jones,
US sci-fi author (Space War, Twin Worlds), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1909 Jul 28, Malcolm Lowry
(d.1957), novelist (Under the Volcano), was born.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1909 Aug 3, Walter Van Tilberg,
Western novelist, was born. He wrote "The Ox-Bow Incident."
(HN, 8/3/00)
1909 Nov 13, Eugene Ionesco,
Romanian-born dramatist, was born. His work included "The Bald Soprano"
and "Rhinoceros." [see Nov 26, 1909 and Nov 26, 1912]
(HN, 11/13/00)
1909 Nov 26, Eugene Ionesco
(d.1994), Romanian-born French dramatist, was born. [see Nov 13, 1909
and Nov 26, 1912]
(AP, 11/26/02)
1909 Freud authored his
speculative monograph on Leonardo da Vinci and invented psychobiography.
(SFC, 8/30/03, p.D6)
1910 Mar 29, Helen Wells, author
of the Cherry Ames series, was born.
(HN, 3/29/01)
1910 Apr 8, Harriet Doerr (d.2002)
was born as Harriet Huntington, grand-daughter of railroad tycoon Henry
Edwards Huntington, in Pasadena. In 1984 she won the American Book
Award for 1st fiction for "Stone for Ibarra."
(SFC, 11/28/02, p.A30)
1910 Apr 21, Author Mark Twain
(74), born as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, died in Redding, Conn. His work
included "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court," "The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn," "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," and "More Tramps
Abroad." His short story "The War Prayer" was published after his
death. In 1912 Albert Bigelow Paine authored "Mark Twain: A Biography."
In 1959 Charles Neider authored "The Autobiography of Mark Twain." In
1966 Justin Kaplan authored "Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography."
In 1997 Andrew Hoffman authored "Inventing Mark Twain, The Lives of
Samuel Langhorn Clemens. In 2005 Ron Powers authored “Mark Twain: A
Life.” In 2007 Peter Krass authored “Ignorance, Confidence, and Filthy
Rich Friends: The Business Adventures of Mark Twain.”
(http://courant.ctnow.com/probjects/twain/timeline.htm)(SFC, 7/13/01,
p.D5)(SSFC, 9/30/01, p.D6)(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.M2)(WSJ, 3/13/07, p.D5)
1910 Aug 26, William James
(b.1842), American psychologist and philosopher, died. His work
included “the Principles of Psychology” (1890) and “The Varieties of
Religious Experience” (1902). William James was the older brother of
novelist Henry James. In 2006 Robert D. Richardson authored the
biography: “William James.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James)
1910 Nov 7, Leo Tolstoy (b.1828),
Russian earl and writer (War & Peace), died at the rural Astapovo
train station [OS, NS=Nov 20]. In 2007 Leah Bendavid-Val authored “Song
Without Words: The Photographs and Diaries of Countess Sophia Tolstoy.”
(WSJ, 8/6/99,
p.W11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy)(WSJ, 12/1/07, p.W10)
1910 E.M. Forster (1879-1970)
wrote "Howard’s End," his next to last novel and good description of
the English class system.
(SFEC, 9/22/96, BR p.3)(WSJ, 9/20/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.M._Forster)
1910 Herman Lons, German writer,
authored his novel “The Warwolf: a peasant chronicle.” It was set in
the time of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), during which some 10
million people died including 4 million Germans. In 2006 it was made
available in English.
(WSJ, 6/16/06, p.P8)
1911 Mar 13, LaFayette Ron Hubbard
(L. Ron Hubbard, d.1986), sci-fi writer, scientologist founder of
Scientology (Dyanetics), was born.
(SFC, 2/12/01, p.A13)(MC, 3/13/02)
1911 Mar 26, Tennessee Williams
(d.1983), American dramatist, was born in Columbus, Miss. His plays
included "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "A Streetcar Name Desire."
(HN, 3/26/01)(AP, 3/26/02)(http://tinyurl.com/s8zm5)
1911 May 15, Max Frisch (d.1991),
Swiss architect and writer, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Frisch)
1911 Jul 21, Marshall McLuhan
(d.1980), English professor and communication theorist, author of "The
Medium is the Message," was born. He wrote the book:
"Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man."
(V.D.-H.K.p.357)(HN, 7/21/98)
1911 Sep 19, William Golding
(d.1993), novelist best known for Lord of the Flies, was born. He won
the Nobel Prize in 1983.
(HN, 9/19/98)(MC, 9/19/01)
1911 Dec 11, Naguib Mahfouz
(d.2006), Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian novelist, was born.
(HN, 12/11/00)(SFC, 8/31/06, p.A13)
1911 Sybille Bedford, novelist,
was born in Charlottenburg, Germany. In 2005 she published her memoir
“Quicksands.”
(WSJ, 5/12/05, p.D8)
1911 J.M. Barrie adopted Peter Pan
into the novel “Peter and Wendy.” [see Dec 27, 1904]
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)(USAT, 9/2/04, p.2D)
1911 G.K. Chesterton authored his
historical novel “The Ballad of the White Horse” set in England in 878
as King Alfred faced the invading Danes.
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.P10)
1911 Aldo Palazzeschi authored his
avant-garde Italian novel “Man of Smoke.” In 1992 Professors Ruggiero
Stefanini (d.2005) and Nicolas Perella translated it to English.
(SFC, 5/19/05, p.B7)
1912 Apr 20, Bram Stoker, Irish
theater manager, writer (Dracula), died.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1912 May 7, Columbia University
approved plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories.
The award was established by Joseph Pulitzer.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1912 May 14, Johan August
Strindberg (b.1849), Swedish novelist, dramatist and essayist, died. In
1985 Michael Meyer authored a Strindberg biography.
(WUD, 1994 p.1407)(SFC, 8/10/00, p.D2)(MC, 5/14/02)
1912 May 16, Studs Terkel American
author, was born. He wrote The 'Good War.' "Take it easy, but take it."
(AP, 5/16/98)(HN, 5/16/99)
1912 May 27, John Cheever (d1982),
Pulitzer Prize winning writer was born. His work included "The Wapshot
Chronicle" and "The World of Apples."
(BS, 5/3/98, p.13E)(HN, 5/27/01)
1912 May 28, Patrick White,
Australian writer (The Tree of Man, The Eye of the Storm), was born.
(HN, 5/28/01)
1912 May 29, John Hanlo, Dutch
poet (Go to the Mosque), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1912 Jun 29, John Toland, US
political writer (Adolf Hitler, Rising Sun, Pulitzer 1971), was born.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1912 Jul 3, Elizabeth Taylor,
novelist and short story writer, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1912 Aug 10, Leonard Woolf
(1880-1969), English man of letters, married writer Virginia Duckworth
(b.1882). Virginia Woolf committed suicide in 1941.
(WSJ, 12/17/05,
p.P13)(www.online-literature.com/virginia_woolf/)
1912 Aug 27, Edgar Rice
Burroughs’s "Tarzan of the Apes" first appeared in a magazine.
Burroughs (d. 1950 at 74) wrote "Tarzan of the Apes" for The All-Story
Magazine and received $700.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.E2)(SFEC, 5/9/99, Par p.8)(HN,
8/27/00)
1912 Nov 26, Eugene Ionesco,
dramatist (Rhinoceros), was born in Slatina, Romania. [see Nov 13 and
Nov 26, 1909]
(WUD, 1994 p.750)(MC, 11/26/01)
1912 Mary Antin (1881-1949),
Russian-born immigrant (1894), authored “The Promised Land.” The book
was highly successful and was used in Civic courses in US schools until
1949.
(WSJ, 11/8/08,
p.W8)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAantin.htm)
1912 Theodore Dreiser authored
“The Financier,” the 1st book of his “Trilogy of Desire,” an Iliad of
American capitalism.
(WSJ, 9/16/06, p.P10)
1912 The novella “Hadji Murad” by
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was published. Murad (d.1852) was an important
Chechen leader during the resistance of the Caucasian peoples in
1711-1864 against the Russian Empire's seizure of the region.
(http://tinyurl.com/js9od)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadji_Murad)
1913 May 3, William Inge, American
playwright (Picnic, Bus Stop), was born.
(HN, 5/3/01)
1913 Jun 2, Barbara Pym (Mary
Crampton), English novelist (Less Than Angels, Quartet in Autumn), was
born.
(HN, 6/2/01)
1913 Jul 15, Hammond Innes,
English novelist, was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1913 Nov 7, Albert Camus (d.1960),
French philosopher, novelist, and dramatist best known for his book
"The Stranger" (1942) was born on an Algerian farm.
(WSJ, 12/12/97, p.A16)(HN, 11/7/98)
1913-1927 Marcel Proust (1871-1922), French novelist
wrote his 7-volume "Remembrance of Things Past." In 1998 it was turned
into a comic book series.
(WSJ, 2/11/06, p.P18)
1914 Mar 25, Frederic Mistral,
French poet (Nobel-1904), died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1914 Mar 26, The birthday of
(Thomas Lanier) Tennessee Williams (1914-1983), American dramatist. His
play "The Glass Menagerie" was inspired by a pre-frontal lobotomy
performed on his sister to cure a case of schizophrenia. The operation
failed and his sister, Rose (1909-1996), was institutionalized. He left
a $10 million estate to support her and directed that anything left go
to support aspiring writers at the Univ. of the South of Sewanee. [see
Mar 11 & 26, 1911]
(AHD, p.1466)(WUD, 1994, p.1634)
1914 Mar 27, Budd Schulberg,
journalist, novelist and screenwriter (What Makes Sammy Run, On the
Waterfront), was born in NYC.
(HN, 3/27/01)(MC, 3/27/02)
1914 Mar 31, Octavio Paz, Mexican
diplomat and Nobel Prize-winning writer, was born.
(HN, 3/31/01)
1914 Apr 4, Marguerite Duras,
French author (The Lover), was born.
(HN, 4/4/01)
1914 Apr 25, Ross Lockridge, Jr.,
novelist (Raintree Country), was born.
(HN, 4/25/01)
1914 Jul 15, Gavin Maxwell,
Scottish writer and naturalist (Ring of Bright Water), was born.
(HN, 7/15/01)
1914 Ambrose Bierce (b.1842),
American writer, died. His books included “The Devil's Dictionary”
(1911) and “An Occurrence Owl Creek Bridge.” He vanished in Mexico
after a letter sent from Chihuahua on Dec 26, 1913.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Bierce)
1915 May 27, Herman Wouk, author,
was born. His work included "Winds of War" and "The Caine Mutiny."
(HN, 5/27/99)
1915 Jun 5, Alfred Kazin (d.1998),
critic and editor (A Walker in the City), was born.
(HN, 6/5/01)(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.M2)
1915 Jul 1, Jean Stafford,
American writer (The Mountain Lion), was born.
(HN, 7/1/01)
1915 Jul 10, Saul Bellow, Nobel
(1976) and Pulitzer Prize-winning American author and writer of Jewish
moral and social alarm (Herzog, Humboldt's Gift), was born in Montreal.
"A man is only as good as what he loves." In 2000 James Atlas authored
"Bellow: A Biography."
(AP, 9/30/98)(HN, 7/10/98)(SFEC, 10/15/00, BR
p.1)(MC, 7/10/02)
1915 Aug 12, The autobiographical
novel "Of Human Bondage," by William Somerset Maugham (d.1965), was
first published.
(AP, 8/12/97)(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.M2)
1915 Aug 19, Ring Lardner Jr.,
author and screenwriter (A Star Is Born), was born in Chicago.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1915 Aug 24, Alice H.B. Sheldon,
science fiction writer, was born. He also worked as an artist, CIA
photo-intelligence operative, lecturer at American University and major
in the U.S. Army Air Force.
(HN, 8/24/00)
1915 Ford Madox Ford authored "The
Good Soldier."
(WSJ, 12/3/05, p.P14)
1915-1965 Robert Ruark, American author: "A man can
build a staunch reputation for honesty by admitting he was in error,
especially when he gets caught at it."
(AP, 5/13/99)
1915-1977 Bill Vaughan, American journalist: "America
is a land where a citizen will cross the ocean to fight for democracy
-- and won't cross the street to vote in a national election."
(AP, 6/6/99)
1915-1986 Theodore H. White, American political
writer: "To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most
of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of
heroism you can have."
(AP, 2/13/98)
1915-1996 Robert Adams, aka Robert Martin Krapp,
writer, translator, editor and teacher. His work included "Ikon: John
Milton and the Modern Critics" (1955), "Stendhal: Notes on a Novelist"
(1959), "Surface and Symbol: the Consistency of James Joyce’s
‘Ulysses’" (1962), "Proteus, His Lies, His Truth: Discussions of
Literary Translation" (1973), and "The Roman Stamp: Frame and Facade in
Some Forms of Neo-Classicism" (1974). He was also a founding editor of
the "Norton Anthology of English Literature," and an editor of the
Hudson Review.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.C10)
1915-1998 Margaret Walker Alexander, black author,
was born in Birmingham. She died Nov 30, 1998 at age 83. Her work
included the 1942 poem "For My People," and the 1966 novel "Jubilee."
(SFC, 12/1/98, p.B2)
1916 Feb 28, Henry James (b.1843),
US-British writer (Bostonians), died in London. His books included “The
American“ (1877) and “The Golden Bowl” (1904). In 2004 Colm Toibin
authored “The Master,” a novel that explores James’ private life. In
2007 Peter Brooks authored “Henry James Goes to Paris.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_James)(SFC,
6/19/04, p.E1)(WSJ, 3/31/07, p.P11)
1916 Mar 10, James Herriot,
Scottish writer and country veterinarian (All Creatures Great and
Small), was born.
(HN, 3/10/01)
1916 Mar 19, Irving Wallace,
author (People's Almanac, The Man), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1916 Apr 12, Beverly Cleary,
American writer, was born. Her children’s books included the Ramona
Quimby series which stemmed from “Henry Huggins” (1950).
(SFC, 5/6/06, p.E1)
1916 Apr 26, Morris L. West,
novelist (Shoes of the Fisherman), was born in Australia.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1916 May 13, Sholem Aleichem
(Shalom Aleichem), Yiddish writer (Fiddler on the Roof), died in NY. He
was born as Solomon Rabinowitz (1859) in Russia.
(www.britannica.com)
1916 May 28, Walker Percy, writer
(The Moviegoer, Love in the Ruins), was born in Birmingham, Ala.
(HN, 5/28/01)(MC, 5/28/02)
1916 Jul 14, Natalia Ginzberg,
Italian novelist (The Dry Heat, Family Sayings), was born.
(HN, 7/14/01)
1916 Jul 24, John D. MacDonald,
author was born.
(HN, 7/24/02)
1916 Aug 28, C. Wright Mills
(d.1962), sociologist, writer (The Power Elite), was born in Waco,
Texas.
(Google)
1916 Sep 13, Roald Dahl (d.1990),
son of Norwegian immigrants, was born in Llandaff, Wales. He is best
known for his children’s books such as "James and the Giant Peach."
(www.bbc.co.uk/arts/books/author/dahl)
1916 Ring Lardner (1885-1933),
American humorist and writer, authored “You Know Me Al.” It traced the
1st season of a rookie hurler for the Chicago White Sox.”
(AP, 5/14/99)(HN, 3/6/01)(WSJ, 12/2/06, p.P8)
1917 Apr 28, Robert Anderson,
writer (Tea & Sympathy, Never Sang for My Father), was born in NY.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1917 Jul 15, Robert Conquest,
English author (Back to Life), was born.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1917 Sep 11, Jessica Mitford
(d.1996), writer who championed civil rights, best known for her book
“The American Way of Death,” was born.
(HN, 9/11/98)
1917 Dec 16, Arthur C. Clark,
English science fiction writer, was born. "Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic." He is best remembered for
his book "The Sentinel," the source of Kubrick’s film "2001: A Space
Odyssey."
(AP, 12/16/97)(HN,
12/16/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke)
1917 W.B. Yeats (52) married
Bertha Georgie Hyde-Lees (d.1968), his young spirit-medium (25). She
became the oracular voice of his philosophy and poetry. In 2002 Ann
Saddlemeyer authored "Becoming George: The Life of Mrs. W.B. Yeats."
(SFEC, 10/31/99, BR p.7)(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.M2)
1918 Mar 9, Frank Morrison
Spillane (d.2006), mystery writer [Mickey Spillane], was born in
Brooklyn. His Mike Hammer crime novels later sold over 200 million
copies. His books included “Kiss Me Deadly” and “The Erection Set.”
(HN, 3/9/01)(SFC, 6/21/01, p.D5)(SFC, 7/18/06, p.B5)
1918 Mar 15, Richard Ellmann, US
literary scholar, writer (Oscar Wilde), was born.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1918 May 27, Henry Adams (b.1838),
US historian, journalist and novelist, died. His books included “The
Education of Henry Adams” (1907) and ”Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres”
(1918).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Brooks_Adams)(WSJ, 9/1/07, p.P9)
1918 Jul 8, Ernest Hemingway
(1899-1961), Nobel Prize winning writer, was wounded in Italy while
working as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross. He was later
awarded the Italian Silver Medal of Military Valor. Hemingway enlisted
in a Red Cross ambulance unit in 1917 during World War I. He was
commissioned a second lieutenant and served on the Italian front. After
WWI he reported from the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War for
American newspapers. His book "Farewell to Arms" was based on his
experiences in WWI.
(HNQ, 7/28/99)(HN, 7/8/01)
1918 Jul 29, Edwin Greene
O'Connor, author (The Last Hurrah), was born.
(HN, 7/29/01)
1918 Jul 29, Mary Lee Settle,
novelist, was born.
(HN, 7/29/01)
1918 Aug 3, James MacGregor Burns,
political writer (The Lion & the Fox), was born.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1918 Aug 18, Elsa Morante, Italian
writer and author of “History: A Novel,” was born.
(HN, 8/18/00)
1918 Dec 11, Alexander
Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer, was born. He won the 1970 Nobel Peace
Prize and is famous for "The Gulag Archipelago." Daniel J. Mahoney
later authored "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Ascent From Ideology."
(HN, 12/11/98)(WSJ, 10/11/01, p.A20)
1918 Willa Cather (d.1947)
authored her novel "My Antonia."
(SFC, 3/29/04, p.E1)
1919 Mar 1, Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
US beat poet (Coney Island of the Mind), was born. [see Mar 24]
(SC, 3/1/02)
1919 Mar 14, Max Shulman, novelist
(Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Tender Trap), was born.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1919 Mar 24, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, 'beat' poet, was born. [see Mar 1]
(HN, 3/24/01)
1919 May 6, Frank Lyman Baum (62),
author (Wizard of Oz), died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1919 May 28, May Swenson, poet,
was born.
(HN, 5/28/01)
1919 Jul 15, Iris Murdoch
(d.1999), philosopher-novelist, was born in Dublin. She wrote 28 novels
and in 1998 published "Existentialists and Mystics," a collection of
writings from 1950 to the 1980s. Herein she tried to "recover the moral
dimension of art."
(WSJ, 2/17/98,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Murdoch)(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A20)
1919 Jul 31, Primo Levi, Italian
writer and scientist (Survival in Auschwitz), was born.
(HN, 7/31/01)
1919 Sherwood Anderson published
his linked short story collection "Winesburg, Ohio.
(SFEC, 8/15/99, BR p.1)
1919 Albert Beveridge wrote a
biography of former chief justice John Marshall.
(WSJ, 12/10/96, p.A20)
1919 Hermann Hesse published his
first real literary success, "Demian," The novel about a young,
troubled adolescent’s conflict to achieve self-awareness, was
symbolized by the duality between his dream character Demian and his
real-life counterpart, Sinclair.
(iUniv. 7/2/00)
1919 Somerset Maugham (d.1965),
author “The Moon and Sixpence,” a novel whose main character is based
on Paul Gauguin.
(Econ, 3/6/04, p.75)
1919 John Reed and Bertram Wolfe
(d.1977 at 81) wrote a manifesto that resulted in the formation of the
American Communist Party.
(SFC, 1/17/00, p.C2)
1919 George Bernard Shaw wrote his
play "Heartbreak House."
(SFEC, 9/8/96, DB p.7)
1919 W.B. Yeats wrote his poem
"The Second Coming."
(SFEC, 10/31/99, BR p.7)
1919 P.G. Wodehouse wrote his
novel "Damsel in Distress." It was dramatized in 1928 and scored for
film by George and Ira Gershwin in 1937.
(WSJ, 7/29/98, p.A13)
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