It’s the birthday of the great lyric poet who wrote: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (To which math and science reply, “Preach.” See an interesting article on this here.) John Keats (1795-1821) was born in London, the oldest of four. His father ran [...]
It’s the birthday of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), known as one of the greatest novelists in history and one of the greatest influences on all of 20th century literature. (You may know him from such works as Crime and Punishment, 1866; The Idiot, 1869; and The Brothers Karamazov, 1880.) Considered one of the most brilliant psychological [...]
It’s the birthday of British novelist, industrialist, and eccentric Henry Green (1905-1973), real name Henry Vincent Yorke, once famously called by The Paris Review a “writer’s writer’s writer.” You won’t have heard of him (five life points to you if I’m wrong), so here are a few folks who have: W.H. Auden called Green “the [...]
It’s the birthday of author and former Jesuit priest John L’Heureux (b. 1934), many of whose short stories and novels explore themes of divine intervention (or interference), sanctification, and the miraculous in ordinary human lives. L’Heureux was born in South Hadley, Massachusetts, to an engineer and a secretary, the second of two children. He trained [...]
It’s the birthday of Anne Tyler (b. 1941), an immensely popular novelist who never intended to be a writer. She’s written 22 novels and is best known for novels about family relationships in all their glory and dysfunction, such as Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982), The Accidental Tourist (1985), and the Pulitzer-winning Breathing Lessons [...]
It’s the birthday of the woman who wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” or who at least gets credit for the final version of the poem, Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879). Hale was also the first American woman to be editor of a magazine and a tremendous social and literary influence. If you google her image, [...]
It’s the birthday of Michael Crichton (1942-2008), author of numerous bestselling technological thrillers and one of surely few authors ever to have a dinosaur named after him, a species of squat little ankylosaur. (Actually I have no idea how many authors have had dinosaurs named after them. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?) Crichton was born in Chicago [...]
It’s the birthday of Doris Lessing (1919-2013), whose novels and stories broke literary ground in their daring explorations of racism, women’s inner lives, sex, mental illness, and all manner of upheaval known to humankind. Lessing was best known for her semi-autobiographical and experimental novel The Golden Notebook (1962) and was awarded the Nobel in Lit [...]
It’s the birthday of British spy novelist John le Carré (b. 1931), most famous for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) and the first to write novels depicting the world of espionage realistically, in “shades of gray.” John le Carré is actually the pen name of David John Moore Cornwell, necessary because [...]
It’s the birthday of *yet another* playwright, Wendy Wasserstein (1950-2006), who lived longer than Oscar Wilde but not nearly as long as Arthur Miller, and who is best known for her play The Heidi Chronicles (1988), which won the Pulitzer, the New York Critics’ Circle Award, and the Tony for Best Play—the first solo female [...]
It’s the birthday of American playwright Arthur Miller (1915-2005), who lived twice as long as yesterday’s playwright. (Yes, I know it’s not a competition. Everybody calm down.) Miller is best known for the play Death of a Salesman (1949), but even during his successes as a playwright, he became more famous for his marriage to [...]
It’s the birthday of several renowned playwrights, including Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), best known for his one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and the plays Lady Windermere’s Fan (1891), The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), and An Ideal Husband (also 1895). He was also a proponent of the Aesthetic Movement, which espoused “art for [...]