David Prashker's Book Of Days: The Lighter Writers

All names in this Index are by birth-certificate, which may not be the name by which you know them.

At the top left-hand corner of every screen there is a flat rectangular box with an icon of a magnifying-glass: your search bar. You may well find it easier to find the person you are seeking there.

c) The lighter writers

(including books for grown-up children as well as the not-yet-grown-up)

Anne de Beaujeu, Duchesse de Bourbon, known today simply as Anne of France, or sometimes Madame la Grande (1461-1522): bio here; “Lessons for my Daughter” can be read here (Dec 6 and the Mediaevals page of Woman-Blindness)

Henry Maximilian (“Max”) Beerbohm (born Aug 24 1872; died May 20 1956): bio here; books here; Blue Plaque in Kensington here; portraits aplenty here

John Betjeman (born August 28 1906; died May 19 1984): “what’s a ‘blood jet’ anyway?” on Nov 17; Poet Laureate here; the complete whatevertheyares here , though if I had a page on the Conservationists, he would definitely merit a place there: St Pancras here

Enid Mary Blyton (though sometimes she wrote under the pseudonym Mary Pollock) (born August 11 1897; died November 29 1968): 762 books in total, but only a passing mention on March 15; her society’s website here; Blue Plaque here

Thomas Bowdler: born July 11 1754; died February 24 1825; apparently he died in a very painful and unpleasant manner, but that is not how posterity has chosen to represent it; much better to say that he died peacefully in his sleep, with his family all gathered around him, and his will approved by everybody with a smile: March 15 is the main page; he is outcomed on Feb 10 and Dec 6. My literary essays collection ”Homage to Thomas Bowdler”, which is not about him at all, gets marketing opportunities on June 24, Sept 11, Oct 15 and Oct 21

Brontë sisters: Charlotte (Currer Bell) (born April 21 1816; died March 31 1855), Emily Jane (Ellis Bell) (born July 30 1818; ; died December 19 1848); Anne (born January 17 1820; died May 28 1849) isn’t listed but she was published as Acton Bell – two younger sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, succumbed to tuberculosis before reaching adulthood, and brother Branwell tried and failed to be an artist: click here; the full family saga here; a more recent Anne Brontë’s website here: the pseudonyms are on Feb 8; “Jane Eyre” published on Oct 6 and mentioned on April 2 – even within the concept of the Poetikos there are levels: the Brontës may not be writing at the intellectual depth of Mary Anne Evans, but the act of writing still requires intellectual engagement, and the ability to describe a world accurately requires insight, knowledge, reflection – yes, even for simple love stories, even for an Agatha Christie or a Ken Follett

Jane Eyre: unsuitable for Casanova on April 2

James Fenimore Cooper: born Sept 15 1789; missed his birthday by just one day in 1851); regarded as his country’s first major novelist, but they are little more than adventure stories for teenage boys, cowboy equivalents of James Bond; bio here; books here; torn apart by Mark Twain here

Alexandre Dumas (père born July 24 1802; died December 5 1870; fils born July 27 1824; died November 27 1895): in Tolstoy’s diary on Jan 21, though I’m not sure if this was père or fils; the Isaac Laquedem reference on March 12 is definitely père: père wrote “The Three Musketeers” and “The Count of Monte Cristo”; it was fils who wrote “La Dame aux Camélias ”, which Verdi turned into the opera “La Traviata”

Gerald Malcolm Durrell: born Jan 7 1925; died Junuary 30 1995): will be better remembered, like Betjeman, for his conservation work, especially his zoo-keeping, than for his writings (though it is most amusing following his portrait of brother Larry): click here and here

Umberto Eco (born January 5 1932; died February 19 2016): confirming that “ecology” is not “the study of the works of Umberto Eco”, though it may include the naming of roses, on Sept 18. His website here

Richard Engländer (born March 9 1859; died January 19 1919): “Peter Altenberg” is quoted with lots of name-droppings on Feb 21; he is also included on the Pseudonyms page, because his name was not Peter Altenberg, but... Richard Engländer - bio here; books here; portrait here; archives here and here [pseudonyms]

Ian Fleming: mentioned on May 11, but also see the James Bond listing for a connection to John Dee: other than this I have absolutely nothing to say about him, have never read any of his books, and no intention of ever doing so

Phileas Fogg, or Jules Gabriel Verne really: Sept 28 and Dec 21

Kenneth Martin Follett: pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap on July 9

Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm, with younger brother Wilhelm Carl Grimm on Jan 4; Pied Piper on July 22

Ilse Herlinger, but remembered by her married-name as Ilse Weber (born January 11 1903; died you-know-where on October 6 1944): authoress/composer of books and songs for children, and a fellow-prisoner at Terezin on April 1 - her bio here

William King (1663–1712): his “Useful Transactions in Philosophy” are on March 15; bio here and poems here

Ursula Kroeber (Le Guin): born Oct 21

Charles Lamb: born Feb 10 (mentioned on April 27); sister Mary Lamb is on Dec 3; Charles is here, and not just for his kiddy-versions of Shakespeare: click here

Daphne Du Maurier: born May 13

William Miller: authoring Wee Willie Winkie on March 15 – bio here

Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (born November 8 1900; died August 16 1949): amongst the banned books on Dec 6

Hector Hugh Munro (Saki): born Dec 18

Charles Perrault: his 1697 “Contes de ma mère l'oye” is on March 15, arguably the first known reference to Mother Goose (but see Jean Loret and Guy de la Brosse)

John William Polidori (1795-1821): "Pollydolly"; wrote the first vampire novel on Feb 1 and March 11

Caroline Ponsonby (Lady Caroline Lamb) (born November 13 1785; died January 25 1828): was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and novelist, best known for “Glenarvon”, a Gothic novel which spilled the beans about her 1812 affair with Lord Byron, whom she described as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" - the source of my allusion on Jan 22. Married to William Lamb, Lord Melbourne. She is among the non-French Blue-Stockings in Woman-Blindness

William Sydney Porter (O. Henry was the name he adopted while in prison): born Sept 11 1862; died June 5 1910): bio here; the original "Rolling Stone" magazine and the rest of his bio here; the O. Henry Award here; his books here

John (Boynton was a later add-on to make himself sound grand) (J.B) Priestley: born Sept 13 1894; died August 14 1984): his society here; his website here

Thomas Penson (de) Quincey (yep, like Balzac and Foe and Arc, the “de” got added as a pretension later, in this case by his mum): born Aug 15 1785; died December 8 1859): bio here [and I wonder if I should have a special sub-section for the drug addicts among the Poetikos: Coleridge, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey...Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Neil Young were never actually addicted, but wrote under its influence several of their major works... Edgar Allan Poe...oh, it will be a very long list!]

Alfred Damon Runyan (some newspaper he worked for mis-spelled him as Runyon and he never corrected it) (born Oct 4 1880; died December 10 1946): his Guys and Dolls here; his Cancer Research Centre here; I wonder which he would most want to be remembered for

Siegmund Salzmann (Felix Salten was his nom de plume): born on September 6 1869 in the Pest half of Budapest; died on October 8 1945, but in Zurich, not in the pest-corner of Auschwitz where other European Jews were dying at that time: name-dropped by Peter Altenberg on Feb 21, though god knows why, given that Salten’s only achievement as a writer was the creation of that Disneyesque super-stag Bambi – click here

Edward L Stratemeyer: introduced Nancy Drew to the Hardy Boys on Oct 4

Jane Taylor (born 23 September 23 1783; died April 13 1824): named as the authoress of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on March 15, though actually her sister Anne was just as culpable – more on both sisters here; William Blake’s “Tiger Tiger”, which also uses the same melody, here, but was published twelve years before Taylor’s in 1794, so she is likely to have known it, and to have been playing with it

John Ronald Reuel (J.R.R) Tolkien (born Jan 3 1892; died September 2 1973): mentioned but not important on June 22; the Tolkien Society here; the Tolkien Estate here; the Tolkien Gateway here – all of which seems to me rather o-t-t for a man who turned epic saga into children’s stories

Thomas D’Urfey: collecting nursery rhymes on March 15 (born circa 1653; died February 26 1723): bio here

Pelham Grenville (P.G) Wodehouse (born October 15 1881; died February 14 1975: playing Guildernstern on Sept 2 – bio at his own website here

Joan Olivia Wyndham (born October 11 1921; died April 8 2007): a WAAF, in jubilant mood, on May 2; later a writer of some esteem in certain circles (though described as a “latter-day Pepys in cami-knickers” in other circles: click here)