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.
The
serious scribes
sub-sections:
i) The writers of novels and short stories
ii) The Travel-Writers
iii) The Diarists/Memoirists/Epistolerians (that’s
letter-writers made to sound literary)
iv) The
Critics
v) The Publishers (including newspapers and journals)
vi) The Serious Journalists; sub-sub-sectioned as:
* Polemical Paparazzi (defined as "pursuers
of serious subjects who prefer to publish in newspapers rather than books")
* The War Reporteresses [though these now have a page of their own
under Woman-Blindness]
vii) Others
But as you will see,
I am not at all happy about creating boxes, putting labels on them, and then
forcing everything to fit into them. Lots of those listed below could just as
well appear on one, two, even three other lists (D.H
Lawrence for example: poet, playwright, essayist, novelist, short
story writer, critic, painter...)
i) The writers of novels and short stories:
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (born Aug 24 1899; died June 14 1986): alluded on Feb 2; quoted on Feb 5, Aug 12, Oct 4 and Dec 5; pseudonymised on Feb 8; referenced on July 3 and Sept 13; birthdate noted on Aug 24; the nearest thing to his website here; and an appearance on the pre-Columban Americas page
Jose Arcadio
Buendia, the patriarchal “Adam” of Jorge Luis Borges’ novel “Cien
años de la Soledad” (“One Hundred Years of Solitude”) on Jan 2
Albert Chinụalụmọgụ (Chinua) Achebe: (born Nov 16 1930;
died March 21 2013): bio here; Booker Prize here; and on
the Africa page for "Things
Fall Apart", his first critically acclaimed novel
Douglas Noel Adams (born March 11 1952; died May 11
2001): Dec 5 and
10; his website here
Martin Louis Amis (born August 25 1949;
died May 19 2023): very much The Zone Of Interest on Jan 11 – his
obituary in The Guardian here
Sherwood Berton Anderson (born Sept
13
1876; died March 8, 1941): very unusual website here
“By A
Lady” (Jane Austen) (born December 16 1775;
died July 18 1817): among the pseudonyms on Feb 8; "Sense and Sensibility" published on Oct 30 (with Fanny Burney
on June 13,
and as Elizabeth Bennet
on June 22)
– her museum-website here
Elizabeth Bennet, and her siblings, older sister Jane and younger sisters Mary, Catherine (Kitty) and Lydia, seeking husbands, but not interested in Casanova, on April 2; and also on June
22, though her birthday is actually December 16th 1793
Thomas Egerton: publishing “By A Lady” on Oct 30; the full
tale at her museum-website
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (born June 21 1839; died September 29 1908): founder and
first President of the Brazilian Academy of Literature in 1897; was Bruxo do Cosme
Velho the pseudonym or the birthname? bio here, and he is on the Africa page
Szalom Asz (usually written in English as Sholem Asch): born Nov
1 1880; died July 10 1957): bio and works here; burnt to a steak here; his life of St Paul, in English, here; his archive at Yale here
Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel: (born July 13 1894; died January 27 1940): ignored
by Victor Serge on Aug 20 – bio and works here
Honoré Balssa (Honoré de
Balzac): his pseudonym on Feb 8, but see also my note re Anne Malet de Graville on the Pseudonyms 2 page; born on May 20; statue by Rodin
and critique by Barthes on Nov 12
Julian Patrick Barnes: turning
a simple heart into Flaubert's parrot on July 1 –
his website here
Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp (born Oct 14 1888; died Jan 9 1923): her house here; her bio here; her website here
Solomon Bellows (Saul Bellow) (born either June 10 or July 10 – click here - 1915; died April 5
2005): mentioned July 11 – the Aquinas reference,
or actually the Albertus Magnus reference, on July 10 can be found here
Gottfried Benn: with Kafka and Pessoa on July 3 - in Private Collection here, plus a mention here; and here for his WW1 poems
Marie Henri Beyle (Stendhal): (born Jan 23 1783; died March 23 1842): confused with Pierre Bayle on Nov 18 - in red and
black here
Eric Arthur Blair (George
Orwell) (born June 25 1903; died January 21 1950): pseudonymed
on Feb 8 – his website here
Giovanni Boccaccio (born June
16 1313; died December 21 1375): defending Dante on June 24; a splendid website called
“Decameron Web”, at Brown University on Rhode Island, here – but he
could just as well be counted among the poets, especially for his development
of ottava rima, without which neither Dante nor Byron, nor indeed Pushkin...but the
"Decameron" led to Chaucer...
Heinrich Theodor Böll (born Dec 21 1917; died July 16
1985): his Stiftung here; his bio on that site here
Ray
Douglas Bradbury
(born August 22 1920; died June 5 2012): “Fahrenheit 451“ thrown on the fire on
on Dec 6 (click here)
Max Brod (born May 27 1884 in Prague; died December 20 1968 in
Israel: mentioned, usually re Franz Kafka,
on April 1, June 3 and July 3 – his biography of K here - though he was
highly poetikos in his own write and indeed in his own compose: click here
and here; he was also thrown on the
fire with Heinrich Heine, Franz Werfel
et al, for which click here
Dorris Alexander "Dee" Brown (born February 29 1908; his heart
buried at Wounded Knee on December 12 2002): amongst the banned books on Dec 6
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (born May
15 1891; died March 10 1940): typed out by
Yevgeny Yevtushenko on July 18; bio here; review of “The Master and
Margarita” here
Edward Bulwer-Lytton (born May 25 1803; died January 18 1873): books here, bio here
Frances ("Fanny") Burney (Madame
D'Arblay): (born June
13 1752; died January 6 1840): chez Lady
Montagu on Oct 2;
among the Blue-Stockings in Woman-Blindness –
bio and blue plaque here;
diary and letters here
Albert Camus (born
November 7 1913; il faut imaginer qu’il est devenu heureux on Jan 4
1960): “La Peste” on March 15, April
15 and May 30; “L'Homme Revolté” on March 30; referenced on Feb 21; mentioned on May 8, Aug 20 (and I am very conscious that both “Sisyphus” and “L’Homme
Revolté” should place him among the philosophers; but that can be said of all
the truly serious novelists. My own essays about him can be found in “Zero Positive”; otherwise bio here and here
Kamel Daoud: re-writing Albert Camus' "L’Etranger" for a post-Colonialist age, on Aug 20 – click here
Elias Jacques Canetti (Елиас Канети in his native Bulgarian): (born July 25 1905;
died August 14 1994): the same is true of Canetti
as of Camus: where does “Crowds and
Power” belong? here or among the political ideologues, the philosophers, or all
three? Susan Sontag makes clear her opinion here; his Nobel Prize here
Peter Carey: out-prized Bruce Chatwin on
Feb 14 – his website here
Méric Causaubon (born August 14 1599; died July 14 1671), son of Isaac, and the other possible source for George Eliot, on Feb 8; noted especially for his editions of
Marcus Aurelius, which can be
found here and here
Isaac Casaubon can be found among the reverend writers
John Griffith Chaney, though his books
insist on Jack London (born January 12
1876; died November 22 1916): rushing
for gold on Aug 16
(there is now a state park named for him, in California, where his books are
running wild but his beliefs seriously conserved; click here); "The Call of the Wild" banned on Dec 6
Isabelle de Charrière, or sometimes Belle
van Zuylen, and just to make it even more complex her birth
certificate says Isabella
Agneta Elisabeth van Tuyll van Serooskerken: poems,
plays, novels and philosophical essays on the Napoleonic Era page of "Woman-Blindness"
François
Auguste René de Chateaubriand (born Sept 4 1768; died July 4 1848): mentioned on July 1 - bio with a Byron
conenction here; Priaulx library here; his works here
Charles Bruce Chatwin: memorialled on Feb 14 (he died on January 18 1989); also appears on his
birthday, which is May 13 (1940); on Aug 17 as a whimsical poem; and on Dec 5 as a whimsical idea
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark
Twain)
(born November 30 1835; died April 21 1910): among the pseudonyms on Feb 8; published “Huckleberry Finn” on Feb 18 (banned on Dec
6);
an innocent abroad on March 11; working by
typewriter on June 23; quoted on Aug 29; born Nov
30 – books here; his website here
(biography here)
Wm.
C. Grimes - a rather
minor Oklahoma politician, so not obvious why he was writing about the
Wandering Jew on March 11; and indeed he wasn’t, it was Wm C
Prime (William Cowper Prime, October 31 1825–February 12 1905: click here), but Mark Twain parodied him as Grimes, one “Innocent
Abroad” mocking another - click here. The
Wandering Jew can be found on the very next date, March 12. For Grimes, click here
Sidonie-Gabrielle
Colette (born Jan 28 1873; died August 3 1954): on the Equal Sex
page of Woman-Blindness? – bio and books here
Józef Teodor Konrad
Korzeniowski (Joseph Conrad in English, for which
see Feb 8): born Dec 3 1857; died August 3
1924: books and bio here, texts here
Stephen Townley Crane (born Nov 1 1871; died June 5 1900): amongst the banned
books on Dec 6; the Stephen Crane
Society here
William Robertson Davies (born Aug 28 1913;
died December 2 1995): his bio and works here, his stamp here (you can tell how significant a person is to their
country by the fact that they become a stamp; can you tell the scale of that
significance by the value of the stamp? WRD’s is 63 cents)
Juan Manuel Puig Delledonne (born Dec 28 1832; died July 22 1990): bio and works here
Charles John Huffam Dickens (born Feb 7 1812; died
June 9 1870);
his friendship with Ada Lovelace on June 5; Bill Sykes on Feb 8; “The Old Curiosity Shop” on March 15; “Martin Chuzzlewit” on June 22; “David Copperfield” on Aug 17. Mentioned en passant on Jan 1 and April
2 – see P’s London for his various London locations
including Newgate Prison, the Old Curiosity Shop, and his house/museum in
Holborn
Martin Chuzzlewit set off for America on January 3rd 1842, though he is in the blog on June 22, and
apparently told everyone he met there that his real name was Charles Dickens
Benjamin Disraeli (born December 21 1804; died April 19 1881): the novelist on Feb 28; the Zionist on Aug 29; refurbishing Downing Street on Dec 4 – official
bio here; literary
bio here; the books here
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis
Carroll): (born January 27
1832; died January 14 1898): pops out of the mirror on March 15, through the rabbit-hole on July 4 and Nov 26;
also among the pseudonyms on Feb 8,
and a mention on the Merely Mentioneds page,
under Forshaw & Coles - and why am I not surprised that there is a Lewis Carroll Society in the
Disneyland of America, but not in the Shakespeareland of England: click here; and here for all the texts
Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (Duras) (born April 4 1914, in Gia Định, which was then French
Indochina but is now Vietnam; died March 3 1996): though she could be included
among the thespians for the screenplay of “Hiroshima Mon Amour” – bio and works
here
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoievski born Nov 11 1821; pardoned and redeemed from the firing squad on Dec 22; died anyway on Feb 8 1881); the entire family
Karamazov on his deathdate, Ivan alone on Feb 21; the Grand Inquisitor on March 30, May 4
and 30, June 25; “Uncle's Dream” on April 1; influenced by George
Sand on July 1;
echoed by Victor Serge on Aug 20
Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin de Franceuil (Dudevant was her married name, George Sand her nom de plume) (born
July 1 1804; died June 8 1876): her pseudonym on Feb 8; by her proper name and with de
Musset on July 1,
her birthday; in correspondence with Flaubert on June 29; her Mallorcan winter with Chopin is among
my travel books – here bio and watercolours here – watercolours? I
thought she was a writer – here for that; here for her poems, here for her books; Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s two eulogies here and here (and Dorothy Parker’s rather more tongue-in-cheek
one here)
Lawrence George Durrell (born Feb 27 1912; died November 7 1990): mentioned on July
3 – bio and works here; my piece about his “Phileremo” here (and several other mentions in “Private
Collection”)
Maria Edgeworth: beloved of Jane Austen
on her birthday (Jan 1
1768;
died May 22 1849): everything you need (except your entry ticket, you’ll have
to get that yourself) is here (though you will also find my piece about her among the Blue-Stockings in Woman-Blindness)
Ralph Waldo Ellison (born March 1 1913; died April 16 1994; and yes, that’s Ellison, not Emerson, despite
having the same first names and both being writers): somewhat invisibly amongst the banned books on Dec 6 – bio here; his foundation here
Mary Ann(e) Evans (Marian Evans
Lewes; George Eliot) (born November 22
1819; died December 22 1880): Casaubon
on Feb 8
and Nov 28;
three Georges on July 1;
Zionism on August 29;
“Silas Marner” on Oct 28;
possible source of her nom de plume on Oct 30; quoted on Nov 5;
born on Nov 22;
died on Dec 22
–
books here; archive here
John Evelyn (born Oct
31
1620; died February 27 1706): his home trashed by Peter
Romanov on June 9 (you can still visit
the garden though: click here) – bio here; various portraits
of him here; his diary here
Cicely Isabel Fairfield (Rebecca West): (born Dec 21 1892; died March 15 1983): minor novelist (she judged
the Booker Prize twice but was never likely to be a candidate to win it: click here), but a serious
journalist, best known for her reports on the Nürnberg trials (that’s the way
they spell it in Germany), for which click here; other books here
William Cuthbert Faulkner (or Falkner
actually; he changed the spelling when he needed to sound British to
join the Canadian RAF) (born Sept
25 1897; died July 6 1962): at loggerheads with Hemingway on March
15;
taking last orders on Dec 29; mentioned on Jan 1 and July
28 – his Nobel Prize here; bio and books here
F. Scott (Francis
Scott Key) Fitzgerald: born Sept
24 1896; married Zelda
Sayre on April 3; banned on Dec 6;
mentioned on Jan 1; died on December 21
1940; the society in his name here
Gustave
Flaubert (born December 12
1821; doed May 8 1880): with George Sand
on June 29
and July 1;
born Dec 12
– books here; Normandie here [he can also be found among the responses to bullying]
Daniel Foe (de Foe, Defoe) (born 1660; died April 24 1731): Man Fridayed on Feb 1; pseudonymed on Feb 8;
buried among the dissenters on Nov 28; literary works here, non-literary works here
and as to Man
Friday: no sign of him in the Selkirk version on Feb 1, but very much in charge in my piece in “The Captive Bride” (page 122)
Edward Morgan (E.M) Forster (born Jan 1 1879; died June 7
1970): “only connected” on Jan 3, but, because you
need two entities to make a connection, on Sept 14 as well – bio here, books here, the London blue plaque here (the saga of the
Weybridge blue plaque can be read at the bio link)
John Galsworthy (born
Aug 14 1867; died January 31 1933): Nobel
Prize here; Blue Plaque here; his law firm here; several portraits
of him here
André Paul Guillaume Gide: (born November 22 1869; died February 19 1951): with Oscar Wilde on April 5; subjected to Bachelardian analysis on Nov 22; paralleled with Roger Casement on Sept
1, and Victor Serge on Aug 20; living in Le
Corbusier’s Le Havre on Oct 6 – bio here; Nobel
Prize here; Les Caves du
Vatican here
George Robert Gissing (born Nov 22 1857, in Wakefield; died December 28 1903):
bio here, books here
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Shelley): (born August 30 1797;
died Feb 1 1851), and that page also
tells the Geneva-Frankenstein story with PB
and Byron and “Pollydolly” (John Polidori); “Kosher Frankenstein” on March 11; April
27 has mum, Mary Wollstonecraft
(Godwin) - her and her mum can also be found here; PB drowned on July
8; mentioned on Jan 22; National Portrait Gallery here
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (became a live soul on the night of March
31/April 1 1809 so you will find different dates recorded in the annals; became
a dead soul on March 4 1852):
plays as well as novels here; Nabokov’s version here
William Gerald Golding (born Sept 19 1911; seized by the lord of the flies on
June 19 1993): Nobel Prize here; National Portrait Gallery
here; his website here
Nadine Gordimer (born Nov 20 1923; died July 13 2014): Booker and Nobel
prizes here; why she should also
be on the responses to bullying page here
Abdulrazk Gurmah: the second African
to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2021 [Africa]
Françoise d'Issembourg du
Buisson d'Happoncourt, which is way too complicated
for my ability to decide how to alphabetise her, so she’s here under her
married name, Françoise de Graffigny,
which is how history remembers her anyway: discovered
by Voltaire on Feb 11, which is also her birthdate; supported by Emilie du Châtelet, until they fell out over Joan of Arc, on the Ancien
Régime page
of "Woman-Blindness"; died December 12 1758
Günter Wilhelm Grass: (born
October 16 1927; reborn Tuesday May 8 1945; died April 13 2015): much disparaged because he joined the Hitler
Youth, but that was what 15 year olds did, and what matters is how he dealt
with it in later life: read “The Tin Drum” and look up May 8 1945 for yourself;
quoted on March 15;
born Oct 16; Booker
and Nobel prizes here; his house here
Henry Graham Greene: born Oct 2 1904; died April 3
1991): bio here; lots of portraits here; much debate as to
whether he should be counted among the reverend writers, but as he did all that
debating internally, and in his writings, there is no need for me to add to it;
and his conclusion places him here; the trust in his name here
Sarah Josepha Buell Hale: (born October
24 1788; died April 30 1879): brought a little lamb into the world on March 15; for the
musical accompaniment see Lowel Mason – among
the scribes because she edited the magazine “Godey’s Lady’s Book”; in Woman-Blindness because she was the Mother of Thanksgiving – start here
Thomas Hardy: born June 2 1840;
died January 11 1928): published "Far From the Madding Crowd" on Nov 23 – his website here; DHL’s study here
Nathaniel Hathorne (no, that was the original spelling; he changed it to Hawthorne): (born July 4 1804, in Salem MS; died May 19 1864): “Scarlet
Letter” published on March
16; the book banned in 1852 (see under Dec 6) – bio here with a couple of poems; “The Scarlet Letter” here
William Hazlitt (born April 10 1778; died September 18 1830): another of Joseph Johnson's circle of radical thinkers on April 27 - bio here; books here
Bessie Amelia Emery Head: (born July 6 1937 in South Africa; doed April 17
1986 in Botswana): telling tales of tenderness and power on Oct 22 bio
here and here
– also on the
Africa page
Joseph Heller (born May 1 1923; died December 12
1999): caught amongst
the banned books on Dec 6 – bio here
Ernest Miller Hemingway (born July 21 1899; self-euthenased on July 2 1961): at loggerheads with Faulkner
on March 15, ;
volunteered for war on July 22 and Oct 6; banned on Dec 6; mentioned on Jan 11 – Nobel Prize here
Mary (née Welsh) Hemingway:
dis-empressed on July 2
Herman Karl Hesse (born July 2 1877; died August 9
1962): bio here; Nobel Prize here; books here, paintings here
Kimitake Hiraoka (Yukio
Mishima) (born January 14
1925; committed seppuku on Nov 25 1970):
bio here
Hugo Laurenz August
Hofmann von Hofmannstahl (born February 1 1874; died July 15 1929): Austrian
novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist; name-dropped by
Peter Altenberg on Feb 21 - bio here
Edmund Josef von Horváth
(Ödön von Horváth on the
cover of his novel “Ein Kind unserer Zeit”, published in November 1938, shortly
after his death at the age of just 36 on June 1 1938; gave Michael Tippett the title for an opera on March 19 – bio here
(born
December 9 1901)
William Dean Howells: applause for P.L. Dunbar on Feb 9 – his website here
Joseph
Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer (Ford Madox Ford): born Dec 17 1873; died June 26 1939: bio here, Blue Plaque in Holland Park here; books here
Thomas Hughes (born October 20 1822; died March 22 1896): his novel "Tom Brown's
Schooldays” is on Dec 24; click here for the
full text - bio here
Victor-Marie Hugo: Jean Valjean gets somewhat miserable with VH on his birthday, Feb 26, but mounts the barricades with Casanova on April 2; VH's “Les Miserables” letter is on Oct 18; and a mention on Aug 10 - awesome website
here
Aldous Leonard Huxley (born July 26 1894; died
November 22 1963): with his wife Maria at DHL’s
bedside on March 2; mentioned on May 2 – bio here; all
his books here; my version
of “Brave New World” here
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood: born Aug 26 1904; died January 4 1986): his
foundation here
Henry James (born April 15 1843; died
February 28 1916): became a Brit on July 16
– books here; his Blue Plaque in
Chelsea here
Marie le Jars de Gournay (1565-1645): studying with Montaigne
on Feb 28; in her own write on Sept
14 and the
Ancien
Régime page of Woman-Blindness
Marguerite Ann Johnson (Maya
Angelou) (born April 4 1928; died May 28 2014): the poet here; the dancer, singer, activist here; the autobiography here (Africa)
Edith Newbold Jones (Edith Wharton) (born Jan 24 1862; died August 11 1937): the great lady here; the great house here (the two are actually
indistinguishable); portrait here; collection here
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born Feb 2 1882; died
January 13 1941): Joseph Cambell
on Joyce can be found on March 26,
but even more so on Feb 16; generally
granted on April 9; cited by Sam Beckett on April
13; Bloomsday is on June 16
though “Ulysses” is amongst the banned books on Dec
6; student Italo Svevo is
on Dec 19,
critic Harold Bloom on July 11; mentioned
on April 24; Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy is on Sept 13, and there are several other Blooms, Bloomers
and Bloomsburys along the way; The James Joyce Centre in Dublin here
Nora (with an H on her
birth certificate) Barnacle:
immortalised in “Ulysses” as Molly Bloom on June 16; photo
and data here
Franz Kafka (born July 3 1883; died
June 3 1924): turned into an esque
on Jan 4; Robinson Crusoe on Feb 1; processed on Aug 12; diaries quoted on Nov
30; mentioned April 1 – several
occurrences in Private Collection: with Gottfried
Benn here, his “Chinese Puzzle” here; several esque-mentions as well;
his website here
Nikolaos ("Nikos") Kazantzakis: born Feb 18 1883; died October 26 1957): referenced Nov 18 – everything you need here
Louise-Félicité Guynement de Kéralio-Robert (1757-1821):
founder of "Journal d'État et du Citoyen" on Aug 13 (among the Blue-Stockings in Woman-Blindness)
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac (“Jack” to
his readers):
(born March 12 1922; died Oct 21 1969): his
website here
Ken Elton Kesey: (flew into the
cuckoo’s nest on Sept 17 1935; flew out
again on November 10 2001): bio here
Joseph Rudyard Kipling: contrasted with P.L
Dunbar on Feb 9; born Dec 30 1865; died January 18 1936): mentioned on April 18 and Sept
29 – bio and poems here; Nobel Prize here; London Blue Plaque here; Poets’ Corner here
Amos Klausner (Oz was an
adopted name, which is not the same thing as a Pseudonym; read “A Tale of Love
and Darkness” to understand the difference); born May 4 1939; died December 28,
2018: touching the water and the wind on Aug 3 – his website here
Artú Kösztler (Arthur Koestler): (born Sept 5 1905; died March 1
1983): bio here; books here; his arts legacy here; George Orwell’s view of him here
Karl Kraus (born
April 28 1874; died June 12 1936): name-dropped by Peter Altenberg on Feb 21; compared with Jonathan Swift here, so he has to be worth reading (certainly Mahler thought so: click here)
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: born Dec
23
1896; died July 23 1957): bio here; the island here
David Herbert (D.H) Lawrence (born Sept 11 1885;
Frieda Emma Johanna Maria Von Richtofen’s
account of his death is on March 2 – the year was
1930): Katherine
Mansfield on Jan 9; “Art for my sake” on Feb 28; “John
Thomas and Lady Jane” on March 15 (and see my listing for Marc
Allégret among
the illustrious illustrators); “Pansies” on June 19; “Plumed
Serpent” on June 30; essay on Galsworthy
on Aug 14; Crowed and Naipauled
on Aug 17; HD
on Sept 10; “The Rainbow” banned on Nov 13; dead-heated with Mary Ann Evans on Nov 22 – my thoughts on “The Snake” here; my tribute-poem here
Nelle Harper Lee: born April
28 1926 (mention of Truman Capote
whose Sept 30 page likewise mentions
her); available for banning on Dec 6;
died February 19 2016; the disgraceful publication of her rejected novel has
been removed to the GER page of the GER page and will get no further mention on
this blog
Carlo Levi (born
November 29 1902; stopped forever in Eboli on Jan 4 1975): painter as much as writer,
doctor and political activist even more: bio here
Primo Michele Levi (born July 31 1919; could take no more on April 11
1987, though that is on the blog on June 3): provided witness testimony on Aug 3 and Dec 28 – bio here; his Centre in New York here
Harry Sinclair Lewis (born February 7 1885; died January 10
1951): seeking God on Jan 1 – Nobel
Prize here
Isabelle Allende Llona: better known
without that last-name on Sept 11 and Pseudonyms - her wesbite here
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa: at loggerheads with Gabo on March
15; quoted on Sept 1 – books here; Nobel Prize here
Jean
Loret (circa 1600-1665): blogging, 17th century style, and in verse
at that, on March 15;"La Muse
Historique" in 1650 contains the first known reference to Mother Goose; lots more about the blog here
Clarence Malcolm Boden Lowry (erupted into life on July 28 1909; reduced to lava on June 26 1957); mentioned on Sept 17 and Dec
13 – his Merseyside
Blue Plaque and archive here
Carlos Fuentes Macías: (born Nov 11
1928; died May 15 2012): brief bio here; friend and
translator of Harold Pinter here
Nachem Malech (Norman Kingsley) Mailer (born January 31 1923; died November 10 2007): at
war with Susan Sontag on March 15; an “old pile of bones” according to Tom Wolfe
on July 11 (Pseudonyms)
Georges André Malraux (embodied the human condition on Nov 3 1901; gave it up on November 23 1976): bio
here, including the Art
historian and the Culture Minister; and see my essay in “Homage to Thomas
Bowdler”
Italo Giovanni Calvino Mameli (born Oct 15 1923; died September 19 1985): bio here; several mentions on Private Collection, most
especially here; all the
books here; and see my essay “Infinite Cities”
in “Homage to Thomas Bowdler”
Alberto Manguel: a tale of Cervantes
on June 27 [but
see my note on the Librarians page] – books here; his website here
Paul Thomas Mann: (born June 6 1875; died August 12 1955): bio here
Abraham Mapu: (born Jan 11 1808; died October 9 1867): bio here
Gabriel José de la Concordia Garcia Marquez (“Gabo”) (born March 6 1927; died April 17 2014): at
loggerheads with Maria Vargas Llosa
on March 15; bio
and Nobel Prize here; a guided tour of Colombia here [my own journey through Colombia,
including a visit to his museum and cultural centre in Bogota, is in "Tourism-Writing";
my shorter piece about him is in “The Captive Bride”); also on the pre-Columban
Americas page
Jose
Arcadio Buendia, the patriarchal “Adam” of “Cien
años de la Soledad” (“One Hundred Years of Solitude”) goes tree-worshipping
with a camera on Jan 2 [serious scribes]
William Somerset Maugham (born Jan 25 1874;
died December 16 1965): taken swiftly to
Margate on Dec 29 – Blue Plaque in Mayfair here; Graham Sutherland’s portrait here; guide to the books here; the actual books here; the secret spy here
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (born Aug 5 1850; died July 6 1893): bio here; complete short stories here
François Charles Mauriac (born Oct 11 1885; died September 1 1970): Nobel Prize here
Herman Melvill (the “e” was added by his father when he was about nineteen) (born
Aug 1 1819;
died September 28 1891): published Nov 14; sources of “Moby-Dick” and “Billy
Budd” on Nov 20; banned Dec 6; referenced on Oct 26 and Nov
22 – bio and
poetry here; the books here; his Blue Plaque in Charing Cross here
Thomas Gibson Nickerson (born March 20 1805; sunk by a whale but survived on November 20 1820; died February 7 1883): providing a source for Melville's "Billy Budd, Sailor" on Nov 20; bio and other “Essex” related materials here and here and here
George Pollard Jr (born July 18 1791, died January 7
1870: the source of Melville’s Captain
Ahab on Nov 20, though in Pollard’s case it wasn’t just one but
both of his ships, the “Two Brothers” as well as the “Essex”, that sank - here and here
Sergio Ramirez (Mercado): burying his fathers on Jan
18
Prosper Mérimée (born Sept 28
1803; died 23 September 1870): July 1
with George Sand – bio here; stories here; his work as an
archaeologist here; and for my Pseudonyms 1 page, apparently he ascribed his plays to
one Clara Gazul, and foreworded them
under the alias Joseph Létrange:
click here
Anne Michaels: even
more "Fugitive Pieces” in the film than in the novel, on June 24; linked to my “Homage to Thomas Bowdler”; her
website here
Hannah More of Fishponds (born February 2 1745; died September 7 1833): one of the original Bluestckings, for which see Woman-Blindness; I have placed her among the serious scribes, but she could as well be listed with the playwrights, or with
her friend William Wilberforce on the
responses to bullying list, overseeing the
abolition of slavery in Britain; Oct 2 , plus bio here, and
the Bristol-eye-view here; “The Lady of The Haystack” here; a Bristol girl, but
her Blue Plaque is in Bath, here; her portrait by Frances Reynolds here
Chloe Anthony Wofford
(“Tony”) Morrison (born February 18 1931; died August 5 2019): amongst
the banned books on Dec 6; bio here; Nobel Prize here; her website here
Jean Iris Murdoch (born July 15
1919; died February 8 1999): Stanford Uni reckons she should
be placed with the philosophers; Booker Prize here; her Blue Plaque in
South Kensington here
Robert Mathias Edler von Musil: born entirely without qualities on Nov 6 1880; died April 15
1942): his museum here
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (born April 22 1899; died July 2 1977): poshlost on March
4;
with Roman Polański and Lolita on Aug 18; bio and books here; he also wrote poetry, here
Flora Nwapa: Nigerian novelist, her "Efuru" was one of the first novels
in English by an African woman to be published internationally, two years
before Bessie Head [Africa]
Josephine Edna O'Brien (born Dec 15 1930; died July 27
2024): Irish Times obituary here: what else is there
to say?
John Henry O’Hara (born Jan 31
1905; died April 11 1970): New York Times obituary here
Isaak Yudovick Ozimov (Isaac Asimov) (born
Jan 2 1920; died April 6
1992): the foundation for everything you will want to know about him here
John Roderigo Dos Passos (born Jan 14
1896; died September 28 1970): he also gets passing mentions on Jan 1 and June
22 – his website here
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (born Feb 10 1890, but his story is told on Oct 23 (and he gets mentions on July 18, Aug 12
and Aug 20); died May 30 1960
Yevgeny Borisovich Pasternak: mourning
his father on Oct 23; his book about his dad can be found
here; his dad’s poetry here
Alan Stewart Paton (born January 11 1903; died April 12 1988): bio here; archives here
Mervyn Laurence Peake (born July 9 1911; lost in Castle Gormenghast on November 17 1968): set to music by Richard Rodney
Bennett on
June 18, and a
passing comparison on Aug 19; his
website here,
though Titus Groan has a rival website here -
and I rate him just as high as an artist as he was a writer: click here
Knud Pedersen (Knut Hamsun) (born Aug
4 1859; died February 19 1952): Nobel Prize here; books here
Truman Streckfus Persons (Truman Capote) (born Sept 30
1924; died August 25 1984): mentioned on April
28; "In Cold Blood" withdrawn on Dec 6; playing Dill to Harper Lee’s Scout here
Alexei Maximovich
Peshkov (Maxim Gorky) (born March 28 1868; died June 18 1936): among the memoirs of Victor Serge on Aug 20 - bio here - he also wrote poetry,
here
Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Comtesse de la Fayette: wrote what is regarded as the first French, indeed possibly
the first European novel, "La Princesse de Clèves" in 1878; her dates
are 1634-1693 and she gets two mentions, one on Aug 25, the
other with Adrienne
Lafayette on Sept
18
Edgar Poe (“Allan” was added when he was adopted): born Jan 19 1809; “The Raven” on April
18; first
marriage on May 16; mentioned
in Baltimore on Sept 12;
found dead in a gutter en route to his second wedding on Oct 7 1849 – everything you
need here, though you might also like to read my piece about him in Private
Collection, here
Anthony Dymoke Powell (born Dec 21 1905; died March 28
2000): interesting how some writers end up – their estates or publishers or
fans create them – some with museums, some with centres, some with schools or
colleges, some with institutes... Powell’s is a society: click here
Victor Sawdon Pritchett (born Dec 16 1900; died March 20 1997): the short stories are too light to merit
placement on this list, but then there are the essays, the critical
writings... bio here; the short story prize in his name here
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (entered
lost time on July 10; departed from
it November 19 1922): mentioned on July 1,
July 3, July
12, July 14, Aug 14, Aug 17,
Oct 28. Mme Verdurin is alluded to on Oct
2, and hostesses a salon on Feb 5: pure
fiction: but what is interesting, and worth a piece on its own, is the source:
Léontine Lippmann (1844–1910), better known by her married name of Madame Arman
or Madame Arman de Caillavet (click here); I shall have to find a place for
her among the Equal Sex ladies of
Woman-Blindness and also
add her to the Anatole France listing
Solomon
Naumovich Rabinovitz (Sholem Aleichem)
(born Feb 18 1859, not in Anatevka
but in the even more splendidly named Pereiaslav, which is actually in the
Ukraine, but don’t tell that to Comrade Putain): mentioned on Nov
1; died May 13 1916 –
bio here; some of his books here, more of them here; Fiddler On The Roof here
Mordechai Richler: (started his apprenticeship on Jan 27 1931; died July 3 2001): bio here and here
Philip Milton Roth (born
March 19 1933; died May 22 2018): idolising Edna
O’Brien on Dec 15 - interesting
interview here
Harriet Rubin's "Dante In Love" quoted
on June 24 – book here
Ahmad Salman Rushdie (born on June 19
1947; fatwahed on Feb 14; quoted on April 23 – his website here
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: (born
September 29 1547); shares a death-date with Shakespeare
on April 23 1616); Alberto Manguel’s account of him on June 27;
his portrait on Nov 25;
he is mentioned on Jan 18, March 29
and July 10,
and performed à la Brel on Nov 22 - bio here, books here
Gaspar de Ezpeleta: killed
by Cervantes? don’t be
ridiculous - on June 27
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade: born June 2 1740: appears from a window on July 14; died Dec
2 1814): mentioned somewhat obscurely on Dec 16 – bio here, books here (but you must be 18
or older - and not just chronologically older - to read them)
[the best way to derogate somebody whose opinion you don’t like, is to accuse them of doing something that is generally regarded as evil, even if they have never actually done it: once it hits the headlines, stupid people will assume there can’t be smoke without fire, and the derogation is successful. So the city of Sodom was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, and yet is remembered for its citizens apparently engaging habitually in anal sex. So the Marquis de Sade has given his name to cruelty, even to torture, when the truth is he was just a bloke with high testosterone levels and the money to extrude them with girls who shared a similar libertinism...had he lived today he would probably have become a porn star]
Hugo de
Sade,
who was presumably an ancestor, married Laura de Neves on Jan 16, and is on the MM list
Jerome David (J.D) Salinger: born Jan
1 1919, banned Dec 6; died
January 27 2010 – his idol-worshippers website here
José de Sousa Saramago: (born November 16 1922; died June 18 2010):
rethinking Pessoa on Feb 8 – Nobel Prize here; the foundation in
his name here (the
autobiographical intro is the same on both sites); the house that is now a
museum here [and a mention on
the pre-Columban Americas page]
Arthur Schnitzler (born May 15 1862; died October 21 1931): name-dropped by Peter Altenberg on Feb 21 – bio here; the Journal of the
Arthur Schnitzler Research Association here; books here
Aron Hector (“Ettore”) Schmitz
(Italo Svevo): (born - and tutored
by James Joyce - on Dec 19 1861; died September 13 1928): pseudonymed
on Feb 8; ; mentioned on Feb 2 and March
15 – in Trieste here; in London here
Winfried Georg (“Max”) Sebald:
the destruction of Yuan Ming Yuan on Jan 11; attempted the dramatic monologue on April 6;
mentioned with Magris on April 10
Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov (born June 5 1907; died January 4 1982
OS - that’s June 18 and January 17 in
the Gregorian calendar): telling tales in Kolyma on Aug 20 – he also wrote poetry, here; his website here
Moshe
Kuznetsov: a fictional character
in the eleventh story in Shalamov’s
“Kolyma
Tales”on Aug 20, who I only mention because three Kuznetsovs, including this one, play important if minor cameo parts in my novel "Going To The Wall", for which click here
Upton Beall Sinclair (born Sept 20
1878; died November 25 1968): banned Dec
6 – bio and books here
Aleksandr Isayevitch
Solzhenitsyn: [born December 11
1918, died August 3 2008] Nobel Prize on Oct 23;
witnessed the Gulag on Dec 28 – his centre’s
website here
Akinwande Oluwole (Wole)
Babatunde Soyinka: born July 13 1934: Nobel Prize here; his website here
Gertrude Stein (born Feb 3 1874; died July 27 1946): bio and
poems here; the Jewish view here; five of her books here
The actual Alice B (for Babette) Toklas (born April 30 1877;
died March 7, 1967) can be found here
John Ernst Steinbeck (born Feb 27
1902; died December 20 1968): his 1962 Nobel
Prize is on Oct 25;
plus mentions on Jan 1, March 26, Oct 3 and 23; and a localised banning on Dec
6 0 his house in Salinas here;
his institute at Stanford here;
all of his books here;
apparently he joined the Masons, here
Tom Joad: Steinbeck’s book-version on Oct 3, with Woody Guthrie’s song-version linked on the page
as well as here
Laurence Sterne (born Nov 24
1713; died March 18 1786); mentioned on Nov 28
– books here; portrait here; the trust in his
name here
Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson
(Mrs Gaskell): born Sept 29 1810; died November 12 1865): everything you
need to know about her here, though she can also be found among the Blue-Stockings in Woman-Blindness; her house in Manchester here
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (born Nov
13 1850; died December 3 1894): bio here (apparently his name
in Samoa was Aka Tusitala: ‘Teller of
Tales’); portrait here; his website here
Harriet
Beecher Stowe (born June 14 1811; died July 1 1896): not banned, just
written against, on Dec 6 – well worth looking at this link [also on reponses to
bullying – sites like this explain why - but
should she be counted among the reverend writers
– click here for that]; her
collected works here; her not terribly
interesting house-museum here
Patrick Süskind: born smelling of perfume on March 26 1949: the novel here
Graham Colin Swift: taking
last orders on Dec 29 - try here
Doris May Tayler (Lessing): (born Oct
22 1919, in Iran of all unlikely places; died November 17 2013): Booker
Prize nominations here; Nobel Prize awarded here; her website here
William Makepeace Thackeray (born July
18 1811; died December 24 1863): in Tolstoy’s
diary on Jan 21; multiple pseudonyms
on Feb 8; bio here; portrait here; the view from the
Brontes here; the popularising of
the word “snob” here (and most of his
books as well); “Vanity Fair” here; the magazine here; the tea-house in
Vauxhall here
Ngugi wa Thiongo: published "Weep
Not, Child", the first major novel in English by an East African, in 1964
[Africa]
Lev (or possibly Lyof,
but definitely not Leo) Nikolayevich Tolstoy
(born Sept 9 1828; died November 20 1910): Jan
21 has a quote from his diary; July 1 mentions him; bio and
books here; the
Tchaikovsky relationship here
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (born Nov 9 1818;
died September 3 1883): mentioned on Feb 28 – bio here; the books here; also wrote poetry, here; Dostoievski on Turgenev
here; portrait here
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal – which should really be hyphenated: Gore was his mother’s maiden name (born Oct 3 1925; died July 31 2012): bio here; books here
Kurt
Vonnegut
(born November 11 1922; died April 11 2007): not so much banned as rejected as
an alternative to a banned book, on Dec 6;
his website here; his museum and library here
Horace Walpole junior (born September
24 1717; died March 2 1797): has his feet up at one of Elizabeth Montagu’s salons on Oct 2; but defeated in his attempt to put his foot down on May 16; his bio here; founding the Gothic novel here; Project Gutenberg
files here; Srawberry Hill
website here (and see P’s
London)
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (born Oct 28 1903; died April 10
1966): bio and books about him here; books by him here; his website here
Nathan (von Wallenstein?)
Weinstein (Nathanael West) (born Oct 17 1903; died December
22 1940): bio here, the writings here
Herbert George (H.G) Wells (born Sept 21 1866; died August 13
1946): at DHL’s bedside on March 2; the official website here
Patrick Victor Martindale White (born May 28 1912; died September 30 1990): Feb 8 for Voß and Leichhardt; Nov 17
for Hurtle Duffield; mentioned
on July 28; Nobel Prize here; that so rare it is
almost unique thing, a positive Australian view of him, here; but then you read
it, and they manage to avoid any judgements at all: we have to include him now
that he’s won that bloody prize: just stick to facts, and don’t use the phrase
“verbal slush”. So sad!
Eliezer (Elie) Wiesel: (born Sept 30 1928;
died July 2 2016): on Luria on Aug 5; mentioned on Aug 3 and Dec 28; Nobel Prize here; Holocaust
Encyclopedia here; his Foundation for
Humanity here; all the books here
Leon Wieseltier: saying Kaddish for Rabbi
Oshry on Oct 28; The New Republic here; Liberties here; the Dan David Prize
here [apparently
he was a pen-pal of Leonard Cohen,
but you have to subscribe to read the New York Times article, and I ain’t doin’
that]
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (born Oct 16 1854; died November 30 1900): arrested April 5 and sent to Reading Gaol, which serves
the authorities right as the only meaningful outcome was one of the great poems
in the English language: click here to read it; his
other works here; this claims to be the “official” Wilde website,
so I presume this must be the
“unofficial” one
Lord Alfred Douglas: “aiding
and abetting a pederast” on April 5; apparently “Bosie” was his mother’s nickname, west
country pronunciation of “boysie”, for “little boy”, long before Oscar used it;
he was a poet (click here) and journalist
Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams (Jean Rhys): (born Aug 24 1890; died May 14
1979): her Blue Plaque in Chelsea here (Chelsea! that is so
ironic, given the rest of her life-story!)
John Anthony (with an “h”!) Burgess
Wilson: (born February 25
1917; died November 22 1993): listed on Feb 8 -
his rather exalted website here
Thomas Clayton Wolfe: born Oct 3
1900; died September 15 1938): mentioned Jan 1;
bio here; his website here; Not to be confused with
Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr (born March 2 1930; died May 14 2018) whose ”Bonfire of the
Vanities” can be found on Jan 8, “The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” on Sept 17,
and a dig at Mailer and Bellow
on July 11 – bio here, books here
Adeline Virginia Stephen
(Virginia Woolf): born Jan 25 1882; died March 28 1941): husband Leonard’s birthday is on Nov 25; Bloomsbury is on May 18; see also July
28 –
bio here; website here; portraits by the
three-score here; Blue Plaque in
Fitzroy Square here; the sad ruination
of the Hogarth Press here
Emile Edouard Charles Antoine Zola: born April 2 1840; forced to flee on Feb 26; accusatory on July 12 and Oct
18; Dreyfus again on July 14; assassinated on Sept 28 though his date of death is recorded
as September 29 (1902) and the official history put out by the French
government is now widely accepted: click here; commissioned Rodin’s sculpture of Balzac on Nov
12 – his Blue Plaque in Norwood here; and why he was
there here and here; his Paris plaques \; the books here
Izaak Zynger (Isaac
Bashevis Singer, the novelist): born July
14 1903 (but see the question-mark in the Britannica; other archives say November 21 1902 and Wikipedia
even claims he made up the earlier date to avoid the draft: but surely that
would have brought his conscription forward, not moved it back! for the full
debate over this world-shatteringly-important matter, click here): mentioned Oct 27;
bio here; his website here; Nobel Prize here
*
ii) The Travel-Writers:
William John Banville: in Prague on March 11 and Sept 2 (plus a link to
these on March 29) – his website here
Arthur Charles Clark: born Dec
16 1917; died March 19 2008): some people never leave their home village; some
people travel whole continents; ACC spent his life endlessly travelling the
entire cosmos and reporting back on what he had seen there – his Foundation here
Karen Christence Dinesen (married name Baroness
Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke; pen name Isak Dinesen): born April 17 1885; died September 7 1962): Margaret
Attwood’s take on her here; her coffee garden here; her website here
Mary Henrietta Kingsley: (born October 13 1862; died June 3 1900): bio here and here; African-eye-view here; National Portrait
Gallery here; books here
Claudio Magris: sailing the Danube on April
10;
bio here; winning prizes here; in Trieste here; and still more
prizes and still more Trieste here (well, when has Trieste ever had a
serious writer living there? sorry, did you say Joyce – never heard of her,
what’s her last-name?)
Les Soeurs Mancini: Anna Maria (“Marie”) Mancini, Princesse de
Colonna and
Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de Mazarin (1646-1699); with uncle Mazarin
on March 9; writing
up the Grand Tour d'Europe on June
22 (Ancien Régime page of Woman-Blindness
and among the serious scribes); Hortense
is also among the Mary Astell papers
in Woman-Blindness and on Nov 12)
Henry Valentine Miller (born Dec 26
1891; died June 7 1980): here, for the splendid “The Colossus of Maroussi”,
rather than for those, let’s be honest, literary sex-adventures, which are most
of his other books; bio and those other books here (and go recite the quote on the homepage* to either
Yeats or Ari Ben Aaron!)
*It occurs to me that I need to footnote that quote, because people update their websites, so it might one day not be there. It reads: “I
struggled in the beginning. I said I was going to write the truth, so help me
God. And I thought I was. I found I couldn’t. Nobody can write the absolute
truth.” But you just did, Mr Miller. In saying this, you just did. Though, as your great friend Lawrence Durrell once wrote, "Truth is dispossessed in utterance" - so maybe you didn't just say it after all.
Benjamin MiTudelo, which
should have its Mi separate
from its Tudelo, but this
is how he tends to get written in the Jewish annals. Benjamin of Tudela in the
English ones. Bin Yamin ben Yonah
ha-Tudelati in the Hebrew. The Jewish
ibn-Battuta rather more than the Jewish Marco Polo on March
5, and now the subject of a book in my own write, in partnership with both
of those just-nameds. Bio here in the meanwhile
James Humphry (Catharine Jan when he/she transgendered) Morris: born Oct 2 1926, in
Clevedon noch (family connection; my late wife was the Labour candidate in
Clevedon back in 1997); died November 20 2020): Cymru despite the Somerset
birthplace: bio here; Booker Prize here (though she never won it)
Rustichello da Pisa (born
circa 1254; probably died on January 8 1324): sharing a prison cell with Marco Polo and writing down his memories for
him on Jan 9 and Sept 28: text is here (do chellos
get rusti? I thought they were made of whood, not mhetal)
Marco Polo cannot have his own place on this list as he
wrote nothing, but simply told his tales to his cellmate, who wrote them down in
hope of making money, not even as a paid ghost-writer. Neverthless, Polo is on the blog: died Jan 8, but more about him on Jan 9; enabled to return to Venice by Arghūn Khan on March 5; celebrating Kublai
Khan’s anniversary on Sept 28; the incident on the bridge named after him
that started the war between Japan and China can be found on July 22 and the China page
Freya Madeline Stark (born Jan 31
1893; died May 9 1993): the view from Iran here; portrait here; her latter years the
best of all, at the end of this wesbite (but the response to
the French chez les Druzes in the middle as well: sums her up: one of the truly
greats the human race has ever produced)
Paul Edward Theroux: dumped
by Crow on Aug 17: his website here
Colin Gerald Dryden
Thubron: quoted re Maimonides on Oct 12; Booker Prize page tells us that he is a
descendant of the poet John Dryden, which explains that otherwise rather unusual-unlikely middle
name; all the books here
*
iii) The Diarists/Memoirists/Epistolerians (that’s
letter-writers made to sound literary):
Louise de Savoie, Duchesse d' Angoulême, Duchesse d' Anjou: keeping a journal on April 11; with her even more gifted daughter
Marguerite de
Navarre (see The Poets for her) on the same date; both are on the mediaeval
page of Woman-Blindnes
Marguerite de Briet, or
Hélisenne
de Crenne if you prefer pseudonyms:
describing “The Torments of Love” on Aug 25 and
the Ancien Régime page
of Woman-Blindness
Luis Rodriguez de Carvajal can be found, but only as ashes
(birthdate unknown; burned at the stake in 1596 at the age of thirty), on Dec 8 – the full tale here
Leonard L Milberg: collecting Carvajal on Dec 8 [librarians of Babel]
Dr Ronnie Perelis: head of
Yeshiva University: quoted re Carvajal on Dec 8 - click here
Alfonso Toro:
transcribing Luis Rodriguez de Carvajal on Dec 8; you can read him in translation here
Frederick Augustus Washington
Bailey Douglass (born Feb 14 - the date is uncertain,
the year 1818; died February 20 1895); praised by P.L. Dunbar on Feb
9; made his first public speech on Aug
11 [much more about him among the responses to bullying]
John Evelyn (born Oct 31 1620; died February 27 1706): his home trashed by Peter Romanov on June
9; read it all here; bio here; and here for the other thirty books that he
wrote as well
Annelies Marie (Anne) Frank: born, and posthumously published by her father Otto
Frank, on June 12 1929; arrested Aug 4; precise date and place of death uncertain; see also Dec 23 - the diaries are readable in full here
Jeanne de Jussie: "A Poor Clare's Account of the Reformation of Geneva" on the
Ancien
Régime page of Woman-Blindness
Thomas Edward Lawrence (of Arabia): (born
Aug 15 1888 – or it may have been
August 16: click here; died
May 19 1935); filmed on June 24; an unlikely route to Aqaba on July 6; some early archaeology and “Seven
Pillars of Wisdom” the reason for his inclusion: about it here,
text here
Jeanne Julie
Éléonore de Lespinasse: insisting that her head be
opened six hours after her death on May 23 and the
Ancien Régime
page of "Woman-Blindness"
Ezekiel (Es'kia) Mphahlele: South African
author of "Down Second Avenue" [Africa]
- Es'kia is a pseudonym, as in an Africanisation/replacement of his Christian-imposed
birthname
"Mes Dames des Roches": Madeleine
Neveu (born circa 1520; died 1587);
and Catherine
Fradonnet (born 1542; died 1587): a mother and daughter team on Nov 17 (Ancien Régime page of Woman-Blindness); "La Puce de Madame Des-Roches" in 1582–1583
Samuel Pepys (born February 23 1633; died May 26
1703): started
his first diary on Jan 1, witnessed
the Great Fire on Sept 2; attended
shul on Sept 30; wrote scathingly
about George Downing on Dec 4 – everything you need here – and can
someone please tell me why he has a Blue Plaque off The Strand, when he has a
street named for him right by the Tower (actually the Plaque website does that
itself)
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal
(Marquise de Sévigné) (born Feb 5 1626; died
April 17 1696):
exchanging letters with her daughter until her death; bio here (and they can’t just
be how-are-you letters if philosophy wesbites bother to host her) and with lots
of pics here; the letters here (site not always
working so try here, though this is only
a selection; more on the Ancien
Régime page of Woman-Blindness)
Edward John Trelawney
(born November 13 1792; died Aug 13
1881): mentioned on Jan 22 and Feb 1 – a very minor writer; what matters is
the subject-matter: his closest friends, Byron
in particular (click here for the book), and
through him Polidori and the Shelleys - bio here
Marguerite de Valois (born May 14 1553; died March 27 1615), "La
Reine Margot", the first full-length memoir by a woman in
French on May 14, the Ancien Régime page of Woman-Blindness
*
iv) The Critics:
Harold Bloom (born
July 11 1930; died October 14 2019):
gets mentions on Feb 28 and
Nov 5;
quoted on Nov 30 - bio here
(though any half-way decent critic would slam it as amateurish)
Cyril Vernon Connolly: born Sept 10 1903;
died November 26 1974): bio here; books here
Terence Francis (Terry)
Eagleton: compared with the best of them on July 11, though I
leave you to deconstruct that phrase and assets its merits for yourself: Lancs Uni website here
Frank Raymond (F.R)
Leavis (born July 14 1895; died April 14 1978), whose last tutee was Howard
Jacobson, whose last tutee was me; obit here; among the giants of Lit Crit
on July 11
Henry Morton Robinson (born September 7 1898; died January 13 1961): playing the cardinal role
of Humphrey Earwicker Chimpden to Joseph
Campbell’s rather more mythological Anna Livia Plurabelle on Feb 16 - bio here
William Caxton: Born on Aug 13, but
did you know he wrote as well as publishing and translating others? See March 8 and 15
Hugh Bryce: “a mercer and alderman of the city
of London”, commissioned William
Caxton to translate and publish Gautier de Metz's 1246
encyclopaedia "L'image du monde" (see the E,M&C2 page], under the English title "The Mirrour of the World", and gave
it as a present to Lord Hastings, Edward IV’s Lord Chamberlain, on March 8 -
click here
Alioine Diop:
established "Présence Africaine" in 1947, a journal devoted to
African culture, based in Dakar, Senegal [Africa]; its
website here
John Chipman Farrar (born February 25 1896; died November 5 1974): publishing
in partnership with Roger Straus Jr on Dec 23;
apparently they are now owned by Macmillan (click here - or am I misreading because it then takes you to
the FS&G website, which doesn’t open); for Farrar click here and/or here
Giovanni Daelli: the Milanese publisher of the Italian translation of Victor Hugo’s "Les
Miserables” on Oct 18
Joseph Johnson: (born
November 15 1738; died December 20 1809): publisher and salon-host to a quite
extraordinary group of intellectuals, on April 27 - more here. Not to be confused with his
contemporary James
Johnson (born 1753?; died February 26 1811): also a publisher, of books as well
as music, and best known for co-writing the songbook “The Scots Musical Museum” with Robert Burns
Alfred Abraham Knopf: born Sept 12
(published Leon Wieseltier's
"Kaddish" on Oct 28) – bio here; website here
Harriet Monroe (born Dec 23 1860; died
September 26 1936): bio here
Wolf Pascheles (born May
11 1814; died November 22 1857):
publishing Jewish folk-tales on March 11 - bio here
John Playford (born
1623; died January 24 1687): dancing to oranges and lemons on March 15 – bio here; his dancing book here
Mary Ann Shadd: became, in 1853, the first
woman of African ancestry to publish a newspaper anywhere in the world when she
took control of the Provincial Freeman in Chatham, Ontario [also on
the Africa page]
Allen Lane Williams: born Sept 21 1902; died July 7 1970): his website here
vi) The Serious Journalists
* Polemical Paparazzi
There are
journalists, who fill the blank spaces in a newspaper everyday, just like they
do the shelves in supermarkets - whatever is available, provided that it sells.
And then there are the serious thinkers who use the newspapers rather than
books or poems or songs or plays to engage as poetikos with those subjects that
matter to them, and that subject may well be today's headlines, especially the
war-reporters and the politically committed: these latter may well find
themselves listed here, the former most definitely will not
Mary Astell (1666–1731): a self-financing
professional authoress, more than a century ahead of Mary Shelley or Jane Austen
[serious scribes and the Ancien Régime page of Woman-Blindness]; counted
among the polemical paperazzi for her pamphlets
Hubertine Auclert: (born April 10 1848; died April 8, 1914): “the first
French feminist”,
she founded the militant "Société le droit des femmes" in 1876,
(and also the feminist newspaper "La cito-yenne" in 1881); later
known as "Société le suffrage des femmes", it advocated for
women’s voting rights through civil disobedience [Woman-Blindness]
Louise-Léonie Camusat (Léonie
Rouzade) (born September 6
1839; died Oct 25 1916): French
feminist, politician, journalist and author
Alfred Alistair Cooke (not the cricketer; he spells it Alastair and
without an “e” on Cook: click here): (born Nov 20 1908; died March 30 2004): journalists
don’t easily make it to this list, simply because of the nature of most
journalism; Cooke is included because he wasn’t really a journalist, but rather
a man who used journalism as a structure for his writing and thinking, in the
way others might choose travelogue, or poetry, essays, or blogging – “Letter
From America” here; “Masterpiece
Theatre” here
Marguerite-Charlotte Durand de Valfère: founder and editor
of "La Fronde" on Dec 9 [pseudonyms]
Marie-Olympe de Gouges; originally Marie
Gouze, born May 7 1748 in
Montauban, guillotined Nov 3 1793 for
daring to authoress the “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female
Citizen”. The full tale, and a link to the pamphlet, on her death-date [Woman-Blindness, Napoleonic Age]
Marie-Reine Guindorf: (1812–1837)
founder and co-editor with Jeanne Desirée Véret Gay of “La Femme libre” in 1834; which later became
known as the “Tribune des femmes” [both are an essay in progress, waiting
to be added among the Blue-Stockings on the Quartier Française page of Woman-Blindness]
Therese, or probably Theresa Heyne, known by her married name as Therese Huber (born May 7 1764; died June 15 1829): the first woman editor of a major literary journal on June 14; she also wrote many novels concerning women [Woman-Blindness]
Eugénie Mouchon-Niboyet (born September 10 1796; died January 6, 1883): editing “The Women’s Voice” on March 19 [Woman-Blindness, Napoleonic Age]
*
The names at the core of this piece are/will be:
Marie Catherine Colvin (born January 12
1956; assassinated February 22 2012 in Homs, Syria)
"The
Vietnam Threesome": Catherine Leroy, Frances FitzGerald and
Kate Webb
Paulette Nardal (born October 12 1896; died February
16 1985): another
of the Negritude women, a French writer and journalist from Martinique: here and here and especially here
and two contemporaries, Christiane Amanpour and Lyse Marie Doucet
vii) Others
Marie-Catherine Desjardins,
Madame de Villedieu (circa 1640-1683): placed here because she can't make up her mind if she
is a poet, a playwright or a novelist on Oct 20 [on
the Ancien Régime page of Woman-Blindness]
József (Joseph) Pulitzer: born April 10 1847; died October 29 1911): first prize awarded on
June 4; “Gone
With The Wind” on Dec 6; Eugene O'Neill, who won it four times, is on Oct 16; Sinclair Lewis was awarded the prize but turned it down on Jan 1 – the prizes’ own
website here (its bio of him here); the arts museum here
William Fense Weaver (born July 24 1923: died November 12 2013): translating “Zeno's Conscience” on
Dec 19 - click here for the book, here for the man
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