Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22 was born on this day in 1923. He was born in Brooklyn, New York. His book, Catch-22 was published by Simon & Schuster in 1961.
Henry Fielding was born on this day in 1707. Born in Somerset, England, he was educated at Eton College. He was an english novelist and his works included Tom Jones and Amelia.
His sister Sarah was also a successful writer and John, his brother, was a magistrate.
1812, Charles Dickens was born to John and Elizabeth in Landport, Portsmouth. He was an English writer and social critic and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.
He has created some of the most memorable and beloved characters in fiction including, Oliver Twist, Fagan, The Artful Dodger, Pip and Ebenezer Scrooge. After publishing a series of sketches under the pseudonym, Boz, Continue reading
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was first published on in 1813. She first started writing in 1796 and had originally titled, First Impressions it’s now one of the most popular classics in literature and has one of the most famous opening lines, ‘“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” It has also been the basis of many adaptations including the BBC version with Colin Firth, Bridget Jones’ Diary and it was even given the Bollywood treatment with Bride and Prejudice.
Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was born on this day in 1832 in Cheshire, England. Alice Liddell, the daughter of a friend, asked Carroll to complete a story he’d started telling her on a boat trip. These eventually became, Alice Adventures Underground which was then renamed Wonderland.
George Gordon Byron, commonly known as Lord Byron was born on this day in 1788.
He was an English Poet and a leading figure in the romantic movement. His works included Don Juan and She Walks in Beauty.
George Orwell, whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair, died on this day in 1950. He died in London at aged forty-six. He was known for works like Animal Farm (1945) and 1984, which was published in 1949.
Swedish author, Astrid Lindgren, creator of Pippi Longstocking was born on this day in 1907. Pippi was named by Lindgren’s nine year odl daughter, Karin who had requested a get well soon story fr
om her mother.
In 2007, Stephen King started signing some of his own books in an Alice Springs bookstore. The staff thought he was a vandal as they didn’t initially realise that he was signing his own books.
Geoffrey Chaucer died on this day in 1400. He is widely considered to be the father of English Literature. Some of his works were adapted by the BBC. The series was called The Canterbury Tales.
American writer, EE Cummings was born on this day in 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One of his most famous poems was ‘I Carry Your Heart With Me.’
T.S Eliot (Thomas Stearns Eliot) was born on this day in 1888. He was born in the United States but became a British citizen in 1927.
William Faulkner was born on this day in 1987. He was the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
J.R.R Tolkien was marking students papers when he got inspired to write the first line of one of his famous books.
‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’
Author, George. R. R. Martin was born in this day in 1948. He wrote the Fire & Ice series which was adapted for HBO’s Game of Thrones.