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October 25th - St Crispin's Day -
1415 - battle of Azincourt, subject of at least one ballad that remained popular for centuries, and inspiration of some of Shakespeare's greatest lines.
1400 - died Geoffrey Chaucer, famed for having been fined for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet Street, for having written a treatise on the use of the astrolabe, and maybe for having penned a few poetic tales and other verses.
On this day in 1950 George Bernard Shaw died at the age of ninety-four. To the very end, he maintained his often irascible, always redoubtable spirit. One visitor who attempted to cushion Shaw's decline by telling him to "think of the enjoyment you've given" was referred to his famous literary prostitute: "You might say the same of any Mrs Warren." To the doctor who said he might live to a 100 if he would submit to more treatment, Shaw replied by going home.
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On this day in 1871 Walt Whitman declined an offer of marriage from Mrs. Anne Gilchrist, a literary critic who had heard "the voice of my mate" in Leaves of Grass. Whitman's usual response to such offers was philosophical-"It's better than getting medals from a king or pensions from Congress"-but the middle-aged Mrs. Gilchrist still felt "young enough to bear thee children, my darling," and had threatened to move to America.
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November 10th
Anyone born today would share a birthday with Mohammed (570), Martin Luther (1483), Oliver Goldsmith (1728), and Friedrich Schiller 1759.
In the field of letters, Chambers' Book of Days on this day commemorates Ralph Allen, who between 1720 and 1764 made vast improvements in the English postal service (and a fortune for himself,) and was the friend of Fielding and Pope, and generous patron to many needy writers of the day.
November 14th
1770 James Bruce reaches source of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. His book "Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile...," published twenty years later, was an immediate best-seller.
I wasn't able to locate the article about Vonnegut at the link you provided, however I am interested in what it said. I just finished reading Slaughterhouse Five for a class, and am really interested in what you thought of the novel. I think Vonnegut has an incredibly unique writing style and is able to satirize the ideals of war and violence through the main character Billy's experience of the Dresden bombing. Does anyone have any comments about Slaughterhouse Five or the actual Dresden bombing? I would love to hear them!
I think they remove the articles after a few days, I am afraid.Quote:
Originally Posted by asorens
On this day in 1851, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick was published. The British edition, entitled The Whale, had appeared the previous month, but through a sequence of error, poor judgment and bad timing, it had a rearranged and incomplete ending. This set off another sequence of error, poor judgment and bad timing, this time involving not the publishers but the critics, who looked upon the botched ending as the last straw in a book already too unusual and obscure. The upshot was that Melville's masterpiece, the book he was counting on to rescue his reputation and his finances, was so belittled and slandered in the crucial first weeks following publication in America that it never had a chance.
http://www.todayinliterature.com/sto...ate=11/14/1851
War-comes with pain!
28th November
1659 - Washington Irving died.
Wait. That can't be right. Washington Irving lived in the late 18th to early 19th centuries.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whifflingpin
Indeed, Washington Irving, the guy who wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow lived from 1783 to 1859 :)
Glad someone was awake!
November 28
Quote:
On this day in 1582 William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway married, or perhaps just paid for a bond giving them the right to do so. The facts are scanty, but we know that the groom was eighteen years old, the bride was twenty-six, and their first child, Susanna, was baptized six months later. There seems no way of knowing, but more than one biographer thinks that all this adds up to Shakespeare in Trouble rather than Shakespeare in Love.
On this day in 1821 Percy Shelley's "Adonais," his elegy to John Keats, was published in England. A cornerstone of both Romantic poetry and the myth of the Romantic, the poem paints Keats as Adonis in pursuit of Beauty and Truth, brought down by those less noble and talented. This was a fate Shelley (left) predicted for himself, and he died before Keats's gravestone had been erected.
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On this day in 1867 Charles Dickens gave the first reading of his American tour. All but a few evenings over the five months were a sell-out, with some sleeping out overnight to beat a ticket line almost a half-mile long. Among the few who were not impressed were Emerson, Twain, and the little girl on the train who told Dickens she liked his books, though "I do skip some of the very dull parts, once in a while; not the short dull parts, but the long ones."
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