 William Faulkner (1897 – 1962) On this day in 1932 William Faulkner reluctantly arrived in Hollywood to begin work as a screenwriter, a labor that would last, on and off, for twenty years. Faulkner had already published The Sound and the Fury, and although far from a popular success he was regarded as one of America’s most talented young writers; on the other hand, a local store had just refused his $3 check. |
Click here to read the rest of this story
 Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) On this day in 1862 Henry David Thoreau died at the age of forty-four, from bronchial and respiratory problems. Thoreau was an integral but prickly member of the Transcendentalist community in Massachusetts — as might be expected from the writer of “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude,” and as described in Emerson’s funeral eulogy. |
Click here to read the rest of this story
 Norman Mailer On this day in 1948 Norman Mailer’s first novel, The Naked and the Dead was published. A front-page editorial in the London Sunday Times lobbied to have the book withdrawn for its “incredibly foul and beastly,” language, but most reviewers ranked it among the best war novels, and conferred upon Mailer a celebrity status that he claimed to regret. |
Click here to read the rest of this story
 Lord Byron On this day in 1810 Lord Byron swam the Hellespont, in emulation of Leander’s legendary swims to visit his beloved Hero. Byron was twenty-two, and not yet famous for his poetry or his profligacy — though he had just finished a draft of Childe Harold, and just ended an affair with a married woman who, while no Hero, had moved Byron to challenge another to a sunrise duel. |
Click here to read the rest of this story
 William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) On this day in 1594, Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew was entered in the Stationers’ Register. Much of the main plot seems to come from a 1550 popular ballad called “Here Begynneth a Merry Jest of a Shrewde and Curste Wyfe, Lapped in Morrelles Skin, for her Good Behaviour.” By the endeth, this contribution to the shrew-taming canon was merry from only one perspective. . . . |
Click here to read the rest of this story
 Alfred Hitchcock (1899 – 1980) On this day in 1980 Alfred Hitchcock died. Hitchcock borrowed from a long list of 20th century novelists, but in one of his last public appearances he showed a wider range by borrowing from Thomas de Quincey’s 1827 essay, “On Considering Murder as One of the Fine Arts.” He then bid the gala crowd farewell: “They tell me that murder is committed every minute, so I don’t want to waste any more of your time. I know you want to get to work. Thank You.” |
Click here to read the rest of this story
 O. Henry On this day in 1898 William S. Porter — the drug store clerk, cowboy, fugitive, bank teller, cartoonist and future “O. Henry” — began a five-year prison sentence for embezzlement. Porter had published several stories prior to his prison term, but the fourteen written behind bars represented a new style and quality, and began his rise to fame. |
Click here to read the rest of this story
 Oscar Wilde On this day in 1891 Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was published. The novel caused an uproar for “its effeminate frivolity, its studied insincerity, its theatrical cynicism, its tawdry mysticism, its flippant philosophizing, its contaminating trail of garish vulgarity, “but it sold well, making Wilde the focus of even more debate and finger-pointing. |
Click here to read the rest of this story
 William Shakespeare |
Click here to read the rest of this story
 James Murray On this date in 1928, the final volume of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published. The original estimate was that the complete four-volume set would take ten years; when it took five years to get to “ant,” the editors knew they had underestimated spectacularly. They did not know that they were being significantly helped by a contributor from the insane asylum. |
Click here to read the rest of this story
