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Evelyn Waugh was an English writer from London. He had a successful career as a novelist, a biographer, a travel writer, a journalist, and a book reviewer. He is primarily remembered for the satirical novel "Decline and Fall" (1928), the autobiographical novel "A Handful of Dust" (1934), the nostalgia-themed family saga "Brideshead Revisited" (1945), and the war-themed trilogy "Sword of Honour" (1952-1961). Waugh converted to Roman Catholicism in the early 1930s, and his works after that point tended to feature Catholic characters.
In 1903, Waugh was born in West Hampstead, London. His father was the professional writer and literary critic Arthur Waugh (1866-1943). Through his father's side of the family, Waugh was a descendant of the nonconformist preacher Alexander Waugh (1754-1827). His ancestor had co-founded the London Missionary Society, an interdenominational evangelical missionary society. Waugh's known ancestry included English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and French Huguenot people.
Waugh was home-schooled by his mother until the age of 7. In September 1910, Waugh began life as a day pupil at the Heath Mount preparatory school. By that time, he had started writing short stories as a hobby. At school, Waugh was a notorious school bully. One of his victims was Cecil Beaton, later a professional photographer who recorded his memories of Waugh's bullying. In his free time from school, Waugh wrote theatrical plays and convinced his neighborhood friends to perform them with him.
During the early years of World War I, Waugh and several of his schoolmates from Heath Mount served as messengers for the War Office. In his final year at Heath Mount, Waugh served as the editor of the school magazine "The Cynic". Waugh aspired to attend the boarding school Sherborne School, which his father had once attended. But after his older brother Alec was expelled from Sherborne due to his homosexuality, Waugh learned that the school would not even consider him as a candidate student. In 1917, Waugh instead became a student of the Lancing College, which he considered to be inferior to Sherborne.
During his time at Lancing, Waugh published an essay about Cubism in an art magazine. It was his first published work. His teacher J. F. Roxburgh (1888-1954) encouraged Waugh's aspirations for a writing career. Another teacher, Francis Crease, trained Waugh in the arts of calligraphy and decorative design. Waugh won several prized for art and literature during his student years at Lancing. He left Lancing in December 1921, after winning a scholarship to read Modern History at Hertford College, Oxford.
During his early years in Oxford, Waugh worked as a reporter for two rival student publications: "Cherwell" and "Isis". He also worked as a film reviewer "Isis". Waugh soon joined the "Hypocrites' Club" (1921-1925), a student club for heavy drinkers and homosexuals. Waugh had his first homosexual relationships with some of the club's fellow members. Waugh devoted part of his time to writing reviews and short stories for publication, part of his time to improving his skills as a graphic artist, and part of his time partying with the club members. He neglected his formal studies, and was frequently arguing with his history tutor C. R. M. F. Cruttwell (1887-1941). Their adversarial relationship turned into mutual hatred, and Waugh continued mocking Crutwell in his literary works for decades.
Waugh left Oxford in 1924, without earning a degree. He started work on a novel, and enrolled at the art school Heatherley School of Fine Art. He soon quit his studies due to boredom, and started looking for a job. In January 1925, Waugh started working as a teacher at Arnold House, a boys' preparatory school in North Wales. Used to hanging out with large groups of friends, Waugh had trouble adjusting to the social isolation of his new position.
Waugh quit his teaching job in the summer of 1925, as he was promised a secretarial job by the experienced writer C. K. Scott Moncrieff (1889-1930). Moncrief decided against hiring him, but Waugh learned this after his resignation. At about the same time, a completed novel by Waugh was rejected by a publisher. Waugh felt desperate, and he experienced a failed suicide attempt. He spend the following couple of years as a school teacher at the village of Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire and at Notting Hill in London.
Waugh started writing commercially-published fiction in 1926. In 1927, he secured a contract to write a full-length biography of the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1882-1882). This biography was published in April 1928, and won critical praise. His first novel "Decline and Fall" was published in September 1928, and was also met with praise and decent sales. By December 1928, the novel was in its third printing and the rights for an American reprint had already been sold. Waugh had found success in his literary career, but his personal life was still unsteady. He had a brief, failed marriage to the socialite Evelyn Gardner (1903-1994), daughter of Herbert Gardner, 1st Baron Burghclere. Gardner did not tolerate her husband's infidelities and Waugh himself filed for a divorce. The marriage had lasted less than a year.
Following his separation for his wife in 1929, Waugh had no settled home for the next eight years. Despite working steadily as a writer and journalist, he relied on the hospitality of his friends instead of buying or renting a house. His novel "Vile Bodies" (1930) , was a major commercial success. It was a rather bitter satire on the Bright Young Things, a group of Bohemian aristocrats and socialites who had grained prominence in the 1920s.
In 1930, Waugh traveled to Abyssinia as a journalist, to cover the coronation of the new emperor Haile Selassie. He subsequently traveled through the British East Africa colonies and the Belgian Congo. He recorded his travel in both a travel book and an autobiographical novel. Waugh spend the winter of 1932-1933 traveling through British Guiana and Brazil. In 1934, Waugh joined an expedition to Spitsbergen in the Arctic. He returned to Ethiopia in 1935, as a war correspondent in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-1937).
In April 1937, Waugh married his second wife Laura Herbert. She was a cousin of his first wife. As a wedding present, the couple received the country house Piers Court, located in Gloucestershire. He continued publishing new books in the late 1930s, though they primarily expressed his increasingly conservative political views. In September 1939, Waugh let his wife and young children move to Pixton Park in Somerset, the Herbert family's country seat. It was considered a safer location in wartime conditions. he was commissioned into the Royal Marines in December 1939.
Waugh's first experience of combat service in World War II was the Battle of Dakar (September 1940) in French West Africa. In November 1940, Waugh was posted to a commando unit. In May 1941, Waugh and his unit helped in the evacuation of Crete. In May 1942, Waugh was transferred to the Royal Horse Guards. In 1943, Waugh started parachute training. He fractured a fibula during an exercise, and he applied for three months' unpaid leave. He started working on the novel "Brideshead Revisited" during his recovery. Waugh's extended leave lasted until June 1944. He then served as a liaison to Partisan forces in Yugoslavia. He returned to London in March 1945.
"Brideshead Revisited" was published in May 1945, and was more popular than any of his previous works. Waugh was released by the army in September 1945. He continued traveling as a journalist in various European locations. He expressed his frustrations about postwar European travel in the novella "Scott-King's Modern Europe" (1947). In the early 1950s, he started working on war novels. He also completed the dystopian novel "Love Among the Ruins. A Romance of the Near Future" (1953), which displayed his contempt for the post-war world. He seemed to be prematurely aged at the time. By the time Waugh completed his 50th year, he was partially deaf, rheumatic, and suffering from recurring insomnia and depression. He used alcohol for self-medication.
In 1954, Waugh's doctors were concerned about his deteriorating health and advised him to travel again. He took a ship for Sri Lanka, but displayed signs of paranoia during the journey. He thought that the other passengers were whispering about him, and complained about hearing voices even when he was alone. A subsequent medical examination revealed that Waugh was suffering from bromide poisoning from his drugs regimen. When his medication was changed, his hallucinations disappeared. He recorded his experience in the autobiographical novel "The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold" (1957).
In 1955, Waugh was visited at home by an overly aggressive journalist who demanded an interview. No longer feeling safe at Piers Court, Waugh decided to sell his long-time residence. In 1956, Waugh and his family moved to the Combe Florey House in Somerset. In the late 1950s, he ceased publishing new works while working on the biography of a Catholic theologian. Due to facing money shortages, Waugh agreed to be interviewed by the BBC in 1960. It was his first interview in years, as he had been systematically avoiding journalists.
Waugh published his last major work in 1961, the war novel "Unconditional Surrender". He started work on his autobiography in 1962. Its first volume was published in 1964, under the title "A Little Learning". He changed the names of several of the individuals mentioned in the book, in order to avoid scandal. The book attracted little attention. In desperate need of funds in 1965, Waugh signed contracts to write several non-fiction books. His physical and mental deterioration prevented him from working on any of these books, and his only literal activity at the time was editing work in the combined edition of his war novels.
Waugh died of heart failure in April 1966, while attending the Easter Mass with members of his family. He was 62-years-old at the time of his death. He was buried in the churchyard of the Church of St Peter & St Paul, located in Combe Florey. A Requiem Mass in his honor was celebrated in Westminster Cathedral. His novels have received several adaptations since his death, and their popularity has endured into the 21st century.- "There are no second acts in American lives," wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, who himself went from being the high priest of the Jazz Age to a down-and-out alcoholic within the space of 20 years, but not before giving the world several literary masterpieces, the most famous of which is "The Great Gatsby" (1924).
He was born in 1896 to a mother who spoiled him shamelessly, leading him to grow up an especially self-possessed young man. While he was obsessed by the image of Princeton University, he flunked out, less interested in Latin and trigonometry than bathtub gin and "bright young things". The brightest was an unconventional young lady from Montgomery, Alabama named Zelda Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald invoked the jealousy of numerous local boys, some of whom had even begun a fraternity in Zelda's honor, by snagging her shortly before the publication of his first novel, "This Side of Paradise". The novel was a huge success, and Fitzgerald suddenly found himself the most highly-paid writer in America.
During the mid-to-late '20s the Fitzgeralds lived in Europe among many American expatriates including Gertrude Stein, Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway and Thornton Wilder. He wrote what is considered his greatest masterpiece, "The Great Gatsby", while living in Paris. It was at the end of this period (1924-30) that his marriage to the highly strung, demanding and mentally unstable Zelda began to unravel. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent much of the rest of her life in a variety of mental institutions. Fitzgerald turned more and more to alcohol. In 1930 a major crisis came when Zelda had a series of psychotic attacks, beginning a descent into madness and schizophrenia from which she would never recover. Much of Fitzgerald's income would now be dedicated to keeping his wife in mental hospitals. Emotionally and creatively wrung out, he wrote "Tender is The Night" (1934), the story of Dick Diver and his schizophrenic wife Nicole, that shows the pain that he felt himself. In the mid-30s Fitzgerald had a breakdown of his own. He had become a clinical alcoholic, something he would detail in his famous "The Crack-Up" series of essays.
With Zelda institutionalized on the East Coast, it was Hollywood that proved to be Fitzgerald's salvation. Although he had little success in writing for films, which he had attempted several times previously, he was paid well and gained a new professional standing. His experiences there inspired "The Last Tycoon", his last--and unfinished--novel which some believe might have been his greatest of all. Fitzgerald died at the home of his mistress, writer Sheilah Graham, of a heart attack in 1940, believing himself to be a failed and broken man. He never knew that he would one day be considered one of the finest writers of the 20th century. - Daphne Du Maurier was one of the most popular English writers of the 20th Century, when middle-brow genre fiction was accorded a higher level of respect in a more broadly literate age. For her services to literature, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1969, the female equivalent of a knighthood. Thus, she achieved a trifecta of sorts, as her father and her husband were both knights.
She was born on May 13, 1907 in London, the second daughter of the famous actor-manager Gerald du Maurier, who himself was knighted in 1922, and the actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was the famous anglo-French writer George L. Du Maurier, the creator of Svengali in his 1894 novel "Trilby". (She was also cousin to the Llewelyn Davies boys, through her grandfather Gerald. The boys were the inspiration for the boys in J.M. Barrie' Peter Pan (1924) and his Neverland works.) Her husband was also famous: Frederick A. M. Browning, the WWII Commander "Boy" Browning renowned as the "father of the British airborne forces." He helped plan and execute Operation Market Garden, an airborne operation that put Allied troops into Germany and the Netherlands, an ultimately unsuccessful venture chronicled in Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far (1977). During the Second World War, Boy Browning achieved the rank of Lieutenant General and a knighthood. Browning's quote that Arnheim was a bridge too far later became famous as a book title and ultimately a movie title. Daphne published her first short story in 1928; her first novel, "The Loving Spirit", was published in 1931, and her last, "Rule Britannia", forty-one year later. In between, she achieved her greatest success with the novel Rebecca (1940), which was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock into a classic film that won the Best Picture Oscar for 1940. Another novel, Don't Look Now (1973), adapted by Nicolas Roeg, is also considered a classic film in Britain.
Along with "Rebecca", she had great successes with her novels Jamaica Inn (1939) and Frenchman's Creek (1944), both of which were adapted into movies. The three novels were set in Cornwall, where she lived. In addition to multiple non-fiction books, Daphne Du Maurier also wrote three plays (including an adaptation of "Rebecca").
She died on April 19, 1989, in Par in her beloved Cornwall, five weeks shy of her 82nd birthday. - Agatha was born as "Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller" in 1890 to Frederick Alvah Miller and Clara Boehmer. Agatha was of American and British descent, her father being American and her mother British. Her father was a relatively affluent stockbroker. Agatha received home education from early childhood to when she turned 12-years-old in 1902. Her parents taught her how to read, write, perform arithmetic, and play music. Her father died in 1901. Agatha was sent to a girl's school in Torquay, Devon, where she studied from 1902 to 1905. She continued her education in Paris, France from 1905 to 1910. She then returned to her surviving family in England.
As a young adult, Agatha aspired to be a writer and produced a number of unpublished short stories and novels. She submitted them to various publishers and literary magazines, but they were all rejected. Several of these unpublished works were later revised into more successful ones. While still in this point of her life, Agatha sought advise from professional writer Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960). Meanwhile she was searching for a suitable husband and in 1913 accepted a marriage proposal from military officer and pilot-in-training Archibald "Archie" Christie. They married in late 1914. Her married name became "Agatha Christie" and she used it for most of her literary works, including ones created decades following the end of her first marriage.
During World War I, Archie Christie was send to fight in the war and Agatha joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment, a British voluntary unit providing field nursing services. She performed unpaid work as a volunteer nurse from 1914 to 1916. Then she was promoted to "apothecaries' assistant" (dispenser), a position which earned her a small salary until the end of the war. She ended her service in September, 1918.
Agatha wrote "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", her debut novel ,in 1916, but was unable to find a publisher for it until 1920. The novel introduced her famous character Hercule Poirot and his supporting characters Inspector Japp and Arthur Hastings. The novel is set in World War I and is one of the few of her works which are connected to a specific time period.
Following the end of World War I and their retirement from military life, Agatha and Archie Christie moved to London and settled into civilian life. Their only child Rosalind Margaret Clarissa Christie (1919-2004) was born early in the marriage. Agatha's debut novel was first published in 1920 and turned out to be a hit. It was soon followed by the successful novels "The Secret Adversary" (1922) and "Murder on the Links" (1923) and various short stories. Agatha soon became a celebrated writer.
In 1926, Archie Christie announced to Agatha that he had a mistress and that he wanted a divorce. Agatha took it hard and mysteriously disappeared for a period of 10 days. After an extensive manhunt and much publicity, she was found living under a false name in Yorkshire. She had assumed the last name of Archie's mistress and claimed to have no memory of how she ended up there. The doctors who attended to her determined that she had amnesia. Despite various theories by multiple sources, these 10 days are the most mysterious chapter in Agatha's life.
Agatha and Archie divorced in 1928, though she kept the last name Christie. She gained sole custody of her daughter Rosalind. In 1930, Agatha married her second (and last) husband Max Mallowan, a professional archaeologist. They would remain married until her death in 1976.Christie often used places that she was familiar with as settings for her novels and short stories. Her various travels with Max introduced her to locations of the Middle East, and provided inspiration for a number of novels.
In 1934, Agatha and Max settled in Winterbrook, Oxfordshire, which served as their main residence until their respective deaths. During World War II, she served in the pharmacy at the University College Hospital, where she gained additional training about substances used for poisoning cases. She incorporated such knowledge for realistic details in her stories.
She became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956 and a Dame Commander of the same order in 1971. Her husband was knighted in 1968. They are among the relatively few couples where both members have been honored for their work. Agatha continued writing until 1974, though her health problems affected her writing style. Her memory was problematic for several years and she had trouble remembering the details of her own work, even while she was writing it. Recent researches on her medical condition suggest that she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease or other dementia. She died of natural causes in early 1976. - Richard Yates was born on 3 February 1926 in Yonkers, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for Revolutionary Road (2008), The Bridge at Remagen (1969) and Lie Down in Darkness. He was married to Martha Speers and Sheila Bryant. He died on 7 November 1992 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
- Katherine Mansfield was born on 14 October 1888 in Wellington, New Zealand. She was a writer, known for Winners and Losers (1975), London Unplugged (2018) and Teatterituokio (1962). She was married to John Middleton Murry and George Bowden. She died on 9 January 1923 in Fontainebleau, Seine-et-Marne, France.凱瑟琳·曼斯菲爾德 New Zealand: The Garden Party
- Lucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author with roots in Scotland. She lost her mother at an early age, and was raised by her maternal grandparents. She began to keep a diary and discovered at the age of 10 that she could write poetry. After college she became a teacher but kept writing. In 1908 her first novel, "Anne of Green Gables", was published after having been rejected by several publishers. It was a success. She followed up with a whole series of novels about Anne, and many other stories as well, including a second series starting with "Emily of New Moon". The novels about Anne and Emily are semi-autobiographical and contain many of her own memories from the 1880s and 1890s on Prince Edward Island in Canada. Her novels have been published in over 40 languages, and Anne is known all over the world. Mongomery's books are particularly popular in Japan.Canada :Anne of Green Gables
- Jean Webster was born on 24 July 1876 in Fredonia, New York, USA. She was a writer, known for Daddy-Long-Legs (1919), Vadertje Langbeen (1938) and Daddy Long Legs (1955). She was married to Glenn Ford McKinney. She died on 11 June 1916 in New York City, New York, USA.珍·韋伯斯特: Daddy-Long-Legs
- Winifred Watson was born on 20 October 1906 in Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, England, UK. Winifred was a writer, known for Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008). Winifred was married to Leslie Pickering. Winifred died on 5 August 2002 in Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, England, UK.溫妮佛瑞華森British Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
- Ernest Hemingway was an American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize (1953) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1954) for his novel The Old Man and the Sea, which was made into a 1958 film The Old Man and the Sea (1958).
He was born into the hands of his physician father. He was the second of six children of Dr. Clarence Hemingway and Grace Hemingway (the daughter of English immigrants). His father's interests in history and literature, as well as his outdoorsy hobbies (fishing and hunting), became a lifestyle for Ernest. His mother was a domineering type who wanted a daughter, not a son, and dressed Ernest as a girl and called him Ernestine. She also had a habit of abusing his quiet father, who suffered from diabetes, and Dr. Hemingway eventually committed suicide. Ernest later described the community in his hometown as one having "wide lawns and narrow minds".
In 1916 Hemingway graduated from high school and began his writing career as a reporter for The Kansas City Star. There he adopted his minimalist style by following the Star's style guide: "Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative." Six months later he joined the Ambulance Corps in WWI and worked as an ambulance driver on the Italian front, picking up human remains. In July 1918 he was seriously wounded by a mortar shell, which left shrapnel in both of his legs causing him much pain and requiring several surgeries. He was awarded the Silver Medal. Back in America, he continued his writing career working for Toronto Star . At that time he met Hadley Richardson and the two married in 1921.
In 1921, he became a Toronto Star reporter in Paris. There he published his first books, called "Three Stories and Ten Poems" (1923), and "In Our Time" (1924). In Paris he met Gertrude Stein, who introduced him to the circle that she called the "Lost Generation". F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thornton Wilder, Sherwood Anderson and Ezra Pound were stimulating Hemingway's talent. At that time he wrote "The Sun Also Rises" (1926), "A Farewell to Arms" (1929), and a dazzling collection of Forty-Nine stories. Hemingway also regarded the Russian writers Lev Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ivan Turgenev and Anton Chekhov as important influences, and met Pablo Picasso and other artists through Gertrude Stein. "A Moveable Feast" (1964) is his classic memoir of Paris after WWI.
Hemingway participated in the Spanish Civil War and took part in the D-Day landings during the invasion of France during World War II, in which he not only reported the action but took part in it. In one instance he threw three hand grenades into a bunker, killing several SS officers. He was decorated with the Bronze Star for his action. His military experiences were emulated in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1940) and in several other stories. He settled near Havana, Cuba, where he wrote his best known work, "The Old Man and the Sea" (1953), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature. This was adapted as the film The Old Man and the Sea (1958), for which Spencer Tracy was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor, and Dimitri Tiomkin received an Oscar for Best Musical Score.
War wounds, two plane crashes, four marriages and several affairs took their toll on Hemingway's hereditary predispositions and contributed to his declining health. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and insomnia in his later years. His mental condition was exacerbated by chronic alcoholism, diabetes and liver failure. After an unsuccessful treatment with electro-convulsive therapy, he suffered severe amnesia and his physical condition worsened. The memory loss obstructed his writing and everyday life. He committed suicide in 1961. Posthumous publications revealed a considerable body of his hidden writings, that was edited by his fourth wife, Mary, and also by his son Patrick Hemingway. - London-born Virginia Woolf came from a wealthy family and, unlike her brothers, received her education at home, an unusual step for the times. Her parents had both had children from previous marriages, so she grew up with a variety of siblings, stepbrothers and stepsisters. Her father was a well-respected editor and author and the former son-in-law of William Makepeace Thackeray. Author James Russell Lowell was her godfather, and Henry James and George Elliott were regular visitors and guests at the family home. As she recalled later in life, her most pleasant childhood memories were of the summers spent at the family home in Cornwall, by Porthminster Bay (the Godrevy Lighthouse there was the basis for her novel "To the Lighthouse").
The sudden death of Virginia's mother in 1895, when she was 13, and the passing of her sister two years later led to the first of Virginia's mental breakdowns. In 1904 her father died, which caused a complete mental and physical collapse and for a while she was sent to a mental institution to recover. Nervous breakdowns and bouts of severe depression tormented Virginia throughout her life, and the fact that as children she and her sister Vanessa were sexually abused by two of their stepbrothers added to her already considerable feelings of guilt and inferiority.
She studied at London's Kings College, where she became acquainted with such literary figures as Lytton Strachey, Saxon Sydney-Turner and Leonard Woolf. She married Woolf in 1912. Virginia was always ashamed of what she termed her "unattractive countenance", and once wrote that "being wanted [was] a pleasure that I have never felt". In 1922 she met Vita Sackville-West, and the two women began a relationship that lasted for almost ten years. She was said to have written her novel "Orlando" as a love letter to West.
After the publication of her novel "Between the Acts" she fell into a deep depression, exacerbated by the destruction of her London home by Nazi planes during the bombing of that city, and the less than enthusiastic critical reaction to her biography of her close friend Roger Fry. Her condition deteriorated to the point where she was unable to write or even read. She finally had a full-blown nervous breakdown. Unable and unwilling to continue, she wrote a note to her husband saying that "I am certain I am going mad again" and "I shan't recover this time . . . I can't fight any longer . . . I can't go on spoiling your life any longer." On March 28, 1941, she left her home, walked to the banks of the nearby River Ouse, loaded heavy stones into her pockets and walked into the water. She was 59 years old.UK Orlando 1928 - Charlotte was born 1816, the third of the six children of Patrick Brontë, an Anglican clergyman, and his wife Maria Branwell Brontë. After their mother's death in 1821, Charlotte and her sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, were sent to Cowan Bridge Clergy Daughters' School, which Charlotte would later immortalize as the brutal Lowood school in "Jane Eyre". Conditions at the school were so bad that both Maria and Elizabeth became ill with consumption (tuberculosis) which killed them in 1825. Charlotte was very close to her surviving siblings, Anne Brontë, Branwell, and Emily Brontë. The children invented the imaginary kingdoms of Angria and Gondal, and spent much of their childhood writing poetry and stories about their make-believe realms. In 1846 the three sisters published a collected work of their poetry called, appropriately enough, "Poems", and in 1847 Charlotte published her most famous book, "Jane Eyre", under a male pseudonym, Currer Bell. Charlotte lost her remaining siblings within a brief time -- Branwell from alcoholism and Emily from consumption, both in 1848; Anne also from consumption in 1849. Charlotte was devastated, and became a lifelong hypochondriac. She resided in London, where she made the acquaintance and admiration of William Makepeace Thackeray. In 1854, she married Reverend A. B. Nicholls, curate of Haworth, against her father's wishes. Charlotte found she was pregnant not long after her marriage, and it was felt she would have a difficult pregnancy due to previous ill-health. She died on 31 March 1855.UK Jane Eyre 1847
- Jane Austen was born on December 16th, 1775, to the local rector, Rev. George Austen (1731-1805), and Cassandra Leigh (1739-1827). She was the seventh of eight children. She had one older sister, Cassandra. In 1783 she went to Southampton to be taught by a relative, Mrs. Cawley, but was brought home due to a local outbreak of disease. Two years later she attended the Abbey Boarding School in Reading, reportedly wanting to follow her sister Cassandra, until 1786.
Jane was mostly educated at home, where she learned how to play the piano, draw and write creatively. She read frequently and later came to enjoy social events such as parties, dances and balls. She disliked the busy life of towns and preferred the country life, where she took to taking long walks.
In 1801 Jane, her parents and sister moved to Bath, a year after her father's retirement, and the family frequented the coast. While on one of those coastal holidays she met a young man, but the resulting romantic involvement ended tragically when he died. It is believed by many astute Austen fans that her novel, "Persuasion", was inspired by this incident.
Following her father's passing in January of 1805--which left his widow and daughters with financial problems--the family moved several times until finally settling into a small house, in Chawton, Hampshire, owned by her brother Edward, which is reminiscent of "Sense and Sensibility". It was in this house that she wrote most of her works.
In March of 1817 her health began to decline and she was forced to abandon her work on "Sanditon", which she never completed. It turned out that she had Addisons disease. In April she wrote out her will and then on May 24th moved with Cassandra to Winchester, to be near her physician. It was in Winchester she died, in the arms of her sister, on Friday, 18 July 1817, at the age of only 41. She was buried the 24th of July at Winchester Cathedral. Jane never married.
During her formative years, Jane wrote plays and poems. At 14 she wrote her first novel, "Love and Freindship [sic]" and other juvenilia. Her first (unsuccessful) submission to a publisher, however, was in 1797 titled "First Impressions" (later "Pride and Prejudice"). In 1803 "Susan" (later "Northanger Abbey") was actually sold to a publisher for a mere £10 but was not published until 14 years later, posthumously. Her first accepted work was in 1811 titled "Sense and Sensibility", which was published anonymously as were all books published during her lifetime. She revised "First Impressions" and published it entitled "Pride and Prejudice" in 1813. "Mansfield Park" was published in 1814, followed by "Emma" in 1816, the same year she completed "Persuasion" and began "Sanditon", which was ultimately left unfinished. Both "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey" were published in 1818, after her death.Pride and Prejudice 1813 - Writer
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A gifted poet, playwright and wit, Oscar Wilde was a phenomenon in 19th-century England. He was illustrious for preaching the importance of style in life and art, and of attacking Victorian narrow-mindedness.
Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1854. He studied at Trinity College in Dublin before leaving the country to study at Oxford University in England when he was in his early 20s. His prodigious literary talent was recognized when he received the Newdegate Prize for his outstanding poem "Ravenna". After leaving college his first volume of poetry, "Patience", was published in 1881, followed by a play, "The Duchess of Padua", two years later. It was around this time that Wilde sparked a sensation.
On his arrival to America he stirred the nation with his flamboyant personality: wearing long silk stockings--an unusual mode of dress--long, flowing hair that gave the impression to many of an effeminate and a general air of wittiness, sophistication and eccentricity. He was an instant celebrity, but his works did not find recognition until the publication of "The Happy Prince and Other Tales" in 1888. His other noted work was his only novel, was "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1890), which caused controversy as the book evidently attacked the hypocrisy of England. It was later used as incriminating evidence at Wilde's trial, on the basis of its obvious homosexual content.
Wilde was a married man with children, but his private life was as a homosexual. He had an affair with a young snobbish aristocrat named Lord Alfred Douglas. Douglas' father, the Marquess of Queensberry, did not approve of his son's relationship with the distinguished writer, and when he accused Wilde of sodomy, Wilde sued the Marquess in court. However, his case was dismissed when his homosexuality--which at the time was outlawed in England--was exposed. He was sentenced to two years hard labor in prison. On his release he was a penniless, dejected man and soon died in Paris. He was 46.
Wilde is immortalized through his works, and the stories he wrote for children, such as "The Happy Prince" and "The Selfish Giant", are still vibrant in the imagination of the public, especially "The Picture of Dorian Gray", the story of a young handsome man who sells his soul to a picture to have eternal youth and beauty, only to face the hideousness of his own portrait as it ages, which entails his evil nature and degradation. The book has been interpreted on stage, films and television.Ireland- Virginia C. Andrews was born on 6 June 1923 in Portsmouth, Virginia, USA. She was a writer and actress, known for The Dollanganger Saga (2014), Flowers in the Attic (1987) and V.C. Andrews' Heaven (2019). She died on 19 December 1986 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA.Flowers in the Attic 1979
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Margaret Mitchell was an American historical novelist and a journalist. She published only one completed novel in her lifetime, "Gone with the Wind" (1936), which covered a woman's struggle for survival through the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937, and it was the top American fiction bestseller in 1936 and 1937. Mitchell had completed the romance novella "Lost Laysen" in her adolescence, but it was only published posthumously in 1996. A collection of Mitchell's newspaper articles was published under the title ""Margaret Mitchell: Reporter" (2000). Several of her writings from her early life have been published under the title "Before Scarlett: Girlhood Writings of Margaret Mitchell." (2000).
In 1900, Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Her father was Eugene Mitchell (1866-1944), a prominent lawyer, politician, and historian. He served a term as the President of the Atlanta Board of Education (1911-1912), and co-founded the Atlanta Historical Society. Mitchell's mother was Maybelle Stephens Mitchell (1872-1919), a prominent suffragist leader, and a co-founder of both the League of Women Voters in Georgia and the Catholic Layman's Association of Georgia. Mitchell's paternal ancestors were Scottish-Americans, and her maternal ancestors were Irish-Americans.
During her early childhood, Mitchell lived with her family at a Jackson Street mansion, east of downtown Atlanta. The mansion was owned by Miitchell's maternal grandmother, Annie Stephens (d. 1934) , who lived with them. Stephens was reportedly a tyrant to her family, and had a somewhat adversarial relationship with her granddaughter. But Mitchell went on to interview her for "eye-witness information" about the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction in Atlanta. Stephen's memories were one of the primary sources for "Gone with the Wind" .
Mitchell's mother had the habit of dressing her daughter in boys' pants, because she thought that they were safer than dresses. Mitchell continued dressing as a boy until she was 14, and her family nicknamed her "Jimmy" (after the comic strip character "Little Jimmy"). Mitchell was a tomboy in her childhood, and her favorite pastime was to ride her Texas plains pony. Aging Confederate soldiers tried to entertain the young girl by narrating to her gritty details of specific battles from the Civil War.
In 1912, the Mitchell family moved to a new residence at the east side of Peachtree Street. The house was located at a short distance from the Chattahoochee River. The family reportedly had concerns about the safety of their Jackson Hill home, due to its proximity to areas affected by the Atlanta Race Riot (1906). The Jackson Hill home was eventually destroyed in the Great Atlanta Fire of 1917.
By the early 1910s , Mitchell was an avid reader. Among her favorite writers were Edith Nesbit and Thomas Dixon. Mitchell started writing fairy tales and adventure stories as a hobby. Among her early works was "The Arrow Brave and the Deer Maiden" (1913), about a mixed-race "Indian" who has to endure pain to win over his love interest. Mitchell's mother kept her daughter's stories in white enamel bread boxes.
In 1914, Mitchell started attending Atlanta's Washington Seminary, a then-fashionable private girls' school. The school had over 300 students. Mitchell joined the school's drama club. She was still a tomboy, and she habitually played the male characters in performances of William Shakespeare's plays. She also joined the school's literary club, and had her stories published in the school's yearbook. Among her first published stories was the revenge-themed "Little Sister", where a little girl shoots her sister's rapist.
In 1918, Mitchell graduated and started preparing for a college education, at the insistence of her mother. Her mother chose which school Mitchell would attend, Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. At the time, it was reputedly "the best women's college in the United States". Before her college classes started, Mitchell was engaged to her first serious love interest, the army lieutenant Clifford West Henry. He was send to fight in France in July 1918, and was mortally wounded in October of the same year. Mitchell would continue mourning him for years.
In 1919, Mitchell' mother died from the flu. She was one of the many victims of a flu pandemic that had started in 1918. Mitchell arrived home from college, a day after her mother had died. She found that her mother left a short letter of advise for her, telling her to take care of herself before taking care of other causes.
Later in 1919, Mitchell dropped out of college. She did not excel in any area of academics, and her father expected her to take over the family's household. Mitchell had health problems of her own, and had an appendectomy in the autumn of 1919. Mitchell was feeling increasingly disappointed with her life's direction, as she wrote to a friend. In 1920, Mitchell made her Atlanta society debut. Shortly after, she started dressing as a flapper. In 1921, she shocked the Atlanta high society by performing an Apache dance in a charity ball, and kissing her male partner during the performance. She was consequently blacklisted from the Junior League.
In 1922, Mitchell started dating the bootlegger Berrien ("Red") Kinnard Upshaw (1901-1949). In September 1922. the couple were married against her family's wishes. They both moved in with Mitchell's father. Red was an alcoholic with a violent temper, and Mitchell suffered physical abuse at his hands. They agreed to a period of separation in December 1922, and their divorce was finalized in October 1924. In 1925, Mitchell married her second husband John Robert Marsh (1895-1952). He was Red's former roommate, and another love interest for Mitchell since 1922. Marsh had reportedly secured Mitchell's uncontested divorce, by giving Red a loan. Mitchell and her new husband set their residence at the Crescent Apartments in Atlanta, nicknaming their new home "The Dump". It would later become known as Margaret Mitchell House and Museum.
Between her two marriages, Mitchell had decided that she needed her own source of income. In 1922, she started working as a journalist for "The Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine". Among her early successes was securing a 1923 interview with the then-popular actor Rudolph Valentino. She continued her journalistic career until May 1926. At the time of her resignation, Mitchell had suffered an ankle injury that would not heal properly. Her mobility problems prevented her from working on assignments.In her four years as a journalist, Mitchell wrote 129 feature articles, 85 news stories, and several book reviews.
Following her resignation from "The Atlanta Journal", Mitchell worked for a few months as a gossip columnist for the "Sunday Magazine". In 1926, Marsh asked his increasingly bored wife why she did not write a book of her own instead of reading thousands of them. By 1928, Mitchell started work on a historical novel of her own. In 1935, her novel was still unfinished. But the book editor Harold Latham of Macmillan read her manuscript and was convinced that it was a potential best-seller. Having secured a publisher, Mitchell spend 6 months in making revisions and checking the novel's historical references. "Gone with the Wind" was published in June 1936.
Her novel turned Mitchell into a literary celebrity, but she had no intention of writing further works. In September 1941, Mitchell christened the light cruiser USS Atlanta (CL-51). During World War II, Mitchell served as a volunteer for the American Red Cross. She raised money for the war effort by selling war bonds. In 1944, she christened the light cruiser USS Atlanta (CL-104).
On August 11, 1949, Mitchell crossed Peachtree Street with her husband. They were on their way to a movie theatre, when Mitchell was struck by a drunk driver. She was hospitalized at Grady Hospital. She died on August 16, without ever regaining consciousness. She was buried at Oakland Cemetery, Georgia. Her husband was buried by her side in 1952. Though Mitchell is long gone, her novel never went out of print. It remains popular into the 21st century. Mitchell was posthumously inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2000.瑪格麗特·米契爾 亞特蘭大 Gone with the Wind 1936- David Herbert Lawrence was born in Nottinghamshire, England, 11 September 1885. His father was a coal miner, his mother a genteel woman who sought education and refinement for her son. Lawrence earned a university degree and taught school for a short time. While still a student he began to publish his poems and short stories. He fell in love with the wife of a professor, Frieda von Richthofen Weekley. She eloped with Lawrence, abandoning her husband and three small children. Lawrence's pet themes of myth, freedom, redemption, the difficulty and necessity of emotional, erotic expression and the inevitable torments of family relationships occupied him throughout his life. Eventually, there would be accusations of obscenity, his novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover" being the most prominent example.UK Women in Love 1920
- Edith Wharton (née Jones) was an American novelist and short story writer from New York City. She had insider knowledge of New York's upper class, which she realistically portrayed in her works. In 1921, Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She won the award for her historical novel "The Age of Innocence" (1920), where she portrayed the rigid worldview of the 1870s aristocrats of New York. She spend the last few decades of her life as an expatriate in France.
In 1862, Wharton was born in New York City. Her parents were George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander. The Joneses were a wealthy and well-connected family in New York, having earned their wealth through real estate business. Through her mother, Wharton was a great-granddaughter of Lieutenant Colonel Ebenezer Stevens (1751 -1823), an officer of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Through her father, Wharton was a first cousin, once removed, of the famed socialite Caroline Schermerhorn Astor (1830 - 1908). Astor was the de facto leader of the "Four Hundred", an informal grouping of New York's wealthy socialites who were seen as "champions of old money and tradition".
From 1866 to 1872, Wharton and her family made extensive travels across Europe. During her stay in Europe, Wharton became a fluent speaker in French, German, and Italian. She was educated by tutors and governesses. She also loved to read the books in her father's library, though her mother forbade her to read novels.
In 1871, Wharton faced the first crisis of her life. During an extended visit in the Black Forest of Germany, Wharton suffered from typhoid fever. The disease almost killed her. In 1872, the Joneses returned to the United States. They divided their time between New York City (in the winter) and Newport, Rhode Island (in the summer).
From an early age, Wharton started writing her own fictional works. By 1873, she had written an incomplete novel. In 1877, Wharton publisher her first work. It was an English translation of the German poem "Was die Steine Erzählen" ("What the Stones Tell") by Heinrich Karl Brugsch (1827 -1894). She was paid 50 dollars for her work, the first money she earned as a writer.
She had to use a pseudonym for her first published work, at the insistence of her parents. A writing career was out-of-the-question for proper "society women" of this era. Also in 1877, Wharton completed the novella "Fast and Loose". In 1878, she had a collection of her poems and translations privately published by her father. In 1879, one of her pseudonymous poems was published in the "New York World". In 1880, five of her poems were published in the literary magazine "Atlantic Monthly". Her family and her social circle discouraged her from continuing her promising literary career. Wharton did not write anything of note between 1880 and 1889, when one of her poems was published in "Scribner's Magazine".
In 1879, Wharton came out as a debutante at the age of 17. She soon was courted by Henry Leyden Stevens, son of the prosperous hotel owner Paran Stevens. Her family disapproved her new relationship. In 1881, Wharton and her family returned to Europe. George Jones' health had started failing, and he hoped that a stay in Europe would help him recover. In 1882, he died in Cannes, France due to a stroke.
In 1882, Wharton and her widowed mother returned to the United States. Wharton was briefly engaged to her persistent suitor Henry Leyden Stevens, but the engagement was canceled without any known explanation. In 1883, Wharton started living separately from her mother Lucretia. Lucretia had decided to settle permanently in France, where she lived until her death in 1901.
In 1885, Wharton married the sportsman Edward Robbins "Teddy" Wharton, who was 12 years older than her. The two of them shared a love of travel. Between 1886 and 1897, the couple spent several months each year in Europe. Their favorite destination was Italy; Wharton retained a love of this country for decades.
In the late 1880s, Teddy suffered from acute depression. As the years passed and his mental state declined, the couple ceased their extensive travels. They spent most of their time at "The Mount", their country house in Lenox, Massachusetts. Wharton herself reportedly struggled with asthma and bouts of depression in the late 19th century.
From 1908 to 1909, Wharton had a mid-life extramarital affair with the journalist William Morton Fullerton (1865 -1952). In 1913, Wharton divorced Teddy. Their marriage had lasted for 28 years, but caring for a chronically depressed man had taken its toll on her.
In 1911, as her marriage deteriorated, Wharton decided to move permanently to Paris, France. During World War I (1914-1918), Wharton supported the French war effort. In 1914, Wharton opened a workroom for unemployed women. In 1914, she helped set up the American Hostels for Refugees, to care for Belgian war refugees in France. In 1915. she helped found the Children of Flanders Rescue Committee, which sheltered about 900 Belgian refugees.
In 1915, Wharton wrote articles about France's front-lines. She regularly visited the trenches of the Western Front to get a first-hand view of the war, and was within earshot of artillery fire. Her articles were collected in the non-fiction book "Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort" (1915).
In 1916, President Raymond Poincaré appointed Wharton a chevalier (knight) of the Legion of Honour, the country's highest award, in recognition of her dedication to the war effort. During the war, she helped in the founding of tuberculosis hospitals. In 1919, following the war's end, Wharton decided to leave Paris and to settle in the French countryside. She purchased Pavillon Colombe, an 18th-century house located in Saint-Brice-sous-Foret. It remained her main residence until her death.
In 1921, Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction though her win was controversial. The three fiction judges employed for the contest voted that the award should be given to Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951). Columbia University's advisory board overturned their decision and decided that the winner was Wharton. Wharton was also nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1927, 1928, and 1930), without ever winning.
In 1934, Wharton published her autobiography under the title "A Backward Glance". The work is noted for omitting some of the more difficult aspects of her life, which became known after Wharton's death. Among these omitted aspects were Wharton's rather poor relationship with her mother Lucretia, the personal problems which she faced while married with Teddy, and her extramarital affair with Fullerton.
In June 1937, Wharton was working on a revised edition of an older work, when she suffered a heart attack. She recovered, but suffered a stroke in August of the same year. She died due to the stroke, at the age of 75. She was buried in the American Protestant section of the Cimetière des Gonards in Versailles. She was given war hero honors at her funeral.
Wharton remains one of the most celebrated American writers of the 20th century, in large part due to her astute criticism of the 19th-century upper class, and her vivid depictions of a world that was long gone even when she wrote her novels. Her prose works remain in print, while her poetry is largely forgotten.The Age of Innocence 1920 - E.M. Forster was born on 1 January 1879 in London, England, UK. He was a writer, known for Howards End (1992), A Room with a View (1985) and The Machine Stops (2009). He died on 7 June 1970 in Coventry, Warwickshire, England, UK.愛德華·摩根·福斯特 UK
- Elizabeth Taylor was born on 3 July 1912 in Reading, Berkshire, England, UK. She was a writer, known for Tales of the Unexpected (1979), The Flypaper and Angel (2007). She was married to John William Kendall Taylor. She died on 19 November 1975 in Penn, Buckinghamshire, England, UK.