It’s the birthday of Edith Wharton, who in 1921 became the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel (as the Fiction award was then called). This was controversial, but not because Wharton was a woman. The jury had actually recommended Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street for the award, and the Pulitzer board [...]

NB: this post uses the term “brilliant” almost distastefully often. It may or may not be the birthday of Helen DeWitt, one of the most original and brilliant authors of her generation. Actually it’s almost certainly not: she was born in 1957 in Maryland but I have been unable to find any reference to her [...]

It’s the birthday of Russian mystic and self-proclaimed healer Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, often credited for contributing to the downfall of the Romanov dynasty. Born in 1869 in Siberia, Rasputin was a peasant-turned-religious pilgrim, though he never received any official training in the church, and his enthralling personal magnetism dovetailed nicely with St. Petersburg’s fascination with [...]

It’s the birthday of award-winning science fiction author Nancy Kress, whose books include Beggars in Spain (1991), Probability Space (2003), Fountain of Age (2007), and Yesterday’s Kin (2014), among many others. She has won six Nebula Awards, two Hugos, and a host of others. Kress was born Nancy Anne Koningisor in Buffalo, New York, in [...]

It’s the birthday of the master of mystery and horror, Edgar Allen Poe, born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1809, and orphaned by the age of three. Poe was raised by wealthy merchant John Allen and his wife Frances in Richmond, Virginia, but did not want to follow Allen into the tobacco business. Poe attended the [...]

It’s the birthday of A.A. Milne, best known as the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin. While Milne wrote only a few children’s books—Winnie-the-Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner, and two collections of poetry for children—the immense popularity of these works completely eclipsed Milne’s other writing and plunged him into a lifetime of bitterness. (Disclaimer: [...]

It’s the birthday of one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1706, a man who may have done more to shape the (eventual) United States than any other single person. Franklin was a printer and publisher, author, statesman, diplomat, inventor, scientist, the first U.S. Postmaster General, [...]

It’s the birthday of food writer and editor Ruth Reichl, known for her bestselling memoirs such as Tender at the Bone (1998), Comfort Me with Apples (2001), and Garlic and Sapphires (2005), which last describes Reichl’s experiences as the most powerful restaurant critic in the world. Reichl was born in New York City in 1948 [...]

It’s the birthday of the great playwright Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known as Moliere, born in 1622 in Paris, France, and held to be one of the greatest geniuses of comedy in the western canon. His masterpieces include “Tartuffe; or, The Imposter,” “Don Juan; or, The Feast of Stone,” and “The Misanthrope.” The young Moliere was [...]

It’s the birthday of author Maria Lorena Moore, better known as Lorrie Moore, born in 1957 in Glen Falls, NY. While her literary output has been relatively modest, her short stories and novels can be at once devastatingly funny and moving. At 19 Moore won a fiction contest at Seventeen magazine, resulting in her first [...]