Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Author List Volume XII

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), Mr Britling Sees it Through (1916) Born: 47 High Street, Bromley, London, England. Remains: Old Harry Rocks, Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, England. College: Imperial College, London.










Richard I, Coeur de Lion (1157-1999) Born: Beaumont Palace, Beaumont Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. Buried: Fontevraud Abbey, near Chinon, Anjou, France. Chateau Gaillard, Les Andeleys, Normandie, France. Trifels Castle, Annweiler am Trifels, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.


Mazo de la Roche (1879-1961) Jalna (1927) Born: (Plaque Water Street on Fairy Lake), Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. Buried: St George's Anglican Church, Sibbald Point, Sutton, Ontario, Canada.


Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855) Jane Eyre (1847) Born: 74 High Street, Thornton, Yorkshire, England. (currently a tea shop) Buried: St Michael and All Angels' Church, Haworth, Yorkshire, England. Bronte Parsonage Museum, Church Street, Haworth, Yorkshire, England. Sir John Soane's Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields, (Holborn?), London, England.



This was a picture of a pretty girl, but somehow during the course of writing this post it got changed to this.

Romain Rolland (1866-1944) Jean-Christophe (1904-12) Born: Musee d'Art et d'Histoire Romain Rolland, Avenue de la Republique, Clamecy, Burgundy, France. Buried: Cimitiere de Breves, Breves, Burgundy, France. Musee Zervos--Maison Romain Rolland, 14 Rue St Etienne, Vezelay, Burgundy, France. Romain Rolland Library, Main City, Pondicherry, India. Rhine River Boat. College: Ecole Normale Superieure (Paris). 

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975) The Inimitable Jeeves (orig. published as Jeeves) (1923) Born: 7 Vale Place, 50 Epsom Road, Guildford, Surrey, England. Buried: Remsenburg Cemetery, Remsenburg, Southampton, Suffolk, New York.  

Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943) John Brown's Body (1927) Born: Ostrom and Bishopthorpe Streets, Fountain Hill, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Buried: Evergreen Cemetery, Stonington, Connecticut. Stephen Vincent Benet House, 2500 Walton Way, Augusta State University, Augusta, Georgia. College: Yale

John Brown (1800-1859) Born: John Brown Road, Torrington, Connecticut. Buried: John Brown Farm State Historic Site, 115 John Brown Road, North Elba, Lake Placid, Essex, New York. John Brown Museum, Main and 10th Streets, Osawatomie, Kansas. John Brown Wax Museum, 168 High Street, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

Joseph (biblical figure) Born: Canaan, Israel. Buried: Joseph's Tomb, near Nablus, Israel (West Bank).

Potiphar's Wife:
William De Morgan (1839-1917) Joseph Vance (1906) Born: Gower Street, Bloomsbury, London, England. Buried: Brookwood Cemetery, Brookwood, Surrey, England. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England. College: Royal Academy of Arts (London)

The De Morgan Centre, a museum housing a collection of De Morgan's ceramic work (his primary career before taking up novel writing at the age of 65) in Wandsworth, London, unfortunately closed in 2014. The collection is still seeking a permanent home at the present time.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) The Return of the Native (1878), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), Jude the Obscure (1894) Born: Hardy's Cottage, Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England. Buried: Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London, England (*****9-3-96*****). Heart in St Michael's Churchyard, Stinsford, Dorset, England. Dorset County Museum, West High Street, Dorchester, Dorset, England. Max Gate, Alington Avenue, Dorchester, Dorset, England. College: Kings (London) 

Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) The Jungle (1906) Born: Baltimore, Maryland. Buried: Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C. College: CCNY.

Sean O'Casey (1880-1964) Juno and the Paycock (1924) Born: 85 Upper Dorset Street, Dublin, Ireland. Buried: Golders Green Crematorium, Golders Green, London, England. Sean O'Casey Bridge, Dublin, Ireland. Sean O'Casey Theatre, St Mary's Road, East Wall, Dublin, Ireland.

Marc Blitzstein (1905-1964) Born: 419 Pine Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Buried: Chelten Hills Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. National Theatre, South Bank, Waterloo, London, England. College: Curtis Institute of Music.

According to his Wikipedia page, Blitzstein was an "unrepentant artistic snob, who firmly believed that true art was only for the intellectual elite." Having consumed a substantial part of my life in various attempts at becoming a cultivated person without any noticeable success, I suspect that this way of understanding the matter is probably correct.  













James Branch Cabell (1879-1958) Jurgen (1919) Born: 101 East Franklin Street (Now Home of Richmond City Library), Richmond, Virginia. Buried: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia. James Branch Cabell Library, 901 Park Avenue, Richmond, Virginia. College: William & Mary.


Sully Prudhomme (1839-1907) Justice (1878) Born: 34 Rue du Faubourg Poissoniere, 10eme, Paris, France. Buried: Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise, 20eme, Paris, Ile, France.


Elizabeth I of England (1533-1603) Born: Greenwich Palace (now Royal Naval College), Greenwich, London, England. Buried: Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London, England.


Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (1532-1588) Born: London, England. Buried: Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick, Warwickshire, England. Kenilworth Castle, Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England.


Amy Robsart (1532-1560) Born: Stanfield Hall, near Wymondham, Norfolk, England. Buried: St Mary's Church, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England.





John Ruskin (1819-1900) The King of the Golden River (1851) Born: 54 Hunter Street, Holborn, London, England. Buried: St Andrew's Church, Coniston, Cumbria, England. Ruskin Museum, Lake District National Park, Coniston, Cumbria, England. Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, Lancashire, England. Brantwood, Coniston, Cumbria, England. College: Christ Church (Oxford).


Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1950) The King's Henchman (1927) Born: 198-200 Broadway, Rockland, Maine. Buried: Millay Colony For the Arts, Austerlitz, Columbia, New York. Edna St Vincent Millay Society, 440 East Hill Road, Austerlitz, Columbia, New York. College: Vassar.
Deems Taylor (1885-1966) Born: 152 West 17th Street, New York, New York. Buried: Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, Westchester, New York. College: New York University.




H Rider Haggard (1856-1925) King Solomon's Mines (1886) Born: Wood Farm, West Bradenham, Norfolk, England. Buried: St Mary Churchyard, Ditchingham, Norfolk, England.


King Solomon (1010-931 B.C.) Born: Jerusalem, Israel.


Sigrid Undset (1882-1949) Kristin Lavransdatter (The Bridal Wreath, 1922, The Mistress of Husaby. 1923, The Cross, 1927) Born: Market Square, Kalundborg, Denmark. Buried: Kirke, Mesnali, Norway. Sigrid Undsets Hjem Bjerkebaek, Sigrid Undsets veg 16, Lillehammer, Norway.
I love Scandinavian tourist attractions.

Monday, May 8, 2017

May Update

A List--The Arabian Nights (Burton Translation)................................................143/823
B List--Gladys Hasty Carroll--As the Earth Turns...............................................263/339
C List--Jane Austen--Persuasion..........................................................................228/252


This is the first time I have ever read the Arabian Nights. Most of the stories I am finding to hold my interest so far, I have not yet been struck with a grand conception of the whole. Wife-murdering for the crime, or in some instances suspected crime, of infidelity, is a common theme. It's happened at least three times already. I am reading the Modern Library edition, which is a selection, as the complete Burton translation runs to 16 volumes, and I am not sure if the various sources that recommend these stories really intend that everyone should read all of it. When I was younger I was much more of an absolutist and wanted to read everything whole so as to be sure of not missing anything that might be of value, but I have become less so, at least in cases where it is generally agreed that the high esteem which a work enjoys is concentrated in specific parts of it that can be easily detached from the rest.


Persuasion was the only Jane Austen book I had never read, and now I sit 24 pages from having completed her entire oeuvre. I don't who else I can say that about, other than people who only wrote one or two distinct works, Homer, Proust. Even Emily Bronte wrote poems, and Henry Fielding wrote 30-something plays. I like the story in this one, though the characters are not as well-developed as in her better books and her snark is looser and more undisciplined throughout this one, which is also a detraction. I would rank it fourth among her books, after the two obvious ones and Mansfield Park, which I like a lot. I think I like this one better than Sense and Sensibility, which I remember as kind of lackluster compared to the other ones.


I was going to write something about a contemporary book of poetry I read, Look by Solmaz Sharif, which was nominated for the National Book Award in 2016. But given the time constraints I think I will try to do that in a separate post.





I had no idea there was a film of this book.