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It is 184 years today since Thomas Hardy was born.
The English author Thomas Hardy was born in Stinsford near Dorchester in Dorset, the son of a stonemason and local builder. Hardy trained as an architect before moving to London when he was twenty-two years old. He returned to Dorset where he began to write his first novel. Hardy was interested in the writings of Charles Darwin and in naturalism. During his long life he became famous for his...
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It is 111 years today since Barbara Pym was born.
Barbara Mary Crampton Pym was born in Oswestry, Shropshire, near the Welsh border where she grew up with her younger sister Hilary. Her father was a lawyer and her mother the organist in the local church. Many of the vicars and lay clergy that visited their home later turned up in Pym's books. She was privately educated, first at a girl's school and later at boarding school. After reading...
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It is 75 years today since Ingrid Hedström was born.
TThe Swedish journalist and author Ingrid Hedström were born in Söderhamn in the central Swedish province of Hälsingland, and then moved to Avesta in nearby Dalarna when she was five years old. She is said to be one of the 1960’s so-called "welfare-state princesses", meaning that she was the first in her family to graduate from high school. She completed her final exam at Avesta Grammar School in...
Sample of Authors
Perse, Saint-John
1887 - 1975
The French poet Saint-John Perse was born Marie-René Alexis Saint-Léger, the only son of five children born to a wealthy f...
Further reading
Brett, Simon
1945 -
British author born in Worcester Park, Surrey. In 1949, the family moved to Ealing and a year later to Banstead where he...
Further reading
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
1792 - 1822
The English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in Sussex to a wealthy, aristocratic family. He went to Eton and Oxford, he...
Further reading
Leroux, Gaston
1868 - 1927
Gaston Leroux was born in Paris but grew up in a little village in Normandy close to the home of his maternal grandparents....
Further reading