-
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...
-
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...
-
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
Boccaccio, Giovanni
1313 - 1375
Italian Renaissance author. His place of birth is uncertain; he was either born in Paris or Florence as the illegitimate...
Further reading
Bradley, Alan
1938 -
Alan Bradley was born in Toronto, Canada. He grew up with his mother and two sisters in the town of Cobourg, about one...
Further reading
Allende, Isabel
1942 -
Isabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru, but she grew up in Chile. Her diplomat father left the family when Isabel was two...
Further reading
Tóibin, Colm
1955 -
Colm Tóibín is an Irish author and journalist who grew up in Enniscorthy in the south-west of Ireland as one of Bríd and Mi...
Further reading