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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
Thor, Annika
1950 -
Annika Thor grew up in Gothenburg in the 1950s and 60s. She learned to read and write when she was five years old, and she...
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Capote, Truman
1924 - 1984
Truman Capote was born in New Orleans as Truman Streckfus Persons. His father, Arch Persons, was a young chancer who later...
Further reading
Davidson, Diane Mott
1949 -
The American crime writer Diane Mott Davidson was born, one of six siblings, in Honolulu, Hawaii, where her father, a naval...
Further reading
Crumley, James
1939 - 2008
The American author and teacher James Arthur Crumley never reached bestseller status. However, he was instrumental in the...
Further reading