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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
Maalouf, Amin
1949 -
The Lebanese-born author Amin Maalouf was born in Beirut. He is the second of four children. His family history is complex...
Further reading
Balzac, Honoré de
1799 - 1850
Honoré de Balzac was born Honoré Balzac in Tours, France, to a civil servant and his wife who was 30 years his junior. He a...
Further reading
Blackwood, Algernon
1869 - 1951
The British author Algernon Henry Blackwood grew up in a strictly religious home in Kent. He soon abandoned his Christian...
Further reading
Rice, Craig
1908 - 1957
Pseudonym of the American crime writer Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig who was born in Chicago. Her parents – her father was a...
Further reading