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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
Zola, Émile
1840 - 1902
French author, born in Paris and raised in Aix-en-Provence. His father, who was Italian and a successful site engineer,...
Further reading
Williams, Charles
1909 - 1975
Charles Williams was a ground-breaking author of noir crime fiction. More than two thirds of his books came out as pulp...
Further reading
Ford, Richard
1944 -
American author born in Jackson, Mississippi. His father, Parker Carrol, was a travelling salesman, which meant that the...
Further reading
Kjærstad, Jan
1953 -
Norwegian author, born and grew up in a middle-class environment in Grorud, an Oslo suburb. His father, Leif Asbjørn ...
Further reading