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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
Stoker, Bram
1847 - 1912
The Irish author and journalist Abraham "Bram" Stoker was born at Clontarf near Dublin where he grew up in a middle-class...
Further reading
O'Connor, Joseph
1963 -
Irish author born in Dublin. He is the brother of the singer Sinéad O'Connor and the oldest of five children. His father ...
Further reading
Aleixandre, Vicente
1898 - 1984
Vicente Pío Marcellino Cirilo Aleixandre y Merlo was born in Seville, but for fifty years, until his death, he famously ...
Further reading
Kawabata, Yasunari
1899 - 1972
Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer born in Osaka. He came from an educated, wealthy family,...
Further reading