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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
Orczy, Emmuska
1865 - 1947
Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orczi, or Emmuska, which she preferred to be called, was born in...
Further reading
Durbridge, Francis
1912 - 1998
The British crime writer Francis Durbridge was born in Hull in Yorkshire. He was educated at Bradford Grammar School in...
Further reading
Silone, Ignazio
1900 - 1978
The pseudonym of Secondo Tranquilli, an Italian author and intellectual, born in Pescina dei Marsi. Silone came from a poor...
Further reading
Tokarczuk, Olga
1962 -
Polish author, born in the little village Klenica in western Poland, where her parents were teachers at a residential...
Further reading