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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
Shakespeare, William
1564 - 1616
English playwright and poet, born in Stratford-upon-Avon as the eldest son of the glove maker John Shakespeare and his wife...
Further reading
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
1792 - 1822
The English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in Sussex to a wealthy, aristocratic family. He went to Eton and Oxford, he...
Further reading
Fonseca, Rubem
1925 - 2020
Brazilian author, born in Juiz de Fora in Minas Gerais, but at the age of 7 moved to Rio de Janeiro. Fonseca gained a...
Further reading
Ghosh, Amitav
1956 -
Amitav Ghosh is among the most prominent of a generation of Anglo-Indian writers that came to the fore in the 1980s. He was...
Further reading