Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation paved the way for a new era of literature and greatly influenced our later contemporary works. His writing was revolutionary, experimenting with style, words, and sound. Although he is hailed as one of the greatest American writers, Kerouac was relentlessly criticized by his contemporaries.
Great American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807 in Portland, Maine. He was the second child of Stephen and Zilpah Longfellow, and not long after his birth, six children followed. He was always a creative young boy, enthusiastic about learning, and was enrolled into a private school, Portland Academy at age five. Just like other children his age, his studies primarily focused on literature and language; however, he enjoyed this so much that he engaged in intricate writing projects with his friends outside of school as well.
Russian poet, novelist, and translator, Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow, Russia on February 10, 1890. His father, Leonid Pasternak was a post-impressionist painter and professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture; his mother, Rosa Kaufman was a concert pianist. Growing up in a household rich with artistic influence, it is only natural that he would follow in his parent’s footsteps. In 1904, Pasternak took up musical composition. However, he abandoned these studies to attend the University of Marburg, Germany and focus on a career in philosophy.
One of the greatest English illustrators of the 19th century, Randolph Caldecott was born on March 22, 1846, in Chester, England. He was the third child of John and Mary Caldecott and took an interest in drawing animals at a young age. He finished school by age 15 and started working for Whitchurch & Ellesmere Bank. In his free time between clients, he would ride his horse along the countryside. These rides would spark a newfound interest in hunting, which would influence his nature drawings. Illustrated London News (1861) was the first to publish one of Caldecott’s sketches. He depicted a fire at the Queen Railway Hotel both with words and an illustration.
The first book chosen for the Caldecott Medal as the “most distinguished picture book for children” is titled Animals of the Bible, introduction by Helen Dean Fish, illustrated by Dorothy Lathrop.
Helen Dean Fish was born on February 7, 1889 in Hempstead, Long Island, New York. She attended Wesley College, where she graduated in 1912. After graduation, she taught at a private school for girls in Asheville, North Carolina. She continued her graduate studies at Radcliffe College to study playwriting. She was hired by Fredrick A. Stoke’s publishing company in 1917, where she would work at for the rest of her life. Fish started out as a manuscript reader, however, several years later she was made the company’s first children’s book editor. Some of her greatest accomplishments include editing Story of Doctor Dolittle (Hugh Lofting, 1920), When the Root Children Wake Up (Sybille von Olfer, 1906), and mentoring Loris Lenski—author of Strawberry Girl (1945) and awarded the Newbery Medal in 1946.
Born on January 14, 1957, Anchee Min was raised in Shanghai, China, learning how to write “Long live Chairman Mao” before writing her own name. Growing up believing in power of Communism and Mao, she was torn at a young age, being forced to testify against one of her beloved school teachers for her reconnaissance. She excelled in school, especially writing. However, at the age of seventeen, she was sent away to work in a labor camp. This camp not only damaged her physically—injuring her spinal cord severely—she was brutally impaired mentally as well; restricting her ability to read, write, and dress the way she wanted. Feeling as if she was to be trapped there forever, she was finally released when she was discovered by talent scouts while working in a cotton field. The talent agents were looking to create a propaganda film for Madame Mao and Min was selected due to her “proletarian” appearance.
However, before the film was finished, Chairman Mao passed away and his wife, Jiang Qing was blamed for the uprisings that followed and was arrested and sentenced to death. Min’s association to the Mao organization through the film labeled her as an outcast from society and she was bullied and forced to mentally reform herself to think along the same lines as the rest of society.
How often does a wine merchant become a bestselling author and thwart one of world history's most notorious villains? Such was the unlikely career of Dennis Wheatley, the author who dazzled readers with thrilling tales of intrigue. He would later use those same magnificent storytelling skills to weave a plot even Hitler couldn't ignore.
From celebrity twitter fights to hijacking award shows, drama is created and spread around in every media outlet and our beloved writers are not exempt from these jealousy fueled fires. Now, let’s take a look at some of the most famous literary brawls in history.
"The first climax (…) brought tears to my eyes. There has been nothing like it for years: partly for the actual writing– 'She has left her toys behind but ours go hence with us,' or 'The island rose to meet the dawn,' but partly (still more, in fact) because here we meet a modern author who understands that there may be things that have a higher claim than the survival or happiness of humanity: a man who could almost understand “He that hateth not father and mother” and certainly would understand the situation in Aeneid III between those who go on to Latium and those who stay in Sicily." -C.S. Lewis (on Childhood's End)
On November 26, 1922, Charles Schulz was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was raised in a humble family and read the comic pages every Sunday with his father, growing fond of the Mickey Mouse and Popeye strips. He knew from a young age that drawing cartoons is what he wanted to spend his life doing, and in 1937, his drawing of his family dog, Spike was published in the Ripley’s Believe it or Not newspaper.
