Nelle Harper Lee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird, was born on April 28, 1926 in the sleepy town of Monroeville Alabama. As a girl, she became friends with another future writer: Truman Capote. The two were outsiders among their peers but discovered an affinity for each other. According to Capote biographer, Gerald Clarke, “Nelle was too rough for most other girls, and Truman was too soft for most other boys.”
American novelist and short story writer, Bernard Malamud was born on April 26, 1914 in New York. His parents were Russo-Jewish immigrants with very little knowledge of the English Language. Malamud had one younger brother, Eugene and the boys experienced quite a poor childhood. Escaping realities, Bernard would often read stories and watch Charlie Chaplain films, which would later influence his style of writing. Malamud always had an appreciation for teaching and the learning process. Despite his mother’s death in his early teen years, Malamud continued on through high school and graduated with a Bachelors of Arts from the City College of New York. He later received his Master’s Degree from Columbia University while teaching high-school night classes.
Born April 24, 1905, Robert Penn Warren was a groundbreaking poet, author, literary critic and civil rights activist. His poetry and his prose were both well enough received to earn him the Pulitzer Prize, making him the only person to have ever won a Pulitzer Prize for both fiction and poetry. He won for fiction with what is perhaps his best known work, All the Kings Men, published in 1946.
If you are a nature lover, the works and activism of John Muir should hold a special place in your heart. He was one of the first advocates of preserving stretches of wilderness in the United States, and his writing reflects and affirms this value system. Muir's legacy lives on in the conservation organization he founded, The Sierra Club, along with several natural and man-made landmarks that have been named after him.
Barbara Kingsolver is known for using her creative talent to open the eyes of her readers to global injustices, ranging from environmental to social problems. Drawing upon her own childhood experiences in the Congo, she wrote her most famous work, The Poisonwood Bible. This novel, along with every book she has published since 1993, earned a spot on the New York Times Best Seller list. Kingsolver has also published several essays and poems.
On March 19, 1842, Honoré de Balzac's play Les Ressources de Quilona opened to an empty theatre. The fault was Balzac's own; in an attempt to create buzz around the play, he'd started a rumor that the play was sold out. The plan obviously failed to incite the clamor for tickets that Balzac had hoped for. By this time, Balzac was already a well known writer, but his plays had never been received well. They were, in a word, flops. Luckily for Balzac, his novels both made and saved his literary reputation, mitigating the negative impact of his plays. And he's not alone; a number of other famous authors have published works that critics found disappointing.
When Emily Brontë published Wuthering Heights, critics were less than enthusiastic about the book. On December 18, 1847, The Spectator printed a rather harsh review, which echoed the opinions of contemporary critics:
"The success is not equal to the abilities of the writer; chiefly because the incidents are too coarse and disagreeable to be attractive, the very best being improbable with a moral taint about them, and the villainy not leading to results sufficient to justify the elaborate pains taken in depicting it."
When a new edition was published in 1850, it included a "Biographical Notice" penned by Charlotte Brontë. In addition to justifying all three sisters' decision to publish their works pseudonymously, she clearly intended to defend her sister against her critics. But most modern critics think that Charlotte overstated the case, making the critics seem more harsh than they'd actually been. At any rate, Wuthering Heights has endured as a paragon of Romantic literature.
John Updike is proof that quality doesn’t have to be sacrificed for quantity. This highly accomplished author averaged at least one book a year during his career, while also composing poetry, short stories, and essays. He is one of three fiction authors to win more than one Pulitzer Prize. Both novels to receive the prize were a part of his famous Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom series.
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.
John Steinbeck has become a central figure in the American literary canon. A winner of the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, and Nobel Prize, Steinbeck certainly has the accolades to justify that position. But Steinbeck's detractors--including members of the Swedish Academy--doubted the legendary author's merits, and Steinbeck himself didn't believe he was worthy of the Nobel.
