Allen Ginsberg was born 87 years ago today. Here he is, looking all fresh-faced yet intense.
Allen Ginsberg
QUOTE: “Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.”
SOME WORKS: Howl and Other Poems; Kaddish and Other Poems; Reality Sandwiches; The Yage Letters; Mind Breaths; Deliberate Prose
A KEEPSAKE:
Allen Ginsberg Quote Pencils by the big harumph. $10.00
Anne Brontë, the forgotten sister, died on 28 May 1849. She was 29. Her novels are quite entertaining, so there is really no excuse for the shadowy, reclusive life of her fame.
The Sisters Brontë by their brother Branwell Brontë. Anne is on the left.
QUOTE: “My heart is too thoroughly dried to be broken in a hurry, and I mean to live as long as I can.”-Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
WORKS: Agnes Grey; The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
A KEEPSAKE:
Anne Brontë Doll Miniature by Uneek Doll Designs. $41.00
*I was too busy yesterday to compose this post. At around 10:00 P.M. I thought of rushing it out, but then decided that publishing it a day late would be all too appropriate.
The well-groomed Samuel Pepys died on 26 May 1703. He was seventy.
Samuel Pepys, 1666.
QUOTE: “But me thought is lessened my esteem of a king, that he should not be able to command the rain.”
KNOWN FOR: His incredibly diary.
A KEEPSAKE:
Samuel Pepys’ Diary at Lady Frans Library. $19.00
Writer-painter August Strindberg died on 14 May 1912. Here he is, looking suitably bohemian…
August Strindberg, self-portrait. Circa 1891.
QUOTE: “I dream, therefore I exist.”
SOME WORKS: Master Olof; The Free Thinker; The Outlaw; The Father; The Dance of Death; A Dream Play; The Great Highway; The Son of a Servant.
A KEEPSAKE:
August Strindberg Pinback Button by BuyTheLightoftheMoon. $1.50
Vita Sackville-West was born on 9 March 1892.
Birthday girl Vita Sackville-West in 1916.
QUOTE: “I worshipped dead men for their strength, forgetting I was strong.”
SOME WORKS: Sissinghurst; Solitude; The Edwardians; All Passion Spent; The Dark Island; No Signposts in the Sea.
A KEEPSAKE:
The Edwardians by Vita-Sackville West at Eager for Word. $12.34.
Louisa May Alcott died on 6 March 1888. Here she is, at the quarter-century mark, looking utterly captivating.
Louisa May Alcott
QUOTE: “Do the things you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.”
SOME WORKS: Hospital Sketches; Little Women; Little Men; Eight Cousins; Under the Lilacs.
A KEEPSAKE:
Louisa May Alcott Quote Typography Print at Jane and Company Design. $20.00
…and died on this day, 2 March, 1930.
D.H. Lawrence, 1906.
QUOTE: “I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth’s follies-thinking that those who care about us will care for the things that mean much to us.”
SOME WORKS: Sons and Lovers; The Rainbow; Women in Love; Aaron’s Rod; The Plumed Serpent; Lady Chatterley’s Lover; The Rocking-Horse Winner.
A KEEPSAKE:
Essay on D.H. Lawrence by Kenneth Young at Dunedin Street. $6.78
Henry James died on 28 February 1916. He wasn’t always a humourless looking middle-aged man. Briefly, a long time ago, he was a humourless looking yet dapper young man.
Young Henry James
QUOTE: “It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.”
SOME WORKS: Roderick Hudson; Washington Square; The Portrait of a Lady; The Bostonians; What Maisie Knew; The Wings of the Dove; The Golden Bowl; Daisy Miller; The Aspern Papers; The Turn of the Screw.
A KEEPSAKE:
Daisy Miller by Henry James at Free Parking. $10.00
Edna St. Vincent Millay was born on 22 February 1892, with looks as timeless as the poems she grew up to write.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
QUOTE: “Life must go on; I forget just why.”
SOME WORKS: Renascence, and Other Poems; A Few Figs from Thistles: Poems and Four Sonnets; The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver; Fatal Interview; The Murder of Lidice.
A KEEPSAKE:
Edna St. Vincent Millay Quote Canvas Shopper Bag by Cloudshaped. $25.81
“Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.”-Sylvia Plath
She died on 11 February 1963.
Sylvia Plath’s Grave
“Reading her poetry is like picking up shards of glass with a bare hand. It is unnerving to discover that something so deceptively small can cause so much bleeding.”-Alicia Austen
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