The Dead Writers Round-Up: August 8th-10th

  • Sara Teasdale was born on 8/8/1884. “I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.” (Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems; Helen of Troy and Other Poems; Rivers to the Sea; Love Songs)
  • Shirley Jackson died on 8/8/1965. “I delight in what I fear.” (Hangsaman; The Haunting of Hill House; We Have Always Lived in the Castle; Life Among the Savages; many, many short stories)
  • Philip Larkin was born on 8/9/1922. “Life has a practice of living you, if you don’t live it.” (The North Ship; The Less Deceived; The Whitsun Weddings; Jill)
  • Hermann Hesse died on 8/9/1962. “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” (Peter Camenzind; Gertrud; Siddhartha; Der Steppenwolf)
  • Adela Rogers St. Johns died on 8/10/1988. “Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you’re lucky.” (A Free Soul; Tell No Man; The Honeycomb; many, many screenplays)
Sara Teasdale, July 11, 1919, by Arnold Genthe.

Sara Teasdale, July 11, 1919, by Arnold Genthe.

Hermann Hesse, 1929

Hermann Hesse, 1929.

[Alternative Muses] Birthday Mashup: John French Sloan/James Baldwin

Red Kimono on the Roof, John French Sloan. 1912.

Red Kimono on the Roof, 1912, by John French Sloan (born 2 August 1871).

“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”-James Baldwin (born 2 August 1924)

Happy Birthday, Miss (Emily) Brontë!

The creator of Wuthering Heights, and some truly fabulous poetry, was born on 30 July 1818. She was the weird sister, and for that I love her even more.

Emily Brontë by Branwell Brontë

Emily Brontë by Branwell Brontë

A QUOTE: “If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.”-Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

SOME WORKS: Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell; Wuthering Heights

A KEEPSAKE:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë at Cynthia’s Attic. $24.00

Please Save the Waltz for Zelda on Her Birthday

Repeat after me: Zelda Fitzgerald was a writer. Zelda Fitzgerald was a writer. Zelda Fitzgerald was a writer. What is more, she was good. Not just every day good, either, but envy-inducing good. The real deal.

She was born 113 years ago today. Help celebrate her legacy by getting your hands on a copy of her 1932 novel, Save Me the Waltz.

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, 1922.

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, 1922.

 

[Alternative Muses] Coming and Going: Jane Austen/Clifford Odets Mashup

Jane Austen died on 7/18/1817.

Jane Austen

Jane Austen

“Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.”-Jane Austen

Clifford Odets was born on 7/18/1906.

 

Clifford Odets, 1936

Clifford Odets, 1936

“Life shouldn’t be printed on dollar bills.”-Clifford Odets

Ten Quotes and a Photograph in Honor of Henry David Thoreau’s Birthday

Happy 196th Birthday, Mr. Thoreau!

  • “It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.”
  • “Simplify, simplify.”
  • “The world is wider than our views of it.”
  • “How vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live.”
  • “Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.”
Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

  • “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”
  • “Things do not change; we change.”
  • “One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.”
  • “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
  • “It’s not worth our while to let our imperfections disturb us always.”

Happy 130th Birthday, Franz Kafka!

Happy Birthday to Franz Kafka! Here he is, looking suitably, well, Kafkaesque.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

QUOTE: “Books are a narcotic.”

SOME WORKS: Amerika; The Trial; The Castle; A Country Doctor; The Metamorphosis; The Village Schoolmaster; Letters to Felice

A KEEPSAKE:

Franz Kafka Tote Bag by Little Shop of Joy

Franz Kafka Tote Bag by Little Shop of Joy. $5.00