Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Literary Anniversaries 2013

Like last year, I'll highlight a few of the notable anniversaries coming up in 2013:

50 years ago (1963):
- Yann Martel born, 25 June.
- Robert Frost dies, 29 January.
- Sylvia Plath dies, 11 February.
- William Carlos Williams dies, 4 March.
- Aldous Huxley dies, 22 November.
- C.S. Lewis dies, 22 November.
- Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar published.
- Thomas Pynchon's V. published.
- Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle published.

100 years ago (1913):
- Robertson Davies born, 28 August.
- Albert Camus born, 7 November.
- Willa Cather's O Pioneers! published.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Poison Belt published.
- D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers published.
- George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion published.

150 years ago (1863):
- Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch born, 24 November.
- George Santayana born, 16 December.
- Jacob Grimm dies, 20 September.
- Frances Trollope dies, 6 October.
- William Makepeace Thackeray dies, 24 December.
- George Eliot's Romola published.
- Edward Everett Hale's The Man Without a Country published.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn published.

200 years ago (1813):
- Otto Ludwig born, 12 February.
- Søren Kierkegaard born, 5 May.
- Christoph Martin Wieland dies, 20 January.
- J. Hector St. John de Crèvecouer dies, 12 November.
- Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice published, 28 January.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley's Queen Mab published.

250 years ago (1763):
William Cobbett born, 9 March.
- Louis Racine dies, 29 January.
- William Shenstone dies, 11 February.
- George Psalmanazar dies, 3 May.
- James Boswell meets Samuel Johnson, 16 May.
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters published.

300 years ago (1713):
- Abbé Raynal born, 12 April.
- Denis Diderot born, 15 October.
- Laurence Sterne born, 24 November.
- Joseph Addison's Cato debuts.

350 years ago (1663):
Cotton Mather born, 12 February.
- Francis Atterbury born, 6 March.
- William Bradford (printer) born, 20 March.

400 years ago (1613):
- François de la Rochefoucauld born, 15 September.
- Thomas Bodley dies, 28 January.
- Shakespeare (and Fletcher's?) Henry VIII debuts (at one performance of which the Globe burns).

450 years ago (1563):
Michael Drayton born.
- Jodocus Hondius born, 14 October.
- John Bale dies, November.
- Foxe's Book of Martyrs published in English by John Day.

500 years ago (1513):
- Jacques Amyot born, 30 October.
- Robert Fabyan dies.

550 years ago (1463):
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola born, 24 February.
- Lorenzo de' Medici born, 4 August.
- Flavio Biondo dies, 4 June.

650 years ago (1363):
- Christine de Pizan born (approximate).

700 years ago (1313):
- Giovanni Boccaccio born, 16 June (uncertain).

What'd I miss? Let me know!