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SUMMARY: Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) British novelist, critic
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Adeline Virginia Stephen was born on January 25, 1882 in London, England. She was the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen a literary critic and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. Virginia’s mother was his second wife, Julia Prinsep Jackson Duckworth. Virginia had two brothers, Thoby and Adrian. She was always very close to her older sister Vanessa whom she called ‘Nessa’ who would become a painter and marry art critic Clive Bell. She also had four half-siblings from her father’s first marriage; Laura Makepeace Stephen, George, Gerald (who would found Duckworth and Co. Publishing) and Stella Duckworth. Her father Sir Leslie Stephen laid the foundation for his children’s love of literature by having a massive library in the house. Virginia was known to be an avid reader but would soon reject the traditional mores and values of that generation.

The Stephens often summered at ‘Talland House’ in St. Ives, County Cornwall in the southwest of England along the rocky shores of the Atlantic Ocean. Virginia often recalled the fond memories of these times which had an influence on her writing including visits to a nearby lighthouse. Sadly these happy times ended when her mother died when she was just thirteen years old and she then suffered the first major breakdown of many that would plague her off and on the rest of her life. Following this was the trauma of the death of Stella, who had become like a mother to Virginia and then the death of her father which caused another period of profound depression. As the oldest surviving sibling Vanessa then moved her sister and brothers to another neighborhood in London, Bloomsbury. Virginia began feeling better and by 1905 was writing in earnest both articles and essays, and became a book reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement. She also taught English and History at nearby Morley College in London.

In 1906 Virginia, Vanessa and their brothers traveled to Europe, where Thoby contracted typhoid fever and died. Back in England their home had became a meeting place for both authors and artists. Virginia married left-wing political journalist, author and editor Leonard Woolf on August 10, 1912. They would have no children. In 1914 when World War I broke out they were living in Richmond and Woolf was working on her writing with all her devotion.

Leonard and Virginia would themselves get into the publishing business and together they founded the Hogarth Press in 1917. At the outbreak of WWII the Woolfs were living at their country retreat, ‘Monk’s House’ near the village of Rodmell in Lewes, Sussex. In 1940 they received word that their London home had been destroyed. With the fear of a German invasion looming and Leonard’s Jewish heritage the couple decided to make a suicide pact if the possibility of falling into German hands arose. Leonard was ever vigilant to the onset of the next major depressive episode in his wife; and knew that one was near when she would get migraine headaches and lay sleepless at night. However both her husband and her doctor failed to see to that a major depressive episode would end her life.

Virginia Woolf died on March 28, 1941 after committing suicide. She drowned herself in the River Ouse near their home in Sussex, by putting rocks in her coat pockets. Her body was not found until April. She was then cremated; her ashes spread under two elms at Monks’ House. She had left a note indicating that she felt herself going mad and feared she would not recover.

Woolf was to prove herself to be an innovative and influential 20th Century author. In many of her novels she moves away from the use of plot and structure to employ stream-of-consciousness to emphasize the psychological aspects of her characters. Themes in her works included studies of gender relations, class hierarchy and the consequences of war. She was also among the founders of the Modernist movement which also includes T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein.

Virginia Woolf spent much of her life fighting the effects of bi-polar disorder and was frequently hospitalized as a “rest cure”. She attributed much of her suffering from the sexual abuse she received from her half-brother. Much of her work was also colored by her own mental instabilities (she referred to herself as “mad” on many occasions) her confusion about her sexual orientation and her feminist views. Regardless of history’s view Woolf’s prodigious output of diaries, letters, critical reviews, essays, short stories, and novels continue to be the source of much scholarly study.

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SUMMARY: Will Durant (November 5, 1885–November 7, 1981) American philosopher, historian, writer
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Will Durant was born in North Adams, Massachusetts on November 5, 1885 to French-Canadian parents. His parents Joseph Durant and Mary Allard had been part of the Quebec emigration to the United States. Much is unknown about Will Durant’s early life but it is certain that he was raised with idealistic principles as he spent much of his later life in the fight for equal wages, women’s suffrage and fairer working conditions for the American labor force.

Durant not only wrote on many topics but also worked to put his ideas into effect.
Will Durant has been largely credit with attempting to bring philosophy to the common man. Some of his best known works are: “The Story of Philosophy”, “The Mansions of Philosophy”, and, with the help of his wife, Ariel, wrote “The Story of Civilization”. He also wrote magazine articles that were widely published. .

Will’s early education was by the Jesuits in St. Peter’s Preparatory School and, later, Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City, New Jersey. In 1905, he decided to become a Socialist. He graduated in 1907. He then worked as a reporter for Arthur Brisbane’s New York Evening Journal for ten dollars a week. At the Evening Journal, he gained a following when he wrote several articles on sexual criminals.

In 1907, he also began teaching Latin, French, English and geometry at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. Will also held the post of librarian at the college.
In 1911 he left he left Seton. He became the teacher and chief pupil of the Ferrer Modern School, which was an experiment in libertarian education. While at the Modern School, he fell in love with and married a pupil, thirteen years his junior, Chaya (Ida) Kaufman, whom he later nicknamed “Ariel”. The Durants had one child, a daughter Ethel, and later adopted a son whom they named Louis.

In 1913, he resigned his post as teacher and began lecturing in a Presbyterian church for five- and ten-dollar fees. In 1917, while working on a doctorate in philosophy, Will Durant wrote his first book, Philosophy and the Social Problem. In the paper he discussed the idea that philosophy had not grown because it avoided the actual problems of society. He went on to receive his doctorate in 1917. During this time he was also an instructor at Columbia University. In 1926 he retired from teaching and began writing full-time.

For their work on Rousseau and Revolution, (1967), which is the 10th volume of The Story of Civilization, the Durants were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for literature; later followed by the highest award granted by the United States government to civilians, the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ford in 1977.

The Durants were also well-known for their remarkable love story. They were a memorable couple within their work and outside of it. They detail their love story in the book “Dual Autobiography”. Remarkably even death was not to separate them as they died within two weeks of each other in 1981 (she on October 25 and he on November 7). Fearing what this news would do to her father their daughter, Ethel, and grandchildren strove to keep the death of his Ariel from the ailing Will. Sadly, he learned of it on the evening news, and he himself died at the age of 96. He was buried beside his wife in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Two posthumous works by Will Durant have been published in the last several years, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time (2002) and Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age (2001). His wife Ariel is credited with contributing significantly to these books as well.

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SUMMARY: Robert Louis Stevenson (November 13, 1850 – December 3, 1894) Scotland novelist, poet, travel writer
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Robert Louis Stevenson was a diverse Scottish writer who authored a number of books, essays, poems, and children’s books. He is best known for such action books such as Treasure Island and Kidnapped.

Early life and education
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was born November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of a prominent lighthouse engineer. As a child, Stevenson had tuberculosis and weakened lungs as a result.

When he was 17, he began college to study engineering, like his father. However, he soon determined that engineering was not something he was interested in. His father took him on a sea voyage, presumably to help him become interested in lighthouses. However, the voyage inspired him to want to write adventures about the coast and islands and instead decided to pursue a career in literature. His father eventually allowed this, but made him get a law degree too. He passed the bar exam at the age of 25.

Travels
After college, he began to travel abroad to find a climate that would agree better with his condition. He wrote about his travels in some of his earlier writings, including An Inland Voyage in 1878 and Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes in 1879.

In 1876, Stevenson met his wife in France. However, she was married at the time. She returned to California a few months later, and he followed her. In 1879 he traveled from New York to California, where he met up with and married his wife Frances Obsourne, who was divorced by this time. He spent the last five years of his life in Samoa, before dying in Samoa in December of 1894.

Writing
Stevenson was a diverse author and wrote a wide range of things, from poems to children’s books to novels. He is perhaps most famous for his adventure novels and stories, many of which include shipwrecks, stolen inheritances, and other such excitement. In 1883 Treasure Island was published, about a young boy who travels with pirates in search of buried treasure. In 1886, both The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Kidnapped were published, then The Black Arrow in 1888 and the Master of the Ballantrae in 1889. These were his most famous adventure stories.

He also wrote essays and criticisms, which were also very well-received. These include Virginibus Puerisque (1881), Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882), and Memories and Portraits (1887). In addition to this, he wrote a number of travel pieces based on his own adventures and travels. These include The Silverado Squatters (1883), which recounts his visit to a mining camp in California, as well as Across the Plains (1892) and In the South Seas (1896).

In addition to this, he also wrote poetry for children. A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885) is perhaps his most famous, even today. Other poetry collections include Underwoods (1887) and Ballads (1890). He also wrote a number of short stories that were published in his books The New Arabian Nights (1882) and Island Nights’ Entertainments (1893).

Stevenson’s stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, was also a writer. Together, the two collaborated and wrote the novels The Wrong Box (1891) and The Wrecker (1892).

Robert Louis Stevenson was a gifted writer who authored a wide range of books, poems, and literary works that are still enjoyed today.

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SUMMARY: Robert Browning (May 7, 1812–December 12, 1889) British poet, playwright
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When studying famous poets, the name of British poet Robert Browning is sure to be mentioned. He wrote a number of famous works throughout his life.

Life and poetry of Robert Browning

Born May 7,1812, in Camberwall, England (close to London), Robert Browning was the son of an accomplished pianist and a clerk at the Bank of England. From an early age, Robert Browning was exposed to literature and poetry. His father was an avid reader and very well read, and had a library of over 6000 books and volumes.

Robert Browning himself was also well-read and very educated, mostly as a result of his family. An avid reader as well, Robert was also gifted in his studies and learned Latin, Greek, French, and Italian by the time he was fourteen years old. In 1828, at the age of 16, he attended the University of London but dropped out soon after to study what he wanted at his own pace.

As a writer, Browning began with writing verses for stage after meeting William Macready, an actor on British stage. Browning began writing dramatic monologues. He received good reviews of his monologue Paracelsus, written in 1935, and much poorer reviews for Sordello, written in 1840. Many critics complained that his references and meanings were much too obscure to be understood and enjoyed.

Browning married fellow British poet Elizabeth Barrett after reading some of her poems and sending her a letter declaring his love for her and desire to meet her in 1844. They courted via letters until they eventually married in 1846, when she was 38 years old and he was 34, and later eloped to Italy. Together, they had a son, named Robert and nicknamed Pen, in 1849.

Their union and love for each other was the inspiration for a number of both of their poems, although Elizabeth was the more popular of the two poets at the time. He dedicated his collection of works Men and Women, which is said to hold his best works, to her in She also wrote a number of poems to him in her famous Sonnets from the Portuguese.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861, and it wasn’t until a few years after that that Robert’s work became much more well-known and successful and he became more widely known as a poet. Some of the works he wrote around this time included Dramatis Personae (1864), The Ring and the Book, a poem consisting of 21,000 lines, Balaustion’s Adventure (1871), Fifine At The Fair (1872), Red Cotton Night-Cap Country (1873), including The Inn Album (1875) and Pacchiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper (1876), Certain People of Importance in Their Day (1887), and the anthology The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (1877). Asolando: Fancies and Facts (1889) was actually published the same day he died.

Browning’s popularity as a poet was evident with the 1881 founding of the Robert Browning Society, developed by fans in England and the US.

Robert Browning died on December 12, 1889, in Italy in his son’s house. He wanted to be buried by Elizabeth in Florence, but the cemetery wasn’t taking new burials at the time. Instead, he is buried in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, London, England, not far from Lord Alfred Tennyson.

Robert Browning was a famous British poet known for his dramatic monologues and his love for his wife, fellow poet Emily Barrett Browning.

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SUMMARY: Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) British novelist
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When it comes to great writers in children’s literature, one name that is sure to come up is Roald Dahl. While he wrote a number of great books and stories for children, his most notable include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

Life
Roald Dahl was born on September 13, 1916 in Wales, the third of five children. He spent the majority of his childhood in English boarding schools, which later inspired some of his writing. He traveled throughout the world after finishing school, eventually joining the Royal Air Force. Blinding headaches ended his career in the Air Force early, and he returned to England in 1941. He married American actress Patricia Neal in 1953. Together, they had five children and were married thirty years before divorcing in 1983, after which he quickly married Felicity Dahl, who he remained married to until his death in 1990 of a rare blood disease.

Children’s books
Many people know Roald Dahl better through a number of popular movies that were actually based on books of his. His first book for children, Gremlins, was commissioned to be made for a Walt Disney movie, which never happened. In addition to the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory books, his most popular books include James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches, and The BFG, which were all eventually made into motion pictures.

His children’s books typically feature a child being mistreated in one way or another by an adult figure. Some believe that these are in reference to the abuse he experienced at boarding schools as a child himself; in fact, Dahl himself has said that his book Boy was the most closely related to his life and experiences growing up. Despite being written for children, the books often feature dark humor and a good deal of cartoonish violence.

Other famous books of Dahl’s include Fantastic Mr. Fox; Danny, Champion of the World; and he also wrote the screen play for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Adult writings
While he was enjoying fame as a successful children’s author, he was also writing adult short stories. Typically, these had surprise endings and a dark sense of humor not unlike that featured in his children’s books. During his lifetime, he wrote over 60 short stories, many of which were published in Ladies Home Journal, Harper’s, The New Yorker, and Playboy. Eventually they were published into anthologies and became worldwide best sellers.

Awards and honors
The awards he received for his writing were numerous, including three Edgar awards for his short stories. He was also honored posthumously in a number of ways as well. Not long after his death in 1990, the Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery was opened at Buckinghamshire County Museum in Aylesbury, not far from where he was buried.

In 2002, the Oval Basin plaza in Cardiff was renamed Roald Dahl Plass (Plass translates to plaza in Norwegian, which was a tribute to his Norwegian heritage). His widow also formed the Roald Dahl Foundation, which donates to fields of neurology, hematology, and literature. In addition to this, in 2005, the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre opened in Great Missenden to celebrate the work of the late author.

In England, Roald Dahl Day is held to honor the author’s birthday of September 13.

Roald Dahl was a beloved children’s author whose writing is sure to be enjoyed for years to come.

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