An American novelist. Her epistolary novel, The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton, was published anonymously in 1797. Although it topped the American bestseller lists of the 1790s, it was not until 1866 that her name appeared on the title page. In 1798 she published The Boarding School; or, Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils, a commentary on female education in the United States.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Phyllis Whitney (September 9, 1903 – February 8, 2008)
An American mystery writer. Rare for her genre, she wrote mysteries for both the juvenile and the adult markets, many of which feature exotic locations. A review in The New York Times once dubbed her "The Queen of the American Gothics", although she hated this title. She preferred to say she wrote "romantic novels of suspense".
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Grace Metalious (born Marie Grace DeRepentigny, September 8, 1924 – February 25, 1964)
Was an American author, best known for her controversial novel Peyton Place, which stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for 59 weeks. It sold 20 million copies in hardcover and another 12 million as a Dell paperback. At the age of 30, she began work in the fall of 1954 on a manuscript about the dark secrets of a small New England town. The novel had the working title The Tree and the Blossom. By the spring of 1955, she had finished a first draft. However, she and her husband regarded The Tree and the Blossom as an unwieldy title and decided to give the town a name which could be the book's title. They first considered Potter Place (the name of a real community near Andover, New Hampshire). Realizing their town should have a fictional name, they looked through an atlas and found Payton (the name of a real town in Texas). They combined this with Place and changed the "a" to an "e".
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tristan Bernard (7 September 1866 – 7 December 1947)
A French playwright, novelist, journalist and lawyer.
Elinor Morton Wylie (September 7, 1885 – December 16, 1928)
An American poet and novelist popular in the 1920s and 1930s. She was famous during her life almost as much for her ethereal beauty and personality as for her melodious, sensuous poetry. If her poetry is derivative of anyone, though, that would be of the British Romantic poets, and particularly of Shelley, whom she admired to a degree that some critics have seen as abnormal.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
China Tom Miéville born 6 September 1972
An award-winning English fantasy fiction writer. He is fond of describing his work as "weird fiction" (after early twentieth century pulp and horror writers such as H. P. Lovecraft), and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird. He is also active in left-wing politics as a member of the Socialist Workers Party. He has stood for the House of Commons for the Socialist Alliance, and published his PhD thesis as a book on Marxism and international law. He teaches creative writing at Warwick University.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Frank Garvin Yerby (September 5, 1916 – November 29, 1991
An African American historical novelist. He is best known as the first African American writer to become a millionaire from his pen, and to have a book purchased by a Hollywood studio for a film adaptation.
Yerby was originally noted for writing romance novels set in the Antebellum South. In mid-century, Yerby embarked on a series of best-selling historical novels ranging from the Athens of Pericles to Europe in the Dark Ages. Yerby took considerable pains in research, and often footnoted his historical novels. In all, he wrote 33 novels. In 1946, he published The Foxes of Harrow, a southern historical romance, which became the first novel by an African-American to sell more than a million copies. In this work he faithfully reproduced many of the genre's most familiar features, with the notable exception of his representation of African American characters, who bore little resemblance to the "happy darkies" that appeared in such well known works as Gone With the Wind. That same year he also became the first African-American to have a book purchased for screen adaptation by a Hollywood studio, when 20th Century Fox optioned Foxes. Ultimately, the book became a 1947 Oscar-nominated film starring Rex Harrison and Maureen O'Hara.
Yerby was originally noted for writing romance novels set in the Antebellum South. In mid-century, Yerby embarked on a series of best-selling historical novels ranging from the Athens of Pericles to Europe in the Dark Ages. Yerby took considerable pains in research, and often footnoted his historical novels. In all, he wrote 33 novels. In 1946, he published The Foxes of Harrow, a southern historical romance, which became the first novel by an African-American to sell more than a million copies. In this work he faithfully reproduced many of the genre's most familiar features, with the notable exception of his representation of African American characters, who bore little resemblance to the "happy darkies" that appeared in such well known works as Gone With the Wind. That same year he also became the first African-American to have a book purchased for screen adaptation by a Hollywood studio, when 20th Century Fox optioned Foxes. Ultimately, the book became a 1947 Oscar-nominated film starring Rex Harrison and Maureen O'Hara.
