Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, better known as C. J. Dennis, (7 September 1876 - 22 June 1938) was an Australian poet famous for his humorous poems, especially "The Sentimental Bloke", published in the early 20th century.
Frederick Jackson Turner (November 14, 1861 March 14, 1932) was an influential American historian in the early 20th century. He is best known for his book, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, whose ideas are referred to as the Frontier Thesis. He is also known for his theories of geographical sectionalism. In recent years western history has seen pitched arguments over his Frontier Thesis, with the only point of agreement being his enormous impact on historical scholarship and the American mind.
Alfred Oliver Pollard VC, MC & Bar, DCM (4 May 1893 - 5 December 1960) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He later became a prolific author of crime and mystery books.
George Fletcher Moore (10 December 1798 30 December 1886) was a prominent early settler in colonial Western Australia, and "one [of of] the key figures in early Western Australia's ruling elite" (Cameron, 2000). He conducted a number of exploring expeditions; was responsible for one of the earliest published records of the language of the Australian Aborigines of the Perth area; and was the author of Diary of Ten Years Eventful Life of an Early Settler in Western Australia.
Dean Francis Alfar (born 1969), is a Filipino playwright, novelist and writer of speculative fiction. His plays have been performed in venues across the country, while his articles and fiction have been published both in his native Philippines and abroad, such as in Strange Horizons, Rabid Transit, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror and the Exotic Gothic series. His literary awards include ten Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature (Palanca Awards) including the Grand Prize for Novel for Salamanca (Ateneo Press, 2006) as well as the Manila Critics' Circle National Book Awards for the graphic novels Siglo: Freedom and Siglo: Passion, and the Philippines Free Press Literary Award. He was a fellow at the 1992 Dumaguete National Writers Workshop and 20th UP National Writers Workshop. He is an advocate of the literature of the fantastic, editing the Philippine Speculative Fiction series, as well as a comic book creator and a blogger. Alfar is also an entrepreneur running several businesses. He lives in Manila with his wife, fictionist Nikki Alfar and their two daughters.
Arthur Leo Zagat was an American lawyer and writer of pulp fiction and science fiction. Trained in the law, he gave it up to write professionally. Zagat is noted for his collaborations with fellow lawyer Nat Schachner. During the last two decades of his life, Zagat wrote short stories prolifically. About 500 pieces appeared in a variety of pulp magazines, including Thrilling Wonder Stories, Argosy, Dime Mystery Magazine, Horror Stories, Operator No. 5, Astounding, and wrote the "Doc Turner" stories that regularly appeared in The Spider pulp magazine throughout the 1930s. A novel, Seven Out of Time, was published by Fantasy Press in 1949 the year after he died.
Rev. Charles Hartwell was an American Board missionary to Foochow, China in the second half of the 19th century.
Yrj Sakari Yrj-Koskinen (birth name Georg Zakarias Forsman, author name Yrj Koskinen, 10 December 1830, Vaasa - 13 November 1903, Helsinki) was a freiherr, senator, professor, historian, politician and the chairman of the Finnish Party after Johan Vilhelm Snellman. He was a central figure in the fennoman movement. His original name was Georg Zakarias Forsman and his family from his father's side originated from Sweden. He later fennicized his name to Yrj Sakari Yrj-Koskinen.
Agnes Repplier (April 1, 1855 November 15, 1950) was an American essayist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her essays are esteemed for their scholarship and wit.
Alfred Edward Housman (26 March 1859 30 April 1936), usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900. Their wistful evocation of doomed youth in the English countryside, in spare language and distinctive imagery, appealed strongly to late Victorian and Edwardian taste, and to many early twentieth century English composers both before and after the First World War. Through its song-setting the poetry became closely associated with that era, and with Shropshire itself. Housman was counted one of the foremost classicists of his age, and has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars of all time. He established his reputation publishing as a private scholar and, on the strength and quality of his work, was appointed Professor of Latin at University College London and later, at Cambridge. His editions of Juvenal, Manilius and Lucan are still considered authoritative.
Walter Harte (1709 - 1774) was a British poet and historian. He was a friend of Alexander Pope, Oxford don, canon of Windsor, and vice-principal of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford. His father, Reverend Walter Harte, was a fellow of Pembroke college, Oxford, prebendary of Wells, canon of Bristol, and vicar of St. Mary Magdalen, Taunton, Somersetshire.
Eugne Fromentin (October 24, 1820 August 27, 1876) was a French painter and writer. He was born in La Rochelle. After leaving school he studied for some years under Louis Cabat, the landscape painter. Fromentin was one of the earliest pictorial interpreters of Algeria, having been able, while quite young, to visit the land and people that suggested the subjects of most of his works, and to store his memory as well as his portfolio with the picturesque and characteristic details of North African life. In 1849 he obtained a medal of the second class. In 1852 he paid a second visit to Algeria, accompanying an archaeological mission, and then completed that minute study of the scenery of the country and of the habits of its people which enabled him to give to his after-work the realistic accuracy that comes from intimate knowledge. In a certain sense his works are contributions to ethnological science as much as they are works of art. His first great success was produced at the Salon
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (29 September 1547 - 23 April 1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus Don Quixote, often considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written. His work is often considered amongst the most important works in all of Western literature. His influence on the Spanish language has been so great that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes, Spanish for the language of Cervantes. He has been dubbed El Prncipe de los Ingenios The Prince of Wits.
Celia Barker Lottridge (b. 1936) is a Canadian author.
David Samwell (October 15, 1751 November 23, 1798) was a Welsh naval surgeon and poet. He is known by the pseudonym Dafydd Ddu Feddyg. The journal of his experiences aboard Captain James Cook's ship Discovery provide a detailed account of the third and last voyages of Cook to the Pacific Ocean. Part of the journal describes the death of Captain Cook at the hands of natives on the Sandwich Islands in 1779.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, FRS (30 November 1874 - 24 January 1965) was a British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War (WWII). He is widely regarded as one of the great wartime leaders. He served as prime minister twice. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, writer, and an artist. To date, he is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the first person to be recognised as an honorary citizen of the United States. During his army career, Churchill saw military action in India, the Sudan and the Second Boer War. He gained fame and notoriety as a war correspondent and through contemporary books he wrote describing the campaigns. He also served briefly in the British Army on the Western Front in the First World War (WWI), commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. At the forefront of the political scene for almost fifty years, he held many political and cabinet positions. Before WWI, he served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary and First Lord of the Admiralty as part of the Asquith Liberal government. During the war, he continued as First Lord of the Admiralty until the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign caused his departure from government. He returned as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, and Secretary of State for Air. In the interwar years, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Conservative government. After the outbreak of the WWII, Churchill was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain on 10 May 1940, he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and led Britain to victory against the Axis powers. Churchill was always noted for his speeches, which became a great inspiration to the British people, as well as to the embattled Allied forces. After the Conservative Party lost the 1945 election, he became Leader of the Opposition. In 1951, he again became Prime Minister, before retiring in 1955. Upon his death, the Queen granted him the honour of a state funeral, which saw one of the largest assemblies of statesmen in the world.
Gerhart Hauptmann (15 November 18626 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.
Andre Alice Norton, ne Alice Mary Norton (b. February 17, 1912 in Cleveland, Ohio - d. March 17, 2005) was an American science fiction and fantasy author (with some works of historical fiction and contemporary fiction) under the noms de plume Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston. Norton published her first novel in 1934, and was the first woman to receive the Gandalf Grand Master Award from the World Science Fiction Society in 1977, and won the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the SFWA in 1983. (Alan E. Nourse, assumed by some to be one of her noms de plume, was, in fact, another author of science fiction. Andre Norton is also to be distinguished from Mary Norton, British author of children's fantasy.)
Franois-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 30 May 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and free trade. Voltaire was a prolific writer and produced works in almost every literary form including plays, poetry, novels, essays, historical and scientific works, more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws and harsh penalties for those who broke them. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma and the French institutions of his day. Voltaire was one of several Enlightenment figures whose works and ideas influenced important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions.
David Spicer is a writer, perhaps best known for his BBC Radio 4 comedy series: Double Income, No Kids Yet (18 episodes, 2001-2003) Three Off the Tee (12 episodes, 2005-2006) Me and Joe (2008, an afternoon play) 28 Minutes to Save the NHS (4 episodes, 2002) He has written for a number of games shows and panel shows, including: Win My Wage (2007) That'll Test 'Em (2006) Nobody Likes a Smartass (2003) No Win No Fee (2001) RTFP (short-lived Radio 4 panel game, 1998, co-written with Steve Gribbin) Quizland (BBC 7, a 21-part quiz series for children from 4 to 6 years old) Hot Gas (script editor) He has written for a number of comedy TV series including: Comedy Lab (1999) Give Your Mate a Break (1999) Armstrong and Miller (1997) Saturday Live (1996) Barrymore (1991) He may also be the author of the play Superheroes, based on the protest group Fathers for Justice.
Walter Stone Tevis (February 28, 1928 - August 8, 1984) was an American novelist and short story author. His books became the sources for several major films. Tevis was born in San Francisco, California. As a child, Walter grew up in San Francisco's Sunset District, near the sea and Golden Gate Park. When he was ten years old, his parents placed him in the Stanford Children's Convalescent home for a year while they returned to Kentucky, where the Tevis family had been given a grant of land in Madison County. At the age of 11, Walter traveled across country alone on a train to rejoin his family.
Lu Xun or Lu Hsn, was the pen name of Zhou Shuren (September 25, 1881 - October 19, 1936) is one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the founder of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in baihua () (the vernacular) as well as classical Chinese. Lu Xun was a short story writer, editor, translator, critic, essayist and poet. In the 1930s he became the titular head of the Chinese League of the Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai. Lu Xun's works exerted a very substantial influence after the May Fourth Movement to such a point that he was lionized by the Communist regime after 1949. Mao Zedong himself was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun's works. Though sympathetic to the ideals of the Left, Lu Xun never actually joined the Chinese Communist Party - like fellow leaders of the May Fourth Movement, he was primarily a liberal. Lu Xun's works are known to English readers through numerous translations, especially Selected Stories of Lu Hsun translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang. Asteroid (233547) 2007 JR27 was named after him.
The Very Reverend Henry Hart Milman (10 February 1791 24 September 1868) was an English historian and ecclesiastic. He was born in London, the third son of Sir Francis Milman, 1st Baronet, physician to King George III. Educated at Eton and at Brasenose College, Oxford, his university career was brilliant. He won the Newdigate prize with a poem on the Apollo Belvidere in 1812, was elected a fellow of Brasenose in 1814, and in 1816 won the English essay prize with his Comparative Estimate of Sculpture and Painting. In 1816 he was ordained, and two years later became parish priest of St Mary's, Reading. Milman had already made his appearance as a dramatist with his tragedy Fazio (produced on the stage under the title of The Italian Wife). He also wrote Samor, the Lord of The Bright City, the subject of which was taken from British legend, the "bright city" being Gloucester. In subsequent poetical works he was more successful, notably the Fall of Jerusalem (1820) and The Martyr of Antioch (1822, based on the life of Saint Margaret the Virgin), which was used as the basis for an oratorio by Arthur Sullivan. The influence of Byron is seen in his Belshazzar (1822). Another tragedy, Anne Boleyn, followed in 1826. Milman also wrote "When our-heads are bowed with woe," and other hymns; an admirable version of the Sanskrit episode of Nala and Damayanti; and translations of the Agamemnon of Aeschylus and the Bacchae of Euripides. In 1821 he was elected professor of poetry at Oxford, and in 1827 he delivered the Bampton lectures on the character and conduct of the apostles as an evidence of Christianity. His poetical works were published in three volumes in 1839. Turning to another field, Milman published in 1829 his History of the Jews, which is memorable as the first by an English clergyman which treated the Jews as an Oriental tribe, recognized sheikhs and amirs in the Old Testament, sifted and classified documentary evidence, and evaded or minimized the miraculous. In consequence, the author was violently attacked and his inevitable preferment was delayed. In 1835, however, Sir Robert Peel made him rector of St Margaret's, Westminster, and canon of Westminster, and in 1849 he became dean of St Paul's. By this time he had achieved popularity and occupied a dignified and enviable position. His History of Christianity to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire (1840) had been completely ignored; but the continuation of his work, his great History of Latin Christianity (1855), which has passed through many editions, was well received. In 1838 he had edited Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and in the following year published his Life of Gibbon. Milman was also responsible for an edition of Horace, and when he died he had almost finished a history of St Paul's Cathedral, which was completed and published by his son, A Milman (London, 1868), who also collected and published in 1879 a volume of his essays and articles. Milman was buried in St Paul's Cathedral. By his wife, Mary Ann, a daughter of Lieut. -General William Cockell, he had four sons and two daughters. His nephew, Robert Milman (18161876), was Bishop of Calcutta from 1867 until his death, and was the author of a Life of Torquato Tasso (1850). Milman wrote the hymn, Ride on, ride on, in majesty!, often sung on Palm Sunday.
Anatole France Feldman is primarily known as a pulp magazine writer from the late-'20s to the late-'30s. He specialized in gangland fiction, appearing primarily in Harold Hersey's gang pulps, Gangster Stories, Racketeer Stories, and Gangland Stories. He also appeared in the rival magazines, Gun Molls and The Underworld. His best-known creation is Chicago gangster Big Nose Serrano. Big Nose began as a pastiche of the 1897 Edmond Rostand play, Cyrano de Bergerac.
Leona Dalrymple (Mrs. C. Acton Wilson) (1884 - ) was an American author. In 1914, she won a prize of $10,000 for her novel, Diane of the Green Van. Among her other stories are Traumerei (1912); The lovable Meddler (1915); Jimsy, The Christmas Kid (1915); When the Yule-Log Burns (1916); Kenny (1917); "Paul" stories (1920). She also wrote short stories for magazines and moving picture scenarios.
George Herbert Palmer (1842-1933) was an American scholar and author, born in Boston. He attended Phillips Academy, Andover, and in 1864 he graduated at Harvard, to which he returned, after study at T�bingen, Germany, and at Andover Theological Seminary, to be tutor in Greek. He became Alford professor of natural religion, moral philosophy, and civil polity at Harvard (1889-1913). In 1887, he married, as his second wife, Alice Freeman Palmer.
Carter Godwin Woodson (December 19, 1875 - April 3, 1950) was an African-American historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. He was one of the first scholars to value and study Black History. He recognized and acted upon the importance of a people having an awareness and knowledge of their contributions to humanity and left behind an impressive legacy. A founder of Journal of Negro History, Dr. Woodson is known as the Father of Black History.
Alan Warwick Palmer is an author of historical and biographical books.
Apollonius Dyscolus (fl. 2nd century AD) is considered one of the greatest of the Greek grammarians. He was born at Alexandria, son of Mnesitheus. The dates for his life are not known. His son Aelius Herodianus was born c. 185, which places Apollonius in the middle to late 2nd century. Nicknamed , meaning "the Surly or Crabbed or Hard to please", because of his irascible and heavily analytical personality, he lived in the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius.
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (October 28, 1466 July 12, 1536), sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist and a Catholic priest and theologian. His scholarly name Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus comprises the following three elements: the Latin noun desiderium ("longing" or "desire"; the name being a genuine Late Latin name); the Greek adjective (ersmios) meaning "desired", and, in the form Erasmus, also the name of a St. Erasmus of Formiae; and the Latinized adjectival form for the city of Rotterdam (Roterodamus = "of Rotterdam"). Erasmus was a classical scholar who wrote in a "pure" Latin style and enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists. " He has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists. " Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament. These raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote The Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works. Erasmus lived through the Reformation period and he consistently criticized some contemporary popular Christian beliefs. In relation to clerical abuses in the Church, Erasmus remained committed to reforming the Church from within. He also held to Catholic doctrines such as that of free will, which some Protestant Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered many Protestants, such as Martin Luther, as well as conservative Catholics. He died in Basel in 1536 and was buried in the formerly Catholic cathedral there, recently converted to a Reformed church.
Barrington Moore Jr. (12 May 1913 - 16 October 2005) was an American political sociologist. He is famous for his Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (1966), a comparative study of modernization in Britain, France, the United States, China, Japan and India, and a philosophical history of totalitarianism. His many other works include Reflections on the Causes of Human Misery (1972) and an analysis of rebellion Injustice: the Social Basis of Obedience and Revolt (1978).
Andrew Murray (born 1958) is a British campaigner and journalist who has been Chair of the Stop the War Coalition from its formation in 2001. In this capacity he presided at the concluding rally of what is claimed as the largest political demonstration in British history, against the Iraq war in 2003. His role in Stop the War has led to him being the target of considerable polemical criticism from the war's supporters, including Nick Cohen, the Labour Friends of Iraq group and others.
