Leo Tolstoy

Writers Datebook: September 9

Russian Novelist, Also a Moralist, Philosopher and Mystic

Brief biography of Leo Tolstoy, one of Russia's best writers best known for War and Peace and Anna karenina.

Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, or simply, Leo Tolstoy, was one of Russia's finest writers. He is best known for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, books considered to be among the greatest of all time.

Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828. His parents were wealthy landowners, and they lived on a huge estate, Yasnaya Polyana, near Moscow. Hoever, his parents died when he was young, leaving his aunts to bring him up. He was privately educated at home, then at Kazan University where he studied law and Asian languages. From his writings, Tolstoy had a happy childhood. A dreamy young man, he failed to graduate and moved to Moscow where he lived a fairly wild life.

When he was 23, he accompanied his elder brother Nikolay Tolstoy and joined the artillery regiment serving in the Crimean War. It was this time that Tolstoy also began his literary career. He published his autobiography and Sevastapol Sketches, a view of war as soldiers see it. He toured Europe as a literary celebrity but returned to Russia, where he set up a school for peasant children on his estate.

When he was 34, he married 18-year-old Sofya Behrs. They were happy and had 10 surviving children. Tolstoy devoted himself to his family, his writing and as a conscientious landlord, and committed to improving the lives of the peasants who lived on his Volga estate. During these years he produced his two literary masterpieces. War and Peace is a huge and complicated novel set in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars. It was followed by Anna Karenina, the story of doomed love.

In his mid-life, Tolstoy went through a 'spiritual crisis' that he described in My Confession. In his serious search for God, he expounded Christ-like doctrines. As a result, he rejected materialism, war, the church, and his own wealth in favour of a simple, peasantlike life. 

Quoted from his last major work A Calendar of Wisdom page 257 (refer Resources below):

"Try to establish an inner silence in yourself, a complete silence of your lips and your heart. And then you will hear how God speaks to us, and you will know how to fulfil his will."

Leo Tolstoy died at the age of 82. This brilliant writer, philosopher, moralist and mystic, seemed to look at life slam in the face: passionately, wondering, perhaps too seriously even to argue itself with life, or even death. He died at the age of 82.  

Suggested Listening:

War & Peace (original Soundtrack playlist). By Martin Phipps, Accessed September 9, 2025

                          

Books by Tolstoy:

1851 Istoria vcherashchnevo dnya (Accounts of Yesterday)

1852 Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, an autobiographical trilogy

1855-56 Sevastapol Sketches

1865-69 War and Peace

1875-7 Anna Karenina

1884 My Confession

1886 How Much Land Does a Man Need?

1886 The Death of Ivan Ilyich

1895 Master and Man

1899 Resurrection

Note: I first wrote and published this piece for Suite101.com, September 13, 2007 / Tel 

Image Credit:
en.wikipedia.org Commons / Public Domain.

Resources: 

1. Dictionary of Writers, Larousse, 1994.
2. Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. Carlton Books, 1997. 



(c) September 2016. Updated September 9, 2025. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Harper Lee

Literary Classics / Authors Datebook 

Harper Lee (Nelle Harper Lee), is the author of one of America's most beloved literary classics, To Kill a Mockingbird, loved by millions of readers worldwide. She is born this day, 28th April 1926, and died at the age of 89, 19th February 2016.

Nelle Harper Lee was born and raised in Monroeville, Alabama, and grew up during the Great Depression. Her family is descended from the American Civil War general Robert E. Lee. She followed in the footsteps of her father, a lawyer, and went to law school. However, Harper Lee had been writing since she was 7. At the age of 29 she left law school and went to New York city to pursue her writing career. She supported herself by working for an airline company.

She spent more than two years rewriting her novel after it had been accepted by a publisher. This was in 1960 when she was 34. To Kill a Mockingbird was an immediate success.  This was also the time when the civil rights movement was escalating and the book's examination of racial hatred in the South made it especially poignant. Its theme summed up with the advice of Atticus Finch (the noble lawyer) given to Scout, his young daughter: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

 

Below is the film Soundtrack of To Kill a Mockingbird (Elmer Bernstein), YouTube, uploaded by bobbengan. Accessed April 28, 2016.  The score for To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Elmer Bernstein, is regarded as one of the greatest film scores and has been recorded three times.

 

 

Voltaire in the Age of Reason

Great Thinkers / Brief Biography

Voltaire was one of the leading thinkers of the 18th century's Age of Enlightenment. A philosopher, writer, deist, essayist and satirist, he is famous for Philosophical Letters and Candide. Politically and socially engaged, Voltaire was the archetypal rational humanist of the enlightenment era.  In Candide, he satirizes mankind's blind optimism, in part, a reaction to the devastating Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

Early Years

Voltaire, whose real name is Francois-Marie Arouet, (1694-1778), was born to a wealthy family on November 21 in Paris. Intended for the legal profession, he went to a college run by Jesuit priests studying law but rebelled against his family's wishes to pursue a literary career.

He was imprisoned in the Bastille for penning libelous poems, during which time he wrote tragedies and adopted the name of Voltaire. After a second spell in prison, he quit France for England to avoid more trouble, where he came under the lasting influence of the works of Locke and Newton.

Ernest Hemingway

Literature / Writer's Datebook: July 21

 

Brief biography of American novelist and short story writer Ernest Hemingway, famous for A Farewell to Arms.

 

Ernest Hemingway was one of the most influential American writers of the 20^th century. He is famous for such masterpieces as For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea, aside from his war novel A Farewell to Arms.

His adventurous life added a ring of truth to his novels and short stories, for example, big game-hunting (Green Hills of Africa) and big game-hunting (Green Hills of Africa.) In 1953 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his famous book The Old Man and the Sea, and the following year he won the Nobel Prize for literature.

 

Early Life of Ernest Hemingway  

 Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, the second of six children. At the age of 19 he was badly wounded in Italy while serving as a Red Cross ambulance driver during World War I. After the war he went to Paris, and became part of a group of prominent literary writers and avant garde artists including Gertrude Stein, who called themselves the "Lost Generation." He first gained recognition as a writer with the publication of his short-story collection In Our Time when he was 26.

 

Pursuit of Life and Interest

In the 1920s and a930s Hemingway spent much time pursuing his interest in hunting and dangerous supports in Africa., Spain, and Florida. During the Spanish Civil War he went to Spain as a reporter.  One of his greatest novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, is about this war.   

He also reported on World War II, following America troops as they invaded France and liberated Paris from the Germans. Hemingway got married four times, with the first three wives ending in divorce. In a fit of depression, Hemingway shot himself and died on July 2, 1961, at the age of 61.

 

Hemingway Writing Style

Hemingway's books are famous for their "macho" protagonists and brutal stories. He himself was drawn to adventure and danger and as notorious for his hard-drinking lifestyle. He wrote in short, simple sentences that make his scenes descriptions seem all the more harsh and detached. The influence of his work has continued through the years, not only on American literature but worldwide. His novels have been made into successful films.  

 

Works by Ernest Hemingway

In Our Time, 1925

The Sun Also Rises, 1926

Men without Women, 1927

A Farewell to Arms, 1929

Death in the Afternoon, 1932

The Green Hills of Africa, 1935

To Have and Have Not, 1937

For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940

Across the River and into the Trees, 1950

The Old Man and the Sea, 1952

A Moveable Feast, 1964 (published after he died)

 

Photo Credit:

Ernest Hemingway.  en.wikipedia.org/public domain 

Resources:

Goring, Rosemary, Editor. Larousse Dictionary of Writers. Larousse, 1994

Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. Carlton Books Ltd, 1997

Ousby, Ian. Cambridge Guide to Literature. Cambridge, 1993

 

(c)  July 21, 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Dame Iris Murdoch

Literature / Writer's Datebook: July 15

 

Brief biography of Iris Murdoch, Anglo-Irish novelist, philosopher, and playwright, an important writer of her generation, known for The Bell and Under the Net. She is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. 

 

Dame Jean Iris Murdoch (1919-1999), was a British novelist, philosopher and playwright. She wrote many books on philosophy, aside from novels and plays. Her novel The Sea, the Sea (1978), won her the Booker Prize. In recognition of her work. She was made a Dame in 1987.

 

Early Life of Iris Murdoch

Murdoch was born on July 15, 1919,  in Dublin, Ireland, but was brought up in England. Her mother was Irish and her father English. She studied philosophy and the classics at Oxford University, at the same time wrote novels about the free will, and the relationship of good and evil. After graduating from Oxford University, she worked for the United Nations as an administrative officer. From 1948 to 1963 she taught philosophy at Oxford. In 1956, she married the novelist and critic John Bayley.  

 

Murdoch's Writing: Novels, Philosophical Works and Plays

Murdoch's first book was about philosophy. She began writing stories as a hobby, and her first novel, Under the Net, came out when she was 35. It was an instant success, and she has since followed it by over twenty other books as well as more philosophical works.

The Bell, whose subject is an unofficial religious community, is regarded as one of her best novels. A Severed Head, first published as a novel, was turned into a play with the help of J.B. Priestley, a prominent 20^th-century writer. She later wrote several more plays.

Murdoch's novels combine realistic characters at the same time delving on the fantastic realm, many of them with a philosophical or a religious theme. For example, The Time of the Angels features a priest in an inner-city parish who goes in for devil worship. Some critics describe her novels as 'psychological detective stories' because of the way in which they investigate in great detail the motives and consequences of the characters' behavior.   

 

Final Years

Murdoch was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1996. Her husband, novelist John Bayley, took care of her and wrote about their marriage in Elegy for Iris. She died at the age of 79, on February 8, 1999.

 

Books by Iris Murdoch

Under the Net, 1954

The Bell, 1958

A Severed Head, 1961

The Time of the Angels, 1965

The Two Arrows, 1972

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, 1974

The Sea, the Sea, 1978

The Nice and the good, 1978

The Philosopher's Pupil, 1983

The Good Apprentice, 1985

The Unicorn, 1987

The Message to the Planet, 1989

Jackson's Dilemma, 1995

Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature, 1999

The Sovereignty of Good, 2001

 

Image Credit:

Dame Iris Murdoch. Wikipedia Commons

 

Resources:

Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers, 2002

Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994  

The Cambridge Literature in English, (New Edition), edited by Ian Ousby,Cambridge, 1993

 

(c) July 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Great Writers Datebook:  November 11

Brief biography of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, regarded one of the world’s greatest writers, famous for Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.  

"We are not long on this earth, we do many evil deeds and say many evil words. So let us all catch a favorable moment when we are all together to say a good word to each other."
- The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

Russian novelist Dostoevsky (transliterated as Dostoyevsky) is regarded as one of the world’s greatest writers. He wrote about the nature of good and evil as he had experienced them in his own life.  Aside from his masterpiece Crime and Punishment, his notable works include The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov and The Possessed. 

Early Life of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

 

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on November 11, 1821 in Moscow, Russia. He was the son of an army surgeon who was also an alcoholic. He trained as a military engineer, but when he was bout 22, he decided to earn money by writing. Growing up on the poor side of Moscow, he empathized with the poor as his writings reflected. His first novel, Poor Folk, appeared when he was 25, and he was recognized as an important new writer.

Dostoyevsky joined a socialist writers’ group that read and discussed banned books. In 1849 the group was arrested. He was nearly executed, but fortunately, at the last moment the death sentence was changed. The experience of coming so close to death made a lasting impression on him, in which he largely wrote about murder and cruelty.

 

Giovanni Boccaccio

Literature / Writers Datebook: June 16

 

Brief biography 14^th Century Italian Renaissance writer Giovanni Boccaccio. Famous for The Decameron.

Giovanni Boccaccio was an important Renaissance writer. He is remembered in particular for his greatest work The Decameron. His prose and poetry inspired many English writers, including Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare.

The Decameron is one of the most popular books ever written and led to a revolution in Italian literature. It's been said that the book's framework for the stories most likely influenced Geoffrey Chaucer's schemes for The Canterbury Tales. 

 

Early Life of Giovanni Boccaccio

Boccaccio (1313-1375), was the son of a wealthy merchant in Florence, Italy. He studied law at Naples, but his real interest was in writing. As a young man he entered the court of King Robert of Anjou in western France. There he fell in love with a beautiful noblewoman. From then on this lady inspired his writings. She constantly appeared as the character Fiammetta.

At the age of 27, his father's business failed. Bocccaccio was recalled to Florence. At the time a bubonic plague, known as the "Black Death," spread over Europe and approached Italy. This inspired him to write the prose work for which he has been famous for, The Decameron,  which means "ten days's work."

 

Boccaccio's Masterpiece The Decameron

The Decameron is regarded as one of the earliest works of fiction. Its setting is a villa outside Florence, where a group of young people have gathered to escape the plague-stricken place for the countryside. The book consists of 100 stories told by members of the group, ten young people, over a period of ten days. The principal character is Fiammetta. These stories deal mainly with every aspect of love, from the most pure of sexuality to the most down-to-earth of bodily functions. 

 

Boccaccio the Poet

Boccaccio also wrote fine poetry. Encouraged by his friend Petrarch, Boccaccio developed his scholarly interest in the work of ancient Greek and Roman writers, and in particular, of the great Italian poet, Dante Alighieri.

 

Boccaccio the Scholar

Giovanni Boccaccio, besides being an accomplished author, was a scholar who led the Renaissance revival of classical learning. He wrote Latin treatises including On Famous Women and On the Genealogies of the Gentile Gods. He died at the age of c.62.

 

Books by Giovanni Boccaccio

Filostrato, c.1338

Fiammetta, 1343

The Nymph of Fiesole, 1345

The Decameron, 1348-1353

The Genealogy of the Gentile Gods, c.1350-1360

Concerning Mountains, c.1355-1374

Concerning Famous Women, c.1360-1374

Life of Dante, 1362

 

Image Credit:

Giovanni Boccaccio. Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain

 

Resources:

Clark, John, Ed. Illustrated Biographical Dictionary. London: Chancellor Press, 1978

Goring, Rosemary, Ed. Larousse Dictionary of Writers. New York: Larousse, 1994

Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. London: Carlton, 1997

 

(c) June 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Tennessee Williams

Literature / Writer's Datebook: March 26

Brief biography of American playwright, novelist and poet Tennessee Williams. 

American writer Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier (Tennessee) Williams), is famous for the plays A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Glass Menagerie, among others. He is considered one of the best playwrights in the United States since the Second World War.

He wrote powerful and involved dramas that mainly deal sensitively with emotionally damaged people trying to survive in a hostile environment. He used the pieces of his stormy life to create some of the most memorable characters on the stage. 

Early Life of Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams was born on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi. His family lived with his grandfather where he was brought up. When he was twelve, the family moved to St. Louis. Tennessee and his sister were not happy and did not adjust to the city life. They were made fun of for their poverty and Southern accents.

Victor Hugo

Literature / Writers Datebook: February  26

   

Brief biography and works of French writer Victor Hugo, novelist, dramatist & poet, creator of 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' and 'Les Miserables.'

Victor Hugo was the most important of the French Romantic School of writers. He is most popular today as the author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Les Miserables (1862.)

Early Life

Victor Hugo, (1802-1885), French novelist, dramatist and poet, was born on February 26  in Besancon, France, the third son of a soldier in the army of the great French leader Napoleon. He was raised and educated by his mother. At the age of 14, he showed talent as a poet.

Influence and Early Works

Inspired by the example of the statesman and author Francois Rene Chateaubriand, he published poetry, plays and novels. His works showed a strong sense of social responsibility. The production of his play Hernani, a highly romantic and unconventional poetic drama, caused ripples between supporters and opponents of the new socially challenging drama at that time. Due to the controversy, Hugo established himself as leader of the French literary romanticism. His novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, published when he was 29, made him famous.

John Steinbeck

Literature / Writers Datebook: February 27

 

Brief biography of novelist and short-story writer John Steinbeck, famous for The Grapes of Wrath

 

American writer John Steinbeck is famous his compassionate treatment of his characters. Aside from his best known novel The Grapes of Wrath, also considered a classic book is Of Mice and Men. He was awarded Pulitzer Prize, 1940, and Nobel Prize for Literature, 1962.     

Early Life of John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California. He attended Stanford University and studied marine biology, but he never got a degree. He wanted to be a writer and worked his way to New York seeking for literary fortune. Soon after, he returned, unsuccessful.

In 1928, he was 26, Steinbeck moved to San Francisco to be with his girlfriend, who he married two years later. Eventually, he settled in California and was married three times.   

Literary Life

Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, came out in 1929 when he was 27. It was not a great success, but at least the income from its sales allowed him to write. It was his fourth novel, Tortilla Flat, about Mexican-American farmhands that claimed him success. However, his most famous book is The Grapes of Wrath.   

The Grapes of Wrath is a portrait of poor Oklahoma farmers forced off their land and onto the road by drought, a frequent occurrence during the Great Depression of the 1930s. This novel, a strong voice of social protest, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. One of Steinbeck's best works, Of Mice and Men, is a tragic story that demonstrates simple human values. It explores the close bond between George, a physically strong but mentally impaired farmhand, and his friend and guardian Lennie. It is heartwarming. 

Virginia Woolf

Literature / Writers Datebook: January 25

 

 English Novelist, Critic, Feminist, Socialist

 

Brief biography of the life and works of influential English author Virginia Woolf, founder of Bloomsbury Group of Writers and co-founder of Hogarth Press. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of 'stream of consciousness' as a narrative device in which the reader follows that characters' internal thoughts as the story unfolds. 

English novelist, essayist and critic Virginia Woolf was a founder of the Bloomsbury Group of writers and artists. Her famous books include: Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and The Waves. Adeline Virginia Woolf née Stephen was born in London, England, on January 25, 1882 and died in Lewes, England, on March 28,  1941.  

 

Early Years

Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen into an affluent, distinguished literary family. Educated at home, she married Leonard Woolf, a social reformer, when she was 30, and published her first novel, The Voyage Out, three years later. By this time she was suffering from occasional mental illness. Woolf and her husband Leonard founded the Hogarth Press, a small company that published new and experimental work, such as the poems of T.S. Eliot.

The Novelist and Her Writing Style

In her third novel, Jacob's Room, published when she was 40, Woolf began experimenting with the stream-of-consciousness method. She continued this style of writing in her novels Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves.

Her book, Jacob's Room, was based on the life and death of her dear brother Thoby. From this book, her style of writing broke away from the realistic early writing mode, and she began the process of the stream of consciousness, as she laid down in her essay "Modern Fiction." Hereon, until The Waves, she clearly established herself as the leading exponent of Modernism.      

In Orlando, she wrote about a character who lived through several centuries and changed from male to female and back again several times. It traces the history of its androgynous protagonist through four centuries, much unlike her other novels, considered her greatest commercial success. It was dedicated to fellow-writer Vita Sackville-West, with whom she had an intimate friendship.

Woolf described the problems of women in a male-dominated world in A Room of One's Own. A more conventional in form is her penultimate work, The Years. However, her last novel, Between the Acts, in which she returned to the experimental. She completed it just before her final mental illness that drove her to commit suicide by drowning herself in a river near her home.

Legacy

Virginia Woolf is a pioneer of feminism. Since her death, she is acknowledged as one of the major novelists of the 20^th century, and best known for her Stream of Consciousness method. Her literary essays have been published in several volumes, such as The Common Reader.  

 

Listening Links: 

Moments of Being: Virginia Woolf and Consciousness. YouTube, uploaded by The Rogue Theatre. Accessed January 25, 2026. 

Professor Dame Hermione Lee - Virginia Woolf, Eccentricity, and the Essay. YouTube, uploaded by The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing. Accessed January 25, 2026. 

Virginia Woolf: The Haunted Genius | Full Biography Documentary. YouTube, uploaded by The Historian. Accessed January 25, 2026.

 

Works by Virginia Woolf

The Voyage Out, 1915

Night and Day, 1919

Jacob's Room, 1922

Mrs. Dalloway, 1925

To the Lighthouse, 1927

Orlando, 1928

A Room of One's Own, 1919

The Waves, 1931

The Years, 1937

Between the Acts, 1941

 

Image Credit:

Virginia Woolf. Public Domain

 

Resources:

Cambridge Guide to Literature in English by Ian Ousby (1993)

Great British Writers, Colour Library Books (1993)

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)

Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography. 3^rd Ed, ed. by Jennifer Uglow (1999) 

 

(c) January 25, 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Molière Life and Works

Writers Datebook: January 15

Playwright and Actor, Greatest Writer of French Comedy     

Brief biography of dramatist and actor Moliere, considered greatest master of French comedy, famous for Tantruffe and Le Misanthrope.

Molière was a French playwright and actor considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature. Among his best-known dramas are Le Misanthrope, (The Misanthrope), L'Ecole des femmes (The School for Wives), Tartuffe au l'Imposteur, (Tartuffe or the Hypocrite), L'Avare au l'École du mensange (The Miser), Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman).

Early Life of Molière

Molière was the pen name of Jean-Baptisete Poquelin, one of the greatest French comedy writers. He was born on January 15, 1622, in Paris, the son of a wealthy upholsterer. He had a strict upbringing at a Jesuit school. Despite qualifying as a lawyer, he never practiced law. His first love was the theatre, and at the age of 21 he formed a theatre company with a group of friends. They toured France for a number of years before coming to the attention of King Louis XIV, who gave them a permanent theatre.

Life as a Playwright

Molière had his first major success as a playwright at the age of 40, with The School for Wives. The play poked fun at the limited education that was given to daughters of rich families, and it was the first of what are generally regarded as a series of masterpieces. His comedies ranged from broad slapstick comedy to subtle satire. He almost always acted in the lead role himself, as he firmly believed that there was 'no comedy without truth, and no truth without comedy.'  

He made fun of anyone he thought was dishonest, and because of his satires, he often found himself in trouble especially from moralists – two of his plays, The Impostor and Don Juan, were banned. His plays - Tartuffe ou l'Imposteur (Tartuffe or the Hypocrite), for its attack on religious hypocrisy received condemnations from the Church, while Don Juan was banned from performance.

Later Years of Molière

Molière's hard work in the theatre began to take its toll on his health and, by 1667, he was forced to take a break from the stage. He concentrated on writing musical comedies later in his life. In these plays the drama was interrupted by songs and dance or a combination of both.

Final Years

While performing in the production of  Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), who suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis, was taken ill. He died in the same day on February 17, 1673. After his death the theatre group Comédie Française was formed to promote his works. They still enjoyed by modern theatre goers throughout the world.     

Books by Molière

The School for Wives, (L'Ecole des femmes), 1662

The Impostor, (Tartuffe au l'Imposteur), 1664

Don Juan, 1665

The Misanthrope, (le Misanthrope),1666

The Doctor in Spite of himself, 1666

Tartuffe, (a revised version),1667

The Miser, (L'Avare au l'École du mensange), 1668

George Dandin, 1668

The would-Be Gentleman, 1670

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Citizen Turned Gentleman), 1672

The Imaginary Invalid, (Le Malade imaginaire), 1673

 

Image Credit:

Moliere. Wikipedia / Public Domain.

 

Resources:

1. Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers, 2002

2. Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994   

 

Note: I first published this piece in August, 2008, written for Suite.com (now close).     

(c) January 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.    

H.G. Wells

Literature / Writer's Datebook: September 21

 

 

Brief biography of H.G. Wells, English novelist, educator, and science-fiction writer, regarded as the father of modern science fiction.

 

Herbert George Wells or H.G. Wells, his nom de plume in the literary world, was born in Bromley, in the south of England, on September 21, 1866. His family was not wealthy, father unsuccessful as a tradesman. By winning a scholarship to a science school in London, he sealed a career as a shop assistant. He took first class honours degree in zoology.  His early life is reflected in many of his novels' protagonists, especially in terms of life struggles.

Training and Education

In college his tutor was Thomas Huxley, a scientist and teacher of comparative anatomy, who taught him about the famous Darwin's theory of evolution which states that animals evolve in response to changes in their environment. Darwin's idea fascinated him. H.G. Wells explored the idea in relation to the future of mankind in many of his novels.

Early Career: Bookkeeper, Teacher, and Journalist

Wells became a full-time writer when he was 29 years old, after an accident that damaged his kidneys. Prior, he worked as a bookkeeper, schoolteacher, and journalist.

Literary Career: Novelist and Science Fiction Writer

He wrote over 80 stories and novels. His literary career started with the publication of his novel novel The Time Machine. Some of these were science fiction, and some were novels about political and social ideas. Wells also wrote a popular history book, The Outline of History. His first novel, The Time Machine, is one of his best-loved works. It is about a time traveller who journeys to the future and witnesses the planet Earth die. He describes how, in the future, human beings have evolved into two species, the useless Eloi and the practical Morlocks. In another famous novel, The War of the Worlds, Wells describes how Martians invade the Earth and are only defeated by common human germs.

Family and Marital Life

His first marriage to a cousin Isabel was not a happy one, but her second marriage to Amy Robbins (he called 'Jane') lasted, although he had a liaison with another famous novelist Rebecca West for about ten years which attracted much attention. They had a son, Anthony West.   

Well's Beliefs and Leanings

Wells had great faith in the potential of science and technology to solve the problems of the human race. However, as he grew older, he began to feel that human beings have become too selfish and cruel in their use for technology. H.G. Wells was an advocate of the League of Nations and continued to see himself as an educator.  

H.G. Wells died at the age of 79, 13th of August, 1946.

 

Books by H.G. Wells

The Time Machine 1895

The Island of Dr. Moreau  1896

The Invisible Man  1897

The War of the Worlds  1898

When the Sleeper Awakes  1899

The First Men in the Moon  1901

The War in the Air  1908

The Outline if History  1920

The Shape of Things to Come  1933

The Holy Terror  1939

 

Image Credit:

H.G. Wells. Portrait by George Charles Beresford, 1920. Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain

 

Resources:

Cambridge Guide to Literature in English by Ian Ousby (1993)

H.G. Wells. en.wikipedia.org

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)

 

(c) September 2009.  Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.