Author Birthday [October] : P.G. Wodehouse

#AuthorBirthday is a monthly feature, in which I highlight one author each month, mostly the ones I have not yet read. Part of the aim is to get familiar with the author and (hopefully) encourage me to start reading his/her work.

For October, please welcome:

P.G. Wodehouse

Sir Pelham Greenville Wodehouse, who was born in 15 October 1881, might be by far my most difficult featured #AuthorBirthday. He lived such a fast-paced life as an English novelist, humorist, playwright, and lyricist, that it's impossible to write a proper mini-biography for him. But, I'd try my best to, at least, highlight his most accomplishments.

Wodehouse is a son of a magistrate who was posted in Hong Kong (as the British colony). He was born prematurely when his mother was visiting her sister in England - the rural village of Guildford in Surrey. He was baptized instantly, and named after his godafther: Pelham con Donop. It's from the name Pelham, that Wodehouse's been nicknamed 'Plum'.

Wodehouse spent most of his childhood in various houses with various adults. In the first two years he was raised by a nurse in Hong Kong. Then he was brought to England and raised by an English nanny, while his parents returned to Hong Kong, remained estranged to Wodehouse as he grew up. His biographer, Robert McCrum, said that this circumstance left psychological mark in Wodehouse, that he avoided emotional engagement both in life and works. Maybe that's why he wrote so many humorous stories?...

His father planned a naval career for Wodehouse, but his poor eyesight failed him. Nevertheless, his unhappy days in the naval prep school inspired him later to be parodied in Bertie Wooster's 'penitentiary prep school'. During holidays he spent hurly burly times with his numerous uncles and aunts, which also played important part on his early life and influenced his later characters. It was after he was placed at the Dulwich College in 1894 that Wodehouse felt at home for the first time, happily spent his time for 6 years. It also marked his first literary career, by editing the school magazine.

As his father's financial was declining, Wodehouse was forced to worked as junior officer at a bank from 1900 to 1902. As you can imagine, he didn't enjoy his work, but compensate it with writing serious articles about school sports for Public School Magazine at afterword hours. In November 1901 his first comic work: "Men Who Missed Their Own Wedding" got published in a magazine. In the next two years Wodehouse wrote not less than eighty pieces on nine magazines. Wodehouse finally resigned from the bank in 1902 to write full-time. At the same year his first novel was published: a school story titled: The Pothunters".

However, novel was not his only work, Wodehouse began to write musical comedy for the stage in 1904, the same year he visited America for the first time - he returned often to the US after that. But he would be widely recognized through his comic stories. It's in the year 1908 that his first original comic character was born: Psmith. But it is the duet of young bachelor Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves that made him most famous. The first story was published in September 1915, titled: "Extricating Young Gussie" in the Strand Magazine, where he has been contributing regularly from 1910.

When WW1 broke, Wodehouse was staying in New York. He later married an English widow, Ethel May Wayman, in September 1914. Sadly, the couple was not blessed by any children; however, Wodehouse eventually legally adopted Ethel's daughter from her first marriage: Leonora. His next adventure was scriptwriting. His first work was for a movie in 1915: "A Gentleman of Leisure". He even joined MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) - though only for one year - in 1930. Wodehouse then tried his fortune in theater by collaborating on a musical comedy on Broadway in 1920.

In 1934 the Wodehouses decided to move to France due to tax reasons (since he has been living in US and UK). Most unfortunate for him, during World War II, the Germans captured Wodehouse and imprisoned him for about one year. In 1941 he was interviewed by a radio, which was broadcasted to the USA, where he humorously described his imprisonment and ridiculing the Germans. This angered the Britains since he'd done it in Germany, which was their enemy during that time.

Wodehouse finally moved permanently to America in 1947, and received American citizenship in 1955. The British government, however, announced that Wodehouse is saved to return to England in 1965, and in 1974 Wodehouse was granted a knighthood. The year next, he was brought to the Southampton Hospital on Long Island for a skin complaint. While still staying at the hospital, Wodehouse suffered a heart attach, which took his life in 14 February 1975.

Nowadays P.G. Wodehouse is widely regarded as the greatest comic author of the 20th century with a quite outstanding achievement: he has writen more than 90 books, more than 20 film scripts, and collaborated on more than 30 plays and musical comedies in his life - mostly takes the social atmosphere of late Edwardian era.

Author Birthday [September] : Richard Wright

#AuthorBirthday is a monthly feature, in which I highlight one author each month, mostly the ones I have not yet read. Part of the aim is to get familiar with the author and (hopefully) encourage me to start reading his/her work.

For September, please welcome:

RICHARD WRIGHT

Richard Nathaniel Wright is an American writer. His most notable novel is Native Son, but besides novels, he also wrote short stories, poems, and non-fictions, mostly on racial injustice theme.

Born at Rucker's Plantation in Natchez, Mississippi in 4 September 1908, Wright is the son of Nathan Wright, a sharecroppers, and Ella Wilson, a school teacher. Both parents were born free after Civil War, though Wright's grandparents had both been born into slavery, and had only been freed after the war.

Nathan Wright left the family when Richard was six years old, so his mother moved Richard and his younger brother to their grandparents' house. Richard accidentally put the house on fire, for which his mother beat him until he's unconscious. His childhood was quite hurly burly with a lot of moving, and never enough time to get a proper education. The Wrights moved in next to Richard's Uncle Silas' house in the Mississippi Delta. However, not long after, they were forced to move out again after Uncle Silas "dissapeared", reportedly being killed by a white man who envied his successful salon business. :(

Richard then lived briefly with his other uncle after his mother got stroke, but the family eventually returned to Natchez, to the grandparents' house, who were, by the way, still mad at Richard for burning their house, and often beat him. On the positive side, however, here Richard had chance at last to attend proper schooling after twelve years. He excelled at school, though lived quite miserably under control of his pious aunt and grandma who forced him to pray to God. This treatment made him grew with hatred against Christianity in his entire life.

Richard's literary career began when he wrote his first short story at fifteen years old and got it published in the local Black newspaper. As the class valedictorian of his high school, Richard was assigned a paper to be delivered in the graduation in 1925. However, the principal later asked him instead to read a prepared speech, as "to avoid offending the white school district officials". Richard insisted to read his own paper, which he did, despite the school's threat to deny his graduation. Bravo, Richard!

Richard must ended his education, however, to support his mother and brother. And so, his childhood in Mississippi has wrought a bitter impressions of American racial, which later on influenced his writing. The family then moved to Chicago in the Great Migration. He worked as postal clerk, but then fired during the Great Depression in 1931. Richard completed his first novel: Cesspool in 1935, after joining the Communist Party in 1933. But the novel wasn't published until 1963, posthumously, and retitled: Lawd Today. He also wrote critical essays and poetry, and became editor for Communis Party magazine.

In 1938, in the same year that Richard developed a friendship with writer Ralph Ellison, Harper publishing company publised his first short stories collection: Uncle Tom's Children, which finally brought him his first national attention. Ralph Ellison became his best man when Richard married a Russian-Jewish modern dance teacher named Dhimah Rose Meidman. Unfortunately, the marriage only lasted one year. He married the second time with Ellen Poplar, a Communist organizer in Brooklyn - a marriage which was blessed with two daughters: Julia and Rachel.

With growing status and financial condition after Uncle Tom's Children, the Wrights moved to Harlem, where Richard wrote Native Son (published in 1940). It was a huge success, and was actually selected by Book of the Month Club, making it the first book by African-American author ever been selected. Native Son was also staged in Broadway in March 1941 with favorable reviews, as the result of Richard's collaboration with a playwright named Paul Green. Richard's memoir: Black Boy was published in 1945, a year before he moved to Paris, which instantly became a best-seller. In Paris he befriended Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, under whose influences, Richard became an existentialist, which inspired his second novel: The Outsider.

In 1955 Richard attended the Asian-African Conference (Bandung Conference) held in Bandung, Indonesia, as reporter. His observations on the conference and Indonesian cultural condition was published under title: The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference. During this visit, he was also invited by Mocthar Lubis, an Indonesian prominent writer, to give two lectures to a Indonesian cultural group: Pen Club Indonesia. Richard later depicted all this in his travelogue.

Near the end of his life, Richard has become an important figure in literary and politics with worldwide reputation. But he still had energy left to publish a collection of lectures: White Man, Listen! in 1957 and The Long Dream, a novel (1958). He died from heart attack in Paris on 28 November 1960, but Julia, his daughter, claimed it was murder. He died without ever finishing his last novel: A Father's Law, which was published posthumously later on by Julia in January 2008. Richard was buried in La Père Lachaise Cemetery. Today his novel Native Son is generally agreed as "a force in the social and intellectual history of the United States in the last half of 20th century".

Have you read anything by Richard Wright? Native Son  perhaps? What do you think of his writing?

Author Birthday [August] : Samuel Richardson

#AuthorBirthday is a monthly feature, in which I highlight one author each month, mostly the ones I have not yet read. Part of the aim is to get familiar with the author and (hopefully) encourage me to start reading his/her work.

For August, please welcome:

SAMUEL RICHARDSON

While his actual birth date is unknown, 19 August 1689 has been recorded as the baptize day of Samuel Richardson, an English writer and printer. Born into a poor family, Richardson was the son of a cabinet maker and mahogany exporter. When he was forced to stop the business, Richardson Sr. moved his family to Derbyshire, and lived their modest life there.

Though Richardson's only education is believed to be grammar school, nevertheless he loved story telling and letters writing. When he was eleven, he wrote a letter to a 50 years old woman, who reported this to his mother, whom chided him of his impertinence. However, this incident made him quite popular as letter writer within his acquaintances, that he often helped girls by writing reply to their love letters.

His father had wanted to educate him to be a clergyman, but since they could not afford it, he let his son pick his own profession. Richardson picked printing "to gratify a thirst of reading". In 1706 be started his apprenticeship in John Wilde's printing shop, which would last for seven years. He first worked as a printer, before being promoted to composite, and finally corrector.

After seven years, Richardson braved himself to leave Wilde's office, and set up his independent shop as "Overseer and Corrector of a Printing Office." Then six years later he finally set up his own printing company. Their first major printing contract came in 1723, four years after starting the company. It was to print a bi-weekly "The True Briton", which attacking the government, and eventually got censored for libels. Fortunately for Richardson, his name was not linked with it, that his business remained intact, and kept improving.

Success in the business was not followed equally by personal matter. From his first marriage with Martha Wilde (his boss' daughter) in 1721, Richardson had seven children. Yet, they died one by one during infancy; the youngest passed away not long after his mother's death. Widowed and without children, Richardson married the second time with Elizabeth Leake, and blessed with five daughters and one son. Four of the five daughters survived their father, but the only son - the one Richardson had projected to succeed the business as his heir, died when he was only one year old. :(

In 1732 he took a nephew, Thomas Verren, as an apprentice, hoping to make him his heir, but, again.. the nephew died not long after apprenticeship. His last hope was his other nephew, whom he distrusted and did not have capability in printing business. So, while the business prospered while Richardson was in charge, it's soon collapsed under the nephew's care.

You might have been wondering now, is this Samuel Richardson guy I've been telling you until now, the same Samuel Richardson who was famous with two epistolary novels: Pamela and Clarissa? Why didn't I mention anything about his writing career? That's because he did not start writing and publishing novels until he's in his fifties. It all began when his friends Charles Rivington and John Osborn asked him to write "a little volume of letters, in a common style, on such subjects as might be of use to those country readers, who were unable to incite for themselves." It is this work which has inspired Richardson to write his first epistolary novel: Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded, published in 1740 - a novel which Henry Fielding 'mocked' in his novel Joseph Andrew. Pamela was followed by the second novel, which was considered Richardson's magnum opus: Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748). His third and final novel is about a gentleman: The History of Sir Charles Grandison, published in 1753.

Novels weren't his only literary achievements. During his active career, Richardson has produced about 500 works in journals and magazines. On printing business, one of his notable job was the third edition of Daniel Defoe's Tour through Great Britain in 1742.

Richardson's health began to deteriorate in 1748, while he was still actively working. He suffered from Insomnia in 1758, then Apoplexy in 1761, and his health never recovered until his death in 4th July 1761 at the age of 72. Richardson was buried near his first wife, Martha.

Have you read Samuel Richardson's? What's your favorite?

Author Birthday [July] : Iris Murdoch

#AuthorBirthday is a monthly feature, in which I highlight one author each month, mostly the ones I have not yet read. Part of the aim is to get familiar with the author and (hopefully) encourage me to start reading his/her work.

For July, please welcome:

IRIS MURDOCH

Dame Jean Iris Murdoch is an Irish-British novelist and philosopher. She was famous for her psychological novels with philosophical and comic contents.

Born in Dublin as an only child, Iris had a great education path before she published her first novel: Under the Net in 1954. In 1938 she went to Sommerville College, studying combined course of classics, ancient history, and philosophy. Then she studied philosophy in Oxford, before the war broke, which brought her to work as assistant principal in Her Majesty's Treasury in London; followed by a three years career as administrative officer under United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in England, Belfium, and Austria.

After the war, Iris studied philosophy post-graduate in Oxford, then she was offered a fellowship in St. Anne's College, Oxford, where she taught philosophy for fifteen years. During that period, Iris met and fell in love with a literary critic, novelist, and professor at the Oxford University. They became husband and wife in 1956, and had what one calls an "unconventional marriage" that lasted for forty years. By unconventional, I meant Iris' various affairs with men (and women) during their marriage, apparently in Bayley's knowledge (and I guess approval). Iris has had this overlapping love affairs with several men since before her marriage.

Before writing Under the Net, Iris has also published several essays on philosophy, and in 1953 she wrote a monograph about Jean-Paul Sartre: "Sartre: Romantic Rationalist". Iris was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1976, and was made Dame Commander in 1987. That's not her only award; she had many during her career. One of then is the Booker Prize which she'd won for The Sea, the Sea.

Iris published more than twenty five novels in her lifetime. The last one: Jackson's Dilemma was published only two years before she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease - the illness which finally ended her life in 8 February 1999, in Oxford. Critics wrote that Jackson's Dilemma was "different" from her other novels, but according to Bayley, it's because Iris has been under Alzheimer's disease when she's writing it.

John Bayley later chronicled her struggle with Alzheimer's in his memoir: Elegy for Iris (1999), which was later adapted in the movie: Iris (2001), starring Kate Winslet and Judi Dench, as young and older Iris. In her obituary, The Guardian named Iris Murdoch as "one of the best and most influential writers of the 20th century". A bench in the grounds of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she was often found walking, has been dedicated to her.

Author Birthday [June] : Frances Burney

#AuthorBirthday is a monthly feature, in which I highlight one author each month, mostly the ones I have not yet read. Part of the aim is to get familiar with the author and (hopefully) encourage me to start reading his/her work.

For June, please welcome:

FRANCES BURNEY

Frances or Fanny Burney, born in 13th June 1752, was an English satirical novelist, diarist, and playwright - a prominent female figure in 18th century literary world, whose satirical caricature of English social circle would later influence some famous authors, including Jane Austen. Born from a musician Dr. Charles Burney, and Esther Burney, Frances was believed to suffer from dyslexia until 8 years of age. However, as soon as she's learned alfabets, she quickly educated herself by reading copious books from family library, that she began to scribble stuffs from age 10: small letters and stories, even plays - helped by his brothers and sisters. One of the most influential supporters of her writing is one Samuel 'Daddy' Crisp, who encouraged her writing after reading her journals and stories of life events and observations on family life and London's social circle.

However, five years after her mother's death (when she's only 10 y.o.), his father married a temperamental woman whom his children disliked. Frances, who felt increasing pressure to abandon her writing as it's regarded unappropriate for ladies, burnt her first manuscript: The History of Caroline Evelyn, but which she later used as the foundation of her first novel: Evelina - by making the heroine as the daughter of Caroline Evelyn.

In 1778 Frances published Evelina, or The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World anonymously. She took effort in copying the manuscript in disguised hand, less the publisher recognized her handwriting; while her brother James posed as the author. The book acclaimed success, and her father eventually supported Frances' writing career, only after witnessing favorable reactions towards Evelina - but partly because he thought owning a successful writer in his household would increase his social value... (old story, huh?) In 1779 Frances wrote a comedic play titled The Whitlings, but her family thought publishing comedic plays is unladylike, so it's never get performed.

After publishing her second novel Cecilia in 1782, Frances took a post at the court, offered by Queen Charlotte, as "Keeper of of the Robes". She knew that she wouldn't have enough free time to write, but considering she's still unmarried in age 34, she reluctantly took the post. However, Frances' health deteriorated under stress of court life and intrigues, that she left her post after 5 years of services, which brought her a warm relationship with the Queen and princesses, even long after her service ended.

During French Revolution, a group of French émigrés stayed in the neighborhood of Frances' sister, where she was staying. She became acquainted with one Alexandre d'Arblay, former aide de camper to the marquis de La Fayete. Frances and d'Arblay married in 1793, but her father - who objected the marriage - didn't attend the wedding. They led a happy marriage, though.

Frances' next novel was Camilla, which she published by subscription in 1796; the profits of which enabled the new couple built their own house, which they called "Camilla Cottege". The d'Arblays then moved to France in 1802 during French Revolution, where Frances wrote what would become her last novel: The Wanderer. It was then published after their return to England in 1814. It is also during her stay on France that Frances chronicled in her letter to her sister, the mastectomy without anaesthesia she'd had after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Dr. Charles Burney died on 1814, followed by d'Arblay in 1818. After these events, Frances stopped writing fiction, and only focused her life to publish the Memoirs of Doctor Burney, and editing her own papers, which was later published posthumously as the Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay after Frances' death in London, 1840, at the age of 87.

Frances Burney is now still regarded as the mother of fiction. Throughout her career as writer, Frances' witty style has been admired by literary figures of her time, such as Dotor Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Hester Thrale, and David Garrick. And when she published Camilla, a Miss J. Austen was one of the subscribers. The same miss Austen even borrowed from Frances' final passage of Cecilia to title her own famous novel: Pride and Prejudice.

Have you read one of Frances Burney's works? What is your favorite?

Author Birthday [May] : Dashiell Hammett

#AuthorBirthday is a monthly feature, in which I highlight one author each month, mostly the ones I have not yet read. Part of the aim is to get familiar with the author and (hopefully) encourage me to start reading his/her work.

For May, please welcome:

DASHIELL HAMMETT

Samuel Dashiell Hammett is an American author, screenwriter, and political activist, who was born on May 27, 1894. He is largely known as the founder of hardboiled detective fiction genre. His father (Richard Thomas Hammett) was an alcoholic, womanizer, and an unsuccessful business man; while his mother - Anne Bond Dashiell (original name in French: de Chiel) suffered from tuberculosis, and held a conviction that 'men were a no-good lot'. So, it's no wonder that little Hammett must leave school in the age of thirteen, to help his father's failing business, and did some menial jobs before he decided to join the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1815, where he served for eight years, and which would change his life forever.

Hammett served in Motor Ambulance Corps during World War I, where he was infected from Spanish flu and tuberculosis. While being hospitalized, he fell in love with nurse Josephine Dolan, whom he married in July 7, 1921. It's a pity, though, that the marriage should fall apart five years later after Hammett was forced to live apart from his wife and their two daughters due to his tuberculosis - an illness, from which, he would never fully recover. Nevertheless, Hammett kept supported Josephine and the children financially.

In 1922 Hammett first published his short detective stories - introducing a private investigator The Continental Op, the first hard-boiled detective in literature - in pulp magazine called Black Mask. One of these short stories, The Glass Keys (1930) was dedicated to Nell Martin, Hammett's lover, who was a short stories and novel author herself. But this relationship didn't last long, for in 1931 he had another romantic relationship with a playwright called Lillian Hellman - a relationship which would last for thirty years.

A few notable novels from Dashiell Hammett are Red Harvest (1929) and The Maltese Falcon (1930), where Sam Spade - one of the most famous crime detectives in literature - made his one and only appearance in a novel (he further appeared in some short stories). The Thin Man (1934) was Hammett's final novel - though he still sporadically wrote some works after that. Hellman later said that Hammett stopped writing since he wanted to do something new. Indeed, he became anti-fascist from 1930 and joined the Communist Party in 1937. He also joined the League of American Writers - whose members were mostly member of Communist Party, or at least supporting the idea ("fellow travellers") - and became its President in 1941.

When World War II broke, Hammett listed again in the US Army. After the war, he returned to politics, and in 1946 became President of Civil Rights Congress (CRC). Later, US government classified CRC as communist front group. Hammett testified at court in 1951 but refused to provide information about CRC trustee, so that he was put into prison for six months, where he worked as toilet cleaner. In his eulogy, Hellman wrote that "he submitted to prison rather than reveal the names of the contributors to the fund because he had come to the conclusion that a man should keep his word."

Alcohol, smoking, and jail life has made Hammett more and continuously ill. In 1950 he lived alone and became very sick. He attempted to write a novel titled "Tulip" but left it unfinished. Couldn't live alone, he finally moved in to stay with Hellman. After all the hard drinking and lavish Hollywood parties, Dashiell Hammett died in January 10, 1961 from a lung cancer, and since he was a veteran of two World Wars, was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Since 1991, the International Association of Crime Writers, North American Branch (IACW/NA) has been awarding the Hammett Prize to Canadian or US citizen for a book in English in the field of crime writing every year. Dashiell Hammett's hardboiled detective stories continue to inspire many writers until today (and for many years to come, I believe).

Author Birthday [April]: Washington Irving

#AuthorBirthday is a monthly feature, in which I highlight one author each month, mostly the ones I have not yet read. Part of the aim is to get familiar with the author and (hopefully) encourage me to start reading his/her work.

For April, please welcome:

WASHINGTON IRVING

Born into an American merchant class family on April 3, 1783, Washington Irving was a short story writer, biographer, and diplomat. He was born on the same week of America's triumphant defeat over the British in the American War, that his mother named him after General George Washington. Later on when he was 6 y.o., George Washington, as the newly inaugurated President, blessed little Irving - an event which was commemorated in a painting hung in the family home.

From the age of 14, young Irving loved adventure stories and drama. However, the yellow fever outbreak in 1798 made his family sent him to stay in Tarrytown, nearby town of Sleepy Hollow, where he learned about Dutch customs and local ghost stories. In one of his numerous journeys, Irving passed through Catskill Mountains region, which later became the setting of one of his most notable short stories: Rip Van Winkle.

Irving's literary career began in 1802. He wrote commentaries on the city's social and theater scenes for Morning Chronicle under a pseudonym of Jonathan Oldstyle. This is only one of many pseudonyms he would use during his literary career. The famous one might have been Diedrich Knickerbocker. "What a funny way of using the baggy-kneed trousers for boys, as one's pseudonym", you would think? But the word 'knickerbocker' was actually acquired from Irving's first successful novel, published in 1809: A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of Dutch Dynasty by Diedrich Knickerbocker. Irving actually wrote the political satire himself, but to promote it, he created a hoax that "a well-known Dutch historian has been missing". He wrote announcement that if the historian did not return, he (Irving) would publish the manuscript which he had left behind. You could imagine how the readers' curiosity would have been at its highest level when the novel was finally published, that it was instantly a huge success for Irving (I can imagine how Irving would have said laughingly to his friends: Ha! They've bought my trick!" ). Knickerbocker would later be popular nickname for Manhattaners, as well as the piece of fashion as we all know now.

At the same year when he published his successful novel, Irving's seventeen-year-old fiance Mathilda Hoffman died of consumption. Her death deeply affected Irving, that he had never married for the rest of his life. He was known to have said later on: "For years I could not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret; I could not even me tion her name, but her image was continually before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly."

In 1815 Irving returned to Europe, to where earlier he has been sent by his brothers in an extended tour to improve his health. He published his notable works: The Legend in Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle in 1820, as part of the short stories collection titled The Sketch Book, under another pseudonym: Geoffrey Crayon. Washington Irving became one of the first American writers to earn acclaim in Europe. Later on he also encouraged his contemporaries' career: Melville, Poe, Hawthorne.

In 1826 Irving moved to Madrid, and was appointed as Secretary of the US Legation to London, which he served from 1829 to 1832. Some of his notable works during his stay in Spain were A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828) and Tales of the Alhambra, (1832). He served as Ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846. In 1859, he still worked on copyright laws, and a biography: Life of George Washington, shortly before his death on November 28, 1859 at his estate.

Nowadays he is crowned as the Father of the American Short Story, which he truly deserved!

Author Birthday [March]: Tobias Smollet

Some years ago I used to do monthly post of Author Birthday, picking 3 or 4 authors to be featured on the respective month. For some reasons, I stopped doing it, but now I had a craving to write other stuffs beyond book reviews. So, starting this month (hopefully) this new feature: #AuthorBirthday will appear in this blog every month.

I will highlight one author each month, mostly the ones I have not yet read. Part of the aim is to get familiar with the author and (hopefully) encourage me to start reading his/her work. For the first appearance, please welcome:

TOBIAS SMOLLETT

Tobias George Smollett is a Scottish poet, novelist, and surgeon. He was baptized on 19 March 1721. Smollett's father, a judge and landowner, died when he was just 5 years old. He was educated at University of Glasgow, and qualified as surgeon. As his real passion was always in literary career, he went to London in 1739 to become a dramatist, but unsuccessful.

So, when the British Navy opened a vacancy for naval surgeon, he went abroad HMS Chichester heading to Jamaica, then settled down there for several years.

In 1747 Smollett returned to England, married a wealthy Jamaican heiress: Anne "Nancy" Lascelles, and established a practice in Downing Street.

His first novel was The Adventures of Roderick Random in 1748 (published anonymously), of which he began to be famous with his satire and picaresque genre. Besides novels, Smollett was also notable for his translation of Cervante's Don Quixote in 1755, (part of) A Complete History of England in 1757-1765, and translation of The Works of Voltaire in 1761-1765. Some of his other works are The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751), The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753), and The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1760)

Smollett moved to Italy on 1768, but made a brief visit to Scotland in 1771, where he got inspiration for his last and most famous novel: The Expedition of Humphry Clinker.

Smollet has been suffering from intestinal disorder for several years, and when he didn't get proper treatment on Bath, he returned to Italy, and finally died near Livorno, in the same year of his last novel's publication.

Smollet has been struggling almost all his life with poverty. And after his death, he kept inspiring many authors, including Charles Dickens, who was one of Smollet's great admirers. Without Smollet's influence, we might never gets entertained by four comical gentlemen of The Pickwick Club! :)