Ann Radcliffe ~ July 9, 1764

Today is the birthday of Ann (Ward) Radcliffe, author of various Gothic romances, one of the authors cited and parodied in Austen’s Northanger Abbey -  most known for The Mysteries of Udolpho [1794] and The Romance of the Forest [1791], where “terrified heroines hold on to their religion and reason; natural laws are never infringed; human [...]

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Orange Prize Announced

  Britain’s Orange Prize, an annual literary award for women writers, was bestowed this evening on Marilynne Robinson for her novel Home.  Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for her novel Gilead, revisits the setting and some of the characters from her previous work, creating in Home, as described by the judges,  “a kind, wise, enriching novel, exquisitely crafted.” Click [...]

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Austen on the Block ~ Bloomsbury Auctions

[I am repeating this from my Jane Austen in Vermont blog] Bloomsbury Auctions-New York  announces the exhibition and auction of   The Paula Peyraud Collection, Samuel Johnson and  Women Writers in Georgian Society Wednesday, 6 May, 2009 • 10:00 am   Bloomsbury Auctions, the world’s leading auction house for rare books and works on paper, [...]

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Edith Wharton ~ January 24, 1862

Today is the birthday of Edith Wharton (1862-1937) in New York City.  Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1921 for The Age of Innocence, Wharton was the first woman to receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Yale University and the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Some further reading: [...]

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Anne Bronte ~ January 17, 1820

Today we celebrate the birthday of Anne Bronte, January 17, 1820 - May 28,  1849, youngest of the Bronte sisters.  Author of the novels Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), published under the name of “Acton Bell;”  poems for the Gondal saga with Emily Bronte; and over twenty of her poems  published in [...]

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Emily Dickinson: “I dwell in possibility…”

Today is the birth date of Emily Dickinson [December 10, 1830 - May 18, 1886] born in Amherst Massachusetts.  Her life was one of contemplation and increased seclusion.  A prolific writer, only a few of her poems were actually published in her lifetime; the nearly 1800 poems and 1000 letters that survive were published posthumously.  A small collection of [...]

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Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”

A new edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein again raises the question of how much of the work was that of Shelley’s husband Percy Bysshe Shelley.  Read this article by Jennifer Howard at the Chronicle of Higher Education. The Bodleian Library has published Charles E. Robinson’s edition of The Original Frankenstein, “a version of the novel that [...]

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