George Eliot Born On This Day in 1819

Sir Frederick Burton
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Mary Ann Evans, the author who would go on to be known by the pen name, George Eliot, was born 200 years ago today, in 1819. Best remembered as a novelist (most notably, for Middlemarch and Silas Marner), she was also produced a substantial body of work through her poetry, journalism and translation.

She was largely self-educated, being a voracious reader in her youth, helped by her having access to the library on the estate (Arbury Hall) where her father worked.

"Because she was not considered physically beautiful, Evans was not thought to have much chance of marriage, and this, coupled with her intelligence, led her father to invest in an education not often afforded women." – Wikipedia

Her decision to adopt a male-sounding nom de plume is said to have been down to a combination of personal and professional reasons – e.g. to avoid the gender stereotyping of female authors that she perceived to prevalent at the time but also, to avoid scrutiny of her private life. Though the pair never married, between 1854 and his death in 1878, she was in a relationship with George Henry Lewes, the philosopher and critic. Lewes was already married and their relationship (combined with the fact that they declined to conceal it) was a cause of scandal in the prevailing Victorian climate. However, while public censure may have hindered the couple's access to polite society, it did not dent Eliot's popularity as a novelist, even after she felt obliged to publicly acknowledge her authorship and the true identity of 'George Eliot', against the claims of pretenders.

In public, Eliot was seen as a feminist campaigner. She voiced support for the Union in the American Civil War (said to be "a rare stance in England at the time" – Wikipedia) and also for Home Rule in Ireland.

Her novels are notable for their depictions of the changing face of rural England against the backdrop of rapid, ongoing industrialisation, often from the vantage point of of social outsiders or those suffering under the weight of small-town persecution.

In 2015, her novel, Middlemarch, was voted best British novel by a landslide, in a poll of book critics from around the world, outside of the UK.

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957)

By Unknown photographer
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House series of autobiographical novels, was born 150 years ago today, on 7 February 1867. Between 1932 and 1943, she produced a total of eight such novels, all based on her childhood experiences growing up in various parts of the US northern mid-west during the 1870s and 1880s, as part of a pioneer and settler family. "Years of sunshine and shadows" as she would later describe it.

She was born near village of Pepin in the Big Woods region of Wisconsin. Her family moved around quite a lot and this feature of her life would continue after she got married. She had worked as a teacher in the meantime, from the age of just 15, in order to supplement her family's earnings. Each of the books in the Little House series are set in one of the locations that she had lived while growing up.

The family resided for only two years in Walnut Grove, Minnesota before crop failure forced them to move on. Nevertheless, it provides the setting for the TV series, Little House on the Prairie, loosely based on her accounts. The book of the same name actually tells of the time that the Ingalls family spent on the prairie of Kansas, near the town of Independence, on what subsequently turned out to be a Native American reservation. The decision to move was based on the fact that the land was not legally open to settlement and that the US army might force them to abandon it.

By Laura Ingalls Wilder
(scan from the Internet)
[Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

Her writing career began around 1911, when she found an outlet for her particular talent and style in articles that she submitted to mostly farming and rural publications. In her early 60s, she began writing an autobiography with the title, Pioneer Girl. It was rejected by publishers but she re-wrote most of the stories, adapting them to a format suitable for juvenile and young adult readership. She was assisted in her efforts by her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, herself a prominent journalist, writer, polemicist, staunch libertarian. The Little House series were, in many ways, a literary collaboration of the mother and the daughter, with Rose also acting as her agent, using her connections as a successful writer in her own right to get the books published.

Another motivating factor may well have been the stock market crash of 1929, which saw both Rose's savings, as well as that of her parents, wiped out. Their fortunes were restored far beyond what they could have expected with the success of the Little House series, recollecting pioneer life of the late 19th century, based on the Ingalls family's experiences on the American frontier. Some unfinished manuscripts have been also published posthumously.

Laura Ingalls Wilder died on February 10, 1957, three days after her 90th birthday.

Gravesite of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder in Mansfield Cemetery, Mansfield, MO.
Buried next to them is daughter Rose Wilder Lane.

By Julie Jordan Scott [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Google Doodles for Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888),
via Wikimedia Commons

Louisa May Alcott – best known as the author of Little Women – is the latest literary figure to be subject of the accolade that is the Google Doodle, on the occasion of the 184th anniversary of her birth, on this day (29 November) in 1832.

Born in Pennsylvania, her family later moved to Boston and much of her life was spent around Massachusetts. Financial circumstances were such that Louisa, along with her sisters, had to seek work from an early age – as a teacher, seamstress, governess, domestic helper, and writer. It is said that "writing became a creative and emotional outlet for Alcott."

Her family were also practising transcendentalists, which brought them into the circles of famous literary figures of the day, such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller. She was also active, from an early age, in abolitionist and feminist causes.

The publication of Little Women, in 1869, secured her literary fame, though she had been writing and publishing for many years previously. It was an instant success and followed by two sequels that were eagerly received. The novel is loosely autobiographical, detailing both her own life and that of her sisters, following their passage from childhood to womanhood. It is considered a landmark work in the emergence of female literature of the 19th century. It remains a widely read classic and has been adapted numerous times for stage and cinema.

Louisa May Alcott's 184th birthday

H.G. Wells - born 150 years ago today (21 September 1866)

George Charles Beresford
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Herbert George (H.G.) Wells was born 150 years ago today, on 21 September 1866. A prolific author and writer across genres that include fiction and non-fiction, he applied his mind to just about every field of human enquiry. He was outspoken on many issues of the day and his views were eagerly listened to – by politicians and public alike.

He is recognised (along with Jules Verne) as one of the founders of science-fiction and his contributions to this genre are mostly responsible for making him a household name. War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau are as much enjoyed today, in their original form, as they were upon publication, over 100 years ago. If that was not enough, they have been endlessly adapted for stage, screen, radio and other media. His near-namesake, Orson Welles, famously broadcast a radio adaptation of War of the World in October 1940, the response to which has become the stuff of legend.

A prolific writer throughout his adult life, Wells is, nevertheless, best and most fondly remembered for what would be considered his first work. Little more than a novella, The Time Machine was first published in 1895, although an early version of it appeared as a short story in 1888, under the title, The Chronic Argonauts. In it, Wells postulates the ultimate fate of humanity and the planet that it dwells upon, considering the ramifications of a society basing its orientation on blind obedience to, what some might consider to be the fate to which it is ordained. The views presented and conclusions drawn remain curiously fascinating today, even with the passage of time.

"Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change." - from The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)

His particular skill as a storyteller was to devise themes and then use them as a larger device, to convey a sense of morality, foreboding or harbinger of things to come. It is a format that many have followed but few have emulated. His science fiction (or scientific romances as he called them) are based on a true understanding of scientific principles – something that he possessed in abundance – but also, deeply rooted in real word concerns. His other novels, such as A History of Mr Polly and Kipps, reflect his preoccupation with social class and what he saw as the restrictive, detrimental and ultimately ruinous consequences for a society based on it.

Of course, Wells himself had humble beginnings. The fourth child of parents who worked as domestic servants for most of their lives, his early education was sporadic and based on whatever his parents could afford to pay for. He served an unhappy apprenticeship in this teenage years, working 13-hour days and sleeping in dormitories with other apprentices. All of this could not but have left a mark on his personality and temperament. His adult years and his literary efforts therefore, were devoted to finding cures for various social and other ills, as he encountered them. He was an advocate of World Government and devoted much time to investigating ways that it could be realised.

In a way, just as Wells' life straddles the 19th and 20th century, so too, his thinking and his ideas encapsulate the hopes, dreams and ambitions of the period in which he lived and worked. Much of what he anticipated has come to fruition, even if not entirely in the way that he might have conceived. Still, there is much else in his body of work that may indicate 'the shape of things to come', all making for an enduring enigma.

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855): 200th anniversary of her birth

Charlotte Brontë, novelist and poet, senior member of the famous literary trio of sisters, was born on this day in 1816.

George Richmond [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

While not the eldest of Brontë sisters (she was preceded by two sisters who died prematurely; a fate that seems to have plagued the family), she was the eldest of the three who survived into adulthood and went on to achieve literary success. In order to do this, they felt it necessary to disguise their identities, at least initially. Charlotte gave their reasoning thus:

Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because – without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called "feminine" – we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise. [source: Wikipedia]

As well as being the eldest of the three, Charlotte was the first of the sisters to achieve literary recognition, with the publication of Jane Eyre in 1847. She also survived them when both Emily and Anne, following their brother Branwell, all died within a eight month period.

By Patrick Branwell Brontë (died 1848)
[Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In addtion to Jane Eyre, her most famous work, two other novels, Shirley and Villette, were published during her lifetime. The Professor, her first novel (which had been rejected by publishers though not without words of encouragement that obviously had the intended effect) was published posthumously, along with other writings that include Emma, an unfinished novel.

By Chick Bowen at en.wikipedia; Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)
[Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

In 1854, she accepted a proposal of marriage from a family friend, Arthur Bell Nicholls (from whom she had taken her nom de plume). The couple honeymooned in Banagher, Co. Offaly. The family's Irish connections are, of course, well known. Their father, Patrick Brontë (born on St. Patrick's Day in 1777), hailed from County Down. He married a Cornish woman and while the Brontë sisters' literary output may seem intimately connected with the Yorkshire countryside, where they resided for pretty much all of their lives, they were, in fact blow-ins to that area. In the case of Charlotte, it has even been said that' she spoke with an Irish accent'.

She became pregnant shortly after her marriage but her health also started to decline. She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855, aged 38, three weeks before her 39th birthday.

To mark her bicentennial year, the Brontë Society and the Brontë Parsonage Museum has organised a series of events. Furthermore, they have even put in place a "five-year programme celebrating the bicentenaries of the births of each of the Brontë siblings: Charlotte in 2016, Branwell in 2017, Emily in 2018 and Anne in 2020. In 2019, we will be commemorating Patrick and the 200th anniversary of his invitation to take up his post at Haworth Parsonage."

William Morris (1834-1896), Poet and Designer, is Honoured with Google Doodle

George Frederic Watts [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

Since the inception of the Google Doodle, authors and writers have figured prominently among the list of honourees. Today it is the turn of the Victorian artist, designer, poet, publisher, William Morris who was born on this day in 1834. He was also a prominent figure in the socialist movement that swept Britain, along with many other countries in the 19th century with the onset of industrialisation.

Though best known in his day for his poetry, his posthumous legacy is said to lie chiefly in his designs, which appear to have found a new lease of life in the internet age, as evidenced by Google's tribute. Accounting for that legacy, Jonathan Jones in today's The Guardian says that he "dedicated his life to inventing beautiful and useful products for the modern world ... showing that mass production – of a kind – can be beautiful."

Morris himself, perhaps summed up his own philosophy in the quote, "If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." (source: Wikiquote)

His life and legacy is kept alive today by the William Morris Society, founded in 1955 in London, England with chapters today to be found around the world.