#OTD in 1900.
August Strindberg's To Damascus (Till Damaskus, first two parts) receives its première at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm with August Palme and Harriet Bosse, Strindberg's future wife, in the leading rôles.
literature
Did Jane Austen Invent the Wellness Guy?
"Chris Cohen on the Self-Optimization Obsessions of Austen’s Male Characters"
https://lithub.com/did-jane-austen-invent-the-wellness-guy/
Books by Austen at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/68
"Persuasion, ch. 18. Admiral Croft is in earnest contemplation of some print, and doesn't see Anne Elliot." - picryl.com
#OTD in 1918.
Wilfred Owen is killed in action aged 25, at the Sambre–Oise Canal, with only five of his poems published. News of his death reaches his parents in Shrewsbury a week later on Armistice Day.
Endre Ady was born #OTD in 1877.
Some of his notable poetry collections include "Új versek" (New Poems, 1906), "A Holnap" (Tomorrow, 1908), and "A halottak élén" (At the Head of the Dead, 1918).
Books by Endre Ady at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/39489
#OTD in 1862.
Charles Dodgson sends the handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground to Alice Liddell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Liddell
“Open Me Carefully.” Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson
"A Look Inside the Poet’s Personal Life and the Making of Her Mythical Reclusiveness"
Books by Dickinson at PG:
French and American writer, journalist and pianist Ève Curie was born #OTD in 1904.
She is best known for writing a biography of her mother, Madame Curie (1937). Ève was the only member of her family who did not choose a career as a scientist and did not win a Nobel Prize, although her husband, Henry Richardson Labouisse Jr., did collect the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 on behalf of UNICEF.
The City is of Night; perchance of Death…
James “B.V.” Thomson (1834–1882) – poet, journalist, translator, anarchist, atheist – was born #OTD, 23 Nov, in Port Glasgow. Best known for his long poem THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT, he influenced TS Eliot & is seen as a progenitor of Modernism
1/3
https://psychogeographicreview.com/the-city-of-dreadful-night/
#Scottish #literature #poetry #Victorian #19thCentury #modernism #TSEliot
#OTD in 1893.
Arthur Conan Doyle surprises the reading public by revealing in the story "The Adventure of the Final Problem", published in The Strand Magazine, that Sherlock Holmes had apparently died at the Reichenbach Falls on 4 May 1891.
In November 1909.
E. M. Forster's science fiction short story "The Machine Stops" is published in The Oxford and Cambridge Review. The story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928.
The Eternal Moment at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/72890
British Library Exhibit Reveals Lives of Medieval Women
By Madeleine Muzdakis
The Inquisitive Biologist looks back at 2025 and picks his five favourite books. Palaeontology, aerobiology, speleology, degrowth, and geomicrobiology top this year's list.
#Books #BookOfTheYear #BookReview #Bookstodon #Scicomm #Paleontology #Palaeontology #Aerobiology #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #Speleology #Caves #Lechuguilla #Economics #Degrowth #Microbiology #Geology #Geomicrobiology #EdgarAllanPoe #EAPoe #Biography #Literature #Goth #Gothic #Horror #ScienceConvention #ScienceFair @markwitton @princetonupress @princetonnature @Carl_Zimmer @timparrique @TetZoo @bookstodon
#OTD in 1930.
American novelist Sinclair Lewis is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was the first writer from the United States to receive the award.
Sinclair Lewis Nobel Lecture:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1930/lewis/lecture/
Reading Scotland’s Witches
20 Jan, 6–7:30 German time (5–6:30 GMT), free online
Dr Cordula Lemke looks at witchcraft in Scottish literature, & how Geillis Duncan – one of the first Scottish witches to die in the early modern witch-hunt frenzy – is remembered in literature & popular culture today
@litstudies
Lochhead’s Mary
26 March, Perth. £7.50/£5
Liz Lochhead’s Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off is one of the most iconic plays in modern Scottish theatre. This special event will reflect on Lochhead’s enduring influence on Scottish writing & identity
https://www.culturepk.org.uk/event/lochheads-mary/
#Scottish #literature #theatre #drama #LizLochhead #MaryQueenofScots #history #identity #ScottishIdentity
Lourd on my hert as winter lies
The state that Scotland’s in the day.
Spring to the North has aye come slow
But noo dour winter’s like to stay
For guid,
And no’ for guid!
—Hugh MacDiarmid, “Lourd on My Hert”
published in SELECTED POETRY (New Directions, 1993)
https://www.ndbooks.com/book/selected-poetry/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #HughMacDiarmid #Scots #Scotslanguage #winter
#OTD in 1878.
Henry Irving's production of Hamlet, with himself in the title rôle playing opposite Ellen Terry as Ophelia, opens at the Lyceum Theatre, London (of which they have taken over the management). The tendency of actor-managers to emphasise the importance of their own central character did not always meet with the critics' approval.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet
Hamlet at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1524
What Influenced Mary Shelley to Write Frankenstein?
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is today lauded as the first science fiction novel as well as a seminal work of Gothic horror.
By Lauren Jones
https://www.thecollector.com/mary-shelley-wrote-frankenstein-novel/
#OTD in 1877.
Anna Sewell's animal welfare novel Black Beauty is published. It was written from a horse as main character's perspective. Sewell wrote it in the last years of her life, during which she was bedridden and seriously ill.
#OTD in 1891.
Maurice Maeterlinck's play The Blind (written in 1890) is premièred. Les Aveugles is, along with L'Intruse, one of Maurice Maeterlinck's first two plays.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_(play)
Les Aveugles is available at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48368
Happy New Year!
This month's Distributed Proofreaders' Blog takes time out to talk about the Minute Boys juvenile series.
"Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel."
Jack London died #OTD in 1916.
A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.
When you were people
We could have loved you,
Found out your names
And brought you presents…
—“Poem for Innocent Victims of War” by AC Jacobs (1937–1994) – born #OTD, 30 May
Published in NAMELESS COUNTRY: Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2018)
A 🎂 🧵
1/6
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784106751/nameless-country/
#Scottish #literature #poetry #Jewish #diaspora #20thcentury #warpoetry
#OTD in 1899.
William Gillette's play Sherlock Holmes, based (with authorisation) on the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, opens in New York City with himself in the title rôle.
Danish author Marie Bregendahl was born #OTD in 1867.
Her first novel Hendrik i Bakken was published in 1904. She went on to gain fame with En Dødsnat in 1912, based on the death of her mother when she was only 12.