In October 1844.
George W. M. Reynolds begins publication of the bestselling "penny dreadful" city mysteries series The Mysteries of London.
The original text was published serially in 52 weekly parts. Installments were published weekly and contained a single illustration and eight pages of text printed in double columns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysteries_of_London
The Mysteries of London at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/32536
Dutch novelist Anna Louisa Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint was born #OTD in 1812.
Her first romance, Almagro, appeared in 1837, followed by De graaf van Devonshire ("The Earl of Devonshire") in 1838; De Engelschen te Rome ("The English at Rome") in 1840, and Het Huis Lauernesse ("The House of Lauernesse") in 1841, an episode of the Reformation that was translated into many European languages.
Books by Anna Louisa Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/9527
Finnish author Frans Eemil Sillanpää was born #OTD in 1888.
His early works, such as Elämä ja aurinko (Life and the Sun, 1916), showcase his fascination with nature and his ability to capture the essence of rural life. Sillanpää was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Nuorena nukkunut (The Maid Silja, 1931), a poignant story of a young woman's life in rural Finland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_Eemil_Sillanp%C3%A4%C3%A4
Books by Frans Eemil Sillanpää at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/43826
In October 1819.
In Britain, Richard Carlile is convicted of blasphemy and sent to prison for publishing Common Sense, The Rights of Man and the Age of Reason by Thomas Paine (which criticised the Church of England).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carlile
Books by Richard Carlile at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/39431
Books by Thomas Paine at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/91
In October 1816.
John Keats writes his sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer".
It tells of the author's astonishment while he was reading the works of the ancient Greek poet Homer as translated by the Elizabethan playwright George Chapman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_First_Looking_into_Chapman%27s_Homer
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23684
In October 1796.
Jane Austen begins writing First Impressions, the first version of Pride and Prejudice (published 1813).
She completed the initial draft in August 1797, aged 21; as with all of her novels, Austen read the work aloud to her family as she was working on it and it became an "established favourite". At this time, her father made the first attempt to publish one of her novels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Austen
Pride and Prejudice at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/42671
British critic, anthologist and poet Francis Turner Palgrave was born #OTD in 1824.
Palgrave published both criticism and poetry, but his work as a critic was by far the more important such as Visions of England. His last volume of poetry, Amenophis, appeared in 1892. His Descriptive Handbook to the Fine Art Collections in the International Exhibition of 1862, and his Essays on Art, though flawed, were full of striking judgments strikingly expressed.
"...beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword..."
#OTD in 1856.
English actor Henry Irving makes his stage début at Sunderland as Gaston, Duke of Orleans, in Bulwer Lytton's play Richelieu.
The play has become best known for its line "The pen is mightier than the sword", spoken by the Cardinal in Act II, Scene II.
Books by Edward Bulwer Lytton at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/761
#OTD in 1851.
Marian Evans, the future George Eliot, takes up an appointment as (assistant) editor of the Westminster Review, published by John Chapman. In this capacity she will meet G. H. Lewes.
While continuing to contribute pieces to the Westminster Review, Evans resolved to become a novelist, and set out a pertinent manifesto in one of her last essays for the Review, "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists" (1856).
Silly Novels by Lady Novelists at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28289
#OTD in 1884.
August Strindberg's short stories Getting Married (Giftas) are published in Sweden. A week later, the author is prosecuted for blasphemy, but will be acquitted on November 17.
This first volume contained twelve stories depicting "twenty marriages of every variety," some of which present women in an egalitarian light.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Married_(collection)
Married at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7956
Original version:
https://runeberg.org/strindbg/giftas/
"Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals."
American statesman and political philosopher Samuel Adams was born #OTD in 1722.
He was a politician in colonial Massachusetts, a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams
Books by Samuel Adams at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/821
#OTD in 1914.
Arthur Machen's short story "The Bowmen" is published in The Evening News (London).
In this story, written and published during World War I, the ghosts of archers from the battle of Agincourt, led by Saint George, come to the aid of British troops. This is cited as the origin of the Angels of Mons legend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Machen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons
The Angels of Mons: The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14044
#OTD in 1870.
The first performance of Alexander Pushkin's play Boris Godunov (1825) is given at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg by members of the Alexandrinsky Theatre.
It was written in 1825, published in 1831, but not approved for performance by the censor until 1866. It consists of 25 scenes and is mainly written in blank verse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Godunov_(play)
Boris Godunov at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5089
#OTD in 1909.
Franz Kafka's short story "The Aeroplanes at Brescia (Die Aeroplane in Brescia)", based on a real event, is published in the Prague newspaper Bohemia, as the first description of airplanes in German literature.
It describes an airshow near the Italian city of Brescia, which Kafka saw with two of his friends (Max and his brother Otto Brod) during their journey to Italy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aeroplanes_at_Brescia
Full transcription here:
https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Die_Aeroplane_in_Brescia
"To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one's own."
#OTD in 1897.
What Maisie Knew is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Chap-Book and (revised and abridged) in the New Review in 1897 and then as a book later that year.
What Maisie Knew at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/7118
"The poem is a capsule where we wrap up our punishable secrets."
American poet and physician William Carlos Williams was born #OTD in 1883.
He is known for his innovative and modernist approach to poetry. Some of his best known poems, "This Is Just to Say" and "The Red Wheelbarrow", are reflections on the everyday. Williams won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems.
Books by William Carlos Williams at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/8885
#OTD in 1886.
The "Symbolist Manifesto" is placed in the French newspaper Le Figaro by a Greek-born poet Jean Moréas, who calls Symbolism hostile to "plain meanings, declamations, false sentimentality and matter-of-fact description," and intended to "clothe the Ideal in a perceptible form" whose "goal was not in itself, but whose sole purpose was to express the Ideal."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolist_Manifesto
Symbolism at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Symbolism&submit_search=Search
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."
The History of Rasselas
British author, linguist & lexicographer Samuel Johnson was born #OTD in 1709.
Johnson’s most famous achievement is his Dictionary, which was the first major comprehensive dictionary of English. It became the standard reference work for decades and influenced the way dictionaries were compiled.
Samuel Johnson at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/297
English philosopher, painter, and critic William Hazlitt died #OTD in 1830.
He is considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language. He is also acknowledged as the finest art critic of his age. His works includes "On the Pleasure of Hating" (1826), "The Fight" (1822), "On the Fear of Death" (1822), "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays" (1817).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hazlitt
Books by William Hazlitt at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/800
American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet and political activist Katherine Anne Porter died #OTD in 1980.
Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her short stories received much more critical acclaim. In 1966, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the U.S. National Book Award for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter.
#OTD in 1915.
Methuen, publishers of D. H. Lawrence's new novel The Rainbow, are prosecuted in London under the Obscene Publications Act 1857 and its sale is banned. The U.S. edition appears in November without any legal challenge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rainbow
The Rainbow at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/28948
"He's not quite blue yet, but that will come, you shall see!"
#OTD in 1908.
Maurice Maeterlinck's L'Oiseau bleu is premièred, at Konstantin Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre.
The French composer Albert Wolff wrote an opera (first performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1919) based on Maeterlinck's original play, and Maeterlinck's inamorata Georgette Leblanc produced a novelization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Bird_(play)
The Blue Bird at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/8606
Let’s Not Forget Charles Dickens’s Other Christmas Ghost Stories!
He loved writing these. There are very many.
By Olivia Rutigliano
https://crimereads.com/lets-not-forget-charles-dickenss-other-christmas-ghost-stories/
There are several editions of Christmas Carol in the PG collection:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19337
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24022
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30368
"October's bellowing anger breakes and cleaves
The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood
...
O martyred youth and manhood overthrown,
The burden of your wrongs is on my head."
The Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918)
#OTD in 1918.
Siegfried Sassoon visits his mentor Robbie Ross for the last time. Sassoon will write later that Ross's goodbye gave him a "presentiment of final farewell."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon
Books by Siegfried Sassoon at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2934
#OTD in 1908.
The Avenida Theatre opens on Buenos Aires' Avenida de Mayo with a production of Lope de Vega's El castigo sin venganza (Justice Without Revenge, 1631) directed by María Guerrero.
The play is centred on adultery and a near-incestuous relationship between step-mother and step-son. It is regarded as one of Lope’s supreme achievements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment_without_Revenge
Books by Lope de Vega at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/25752
