François-Auguste-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand (4 September, 1768 – 4 July, 1848) was a French author and diplomat, known as one of the first Romantic writes of his country.

Captain Frederick Marryat (10 July, 1792 – 9 August, 1848) was a Royal Navy officer, and a novelist who pioneered historical naval fiction.

G.K. Chesterton (29 May, 1874 – 14 June, 1936) was an English writer, theologian, critic, and philosopher. Mr. Chesterton’s most famous creating is the priest-detective Father Brown. Books by G.K. Chesterton* He was born as Gilbert Keith Chesterton in Campden Hill, Kensington, an affluent district of London, England. Mr. Chesterton was educated at St. Paul’s, selective independent school for boys aged 13–18, but never attended college. Instead he went to art school, where he started to write criticism. Mr. Chesterton wrote about 80 books, over 2,000 poems, around 200 short stories, 4,000 essays and columns, as well as several plays. Despite his enormous portfolio, Mr. Chesterton considered himself first and foremost a journalist. In 1901 He married Frances Alice Blogg, a writer by her own right, who worked as his manager encouraging his writings, appointments, accounts and negotiations with publishers. Mr. Chesterton was a big guy, standing 6’4”, weighing around 290 lbs.  and embraced it with wit and cynicism. One story goes that he told his friend , Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, that “To look at you, anyone would think a famine had struck England”, Shaw appropriately replied that “To look at you, anyone would think you had caused…

As a fan of the author, I had high hopes for this book. His talent of for extracting relevant, accurate, entertaining and informative information from the annals of history is something which I envy.

Mr. Congreve went to Kilkenny College meeting Jonathan Swift

In 1831 Mr. Heine visited Paris and settled there. Paris had the cultural richness that he couldn’t get in the small towns in Germany. He soon became a celebrity in the whole of France.

The drama 1906 God of Vengeance (Got fun nekome) takes place in a Jewish brothel and includes Jewish prostitutes, lesbians, and throwing of the Torah across the stage. The play was translated into about a dozen languages and was very controversial. It was hailed as artistic and beautiful but also as immoral and misrepresenting Jewish traditions.

While predictable and somewhat fragmented, this has all the makings of a good series.

Amelia Edwards (7 June, 1831 – 15 April, 1892) a novelist, journalist and Egyptologist from England. She was well known for her ghost story The Phantom Coach and A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, a travelogue. Books by Amelia Edwards* The author was born in London, England as Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards. Her father was an officer in the British army, and then a banker. As a youth, Ms. Edwards already showed a promising writing career and would publish her first poem at age seven, and at age 12 she published her firs story. The young Ms. Edwards also showed great talent as an artist, she would illustrate her writings, though not all, and paint scenes from books she read. Not to be outdone, Ms. Edwards also composed and performed music, but a bout of Typhus made it difficult for her to sing and she lost interest. Ms. Edwards was very active of the suffrage movement and even served as the Vice-President of the Society for Promoting Women’s Suffrage. On average it took Ms. Edwards two years to write a book, which included meticulous research. In A Thousand Miles Up the Nile (1877), Ms. Edwards writes about her travels to Egypt,…

Today is the birthday of British children’s author A.A. Milne (18 January, 1882 – 31 January, 1956). Most people know his most beloved creation Winnie the Pooh. The A.A. stands for Alan Alexander Winnie the Pooh and friends are based on stuffed animals that belonged to Millen’s son – Christopher Robin. You can see the original toys at the New York Public Library. Winnie-the-Pooh was named after a Canadian black bear (Winnipeg) that resided in the London Zoo and was used as a military mascot in World War I. “Pooh” was a swan. The toy which inspired the famous bear was purchased in Harrod’s in London and was called Edward Bear (as is only proper in England). Both Christopher and the family dog loved to play with the stuffed animals. Eeyore lost some stuffing over the years which caused his head to droop and gave him a melancholy appearance. Hundred Acre Wood was inspired by Ashdown Forest in Sussex. Christopher Robin took boxing classes to defend himself against bullies at school who used to tease him about the popular book series. As was customary at the time, Christopher Robin was brought up by a nanny and only met his parents…