It’s a romantic tale: a young communist struggling against an authoritarian regime is arrested on a treason charge. A dramatic trial follows, and he is consigned to a long sentence, separated from his wife and family. In prison, he rallies his comrades, organizing education sessions. It could be the story of Nelson Mandela, except that… Read More from Antonio Gramsci
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Ivor Gurney
Only the wanderer Knows England’s graces, Or can anew see clear Familiar faces. And who loves joy as he That dwells in shadows? Do not forget me quite, O Severn meadows. Ivor Bertie Gurney was born in Gloucester on 28 August 1890: his father was a tailor, and he came from humble origins. His mother… Read More from Ivor Gurney
Paul Scarron
Paul Scarron was a poet, novelist and dramatist. He was born in Paris: his father was a judge and his uncle was Bishop of Grenoble. He studied at the Sorbonne, and then was tonsured as an abbé (a sort of confessor attached to noble houses), although he never became a priest. He served Charles de Beaumanoir,… Read More from Paul Scarron
Harriet McBryde Johnson
“I am in the first generation to survive to such decrepitude. Because antibiotics were available, we didn’t die from the childhood pneumonias that often come with weakened respiratory systems. I guess it is natural enough that most people don’t know what to make of us.” Born in Laurinburg, North Carolina on July 8, 1957, Harriet… Read More from Harriet McBryde Johnson
William Soutar
William Soutar was born in Perth, Scotland, in 1898, son of John, a joiner, and Margaret. At school, he excelled on the sports field, and led a pupil strike. At Perth Academy, he began to develop his literary skills. Later he would recall: “That was my eighteenth year while yet the shadow of war was… Read More from William Soutar
Harriet Martineau
This week, the distinguished contemporary writer Ali Smith gave the inaugural Harriet Martineau lecture for Norwich Writers’ Centre, bringing alive a woman who in her time was ubiquitous, but who now is hardly known. Martineau was a political journalist, an early sociologist, a radical campaigner, a traveller and an author who inspired Charlotte Bronte, Charles… Read More from Harriet Martineau
Sylvia Plath
A very welcome guest post to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath, contributed by my dear and esteemed friend Jackie Leach Scully, another graduate of Newnham College. There are a lot of women of a certain age – around 50 – who have, let’s say, an ambivalent relationship with the story… Read More from Sylvia Plath
Flannery O’Connor
“The fiction writer presents mystery through manners, grace through nature, but when he finishes, there always has to be left over that sense of Mystery which cannot be accounted for by any human formula.” Flannery O’Connor, who wrote some of the finest stories in the English language as well as two powerful novels, came from… Read More from Flannery O’Connor
Eric Sykes
Eric Sykes was a British comedian, actor and scriptwriter, who became deaf at an early stage of his career, and who continued acting into his eighties, by which time he was also nearly blind. He was a pioneering British example of how disability need make no difference to success. Sykes was born in Oldham, Lancashire… Read More from Eric Sykes
Samuel Johnson
A brilliant man of humble origins, who is barely remembered and less appreciated, Johnson wrote the most famous of English dictionaries, and a wealth of other critical and creative contributions, despite struggling with both poverty and a range of health conditions. Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, son of a bookseller, on September 18, 1709. … Read More from Samuel Johnson