Bookish birthdays for the week of January 12, 2020

Here are the literary birthdays to celebrate over the week of January 12, 2020:

Jack London (January 12, 1876): London, best known for The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and “To Build a Fire,” was among the most extensively translated and best-paid authors of his time. 

Horatio Alger Jr. (January 13, 1832): Alger’s hundred-plus books — formulaic, moralistic tales of how poor boys overcame obstacles by being good — sold over 20 million copies in spite of their artistic weaknesses.

Molière (January 15, 1622): Molière is considered by many to be the greatest French comedic playwright ever; his most famous works are Tartuffe and Le Misanthrope.

Anton Chekhov (January 17, 1860): Chekhov’s legacy is due in large part to his plays, like Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard, but he’s also described as a master of the modern short story.

Robert Cormier (January 17, 1925): Cormier was an award-winning journalist before he turned to fiction; his The Chocolate War is among the first novels to look at the darker parts of adolescent life.

A. A. Milne (January 18, 1882): Wildly famous now for creating Winnie-the-Pooh, Milne also wrote a detective novel, The Red House Mystery, as well as plays for adults and children, including a stage adaptation of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

Birthdays sourced from Calendar of Literary Facts; biographical information sourced from Encyclopedia Britannica. Did we miss someone? Email and let us know!