Posted on October 13, 2024 at 8:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Here are the literary birthdays to celebrate over the week of October 13, 2024.

Katherine Mansfield (October 14, 1888): Mansfield is considered a master of the short story, with her collection The Garden Party being the pinnacle of her production.

Virgil (October 15, 70 BCE): Virgil, author of the epic Aeneid, is considered the greatest Roman poet.

P.G. Wodehouse (October 15, 1881): Wodehouse wrote more than ninety books, many of them starring the butler Jeeves, but also wrote film scripts and collaborated on plays and musical comedies.

Italo Calvino (October 15, 1923): Calvino gained international fame for his fantastic tales The Nonexistent Knight & the Cloven Viscount and The Baron in the Trees.

Mario Puzo (October 15, 1920): Puzo’s breakthrough novel, The Godfather, is one of the most successful of all time, selling 21 million copies, becoming a hit movie (both in terms of reviews and box-office receipts), and inspiring two sequels.

Roxane Gay (October 15, 1974): Gay is a prominent social commentator in addition to being a writer who has seen three books (Bad Feminist, Difficult Women, and Hunger) earn bestseller status.

Oscar Wilde (October 16, 1854): Wilde’s most important works — including the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and the play The Importance of Being Earnest — were all produced in the last decade of his life.

Eugene O’Neill (October 16, 1888): O’Neill received four Pulitzer Prizes in drama and is the third-most widely translated and produced dramatist; among his notable works are Long Day’s Journey into Night and The Iceman Cometh.

Gunter Grass (October 16, 1927): Grass is considered the literary spokesman for the generation of Germans who came of age during World War II; he received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1999 for such works as The Tin Drum, Cat and Mouse, and The Rat. 

Nathanael West (October 17, 1903): West is known for his satirical novels such as The Day of the Locust, widely believed to be the best novel written about Hollywood.

Arthur Miller (October 17, 1915): Miller gained early fame for his award-winning plays Death of a Salesman and The Crucible; he also wrote novels, short stories, and an autobiography.

Terry McMillan (October 18, 1951): McMillan is best known for her third novel, Waiting to Exhale, which became a smash hit (and movie) and also earned her a hefty contract to write another bestseller, How Stella Got Her Groove Back.

John Le Carré (October 19, 1931): Le Carré’s nearly-sixty-year writing career has yielded a number of beloved novels, including The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and The Constant Gardener.

Philip Pullman (October 19, 1946): Pullman has received numerous awards for the His Dark Materials fantasy series and was named to The Times’s list of the fifty greatest British authors since 1945. 

Categories: Today in Books

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