Posted on April 28, 2019 at 8:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Here are the literary birthdays to celebrate over the week of April 28, 2019.
Harper Lee (April 28, 1926): Lee’s first novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.
Annie Dillard (April 30, 1945). Dillard won both a Pulitzer Prize (for her essay collection Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) and a National Humanities Medal.
Joseph Heller (May 1, 1923). Heller’s novel Catch-22 actually spawned the phrase we use today to describe a no-win situation, rather than the other way around.
Benjamin Spock (May 2, 1903). Spock’s Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, as the go-to manual for child-rearing during the baby boom, was blamed for the Vietnam War protests and counterculture revolution of the 1960s.
Niccolò Machiavelli (May 3, 1469). Machiavelli wrote his best-known work, The Prince, in 1513, but it wasn’t published until 1532, five years after his death.
Birthdays sourced from Calendar of Literary Facts; biographical information sourced from Encyclopedia Britannica. Did we miss someone? Email and let us know.
Categories: Today in Books