Bookish birthdays for the week of October 31, 2021

Here are the literary birthdays to celebrate over the week of October 31, 2021.

John Keats (October 31, 1795): Keats’s greatest achievement as a poet are his odes, including “On Indolence,” “On a Grecian Urn,” “To Psyche,” and “To a Nightingale.”

Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871): Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage brought him wide praise, despite his lack of military service; he decided to work as a war correspondent to lend more authenticity to his writing, and a naval disaster he survived during that quest led him to write his greatest short story, “The Open Boat.”

William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794): Bryant’s poem “Thanatopsis” brought not just fame to its author, but also legitimacy to American poetry abroad.  

André Malraux (November 3, 1901): Malraux is best known internationally for La Condition Humaine (Man’s Fate) and was a significant literary influence on another famous French writer, Albert Camus.

Will Rogers (November 4, 1879): Rogers gained fame for his performances, but he also wrote a weekly column for the Saturday Evening Post and had two bestselling books: The Cowboy Philosopher on Prohibition and There’s Not a Bathing Suit in Russia.

Colson Whitehead (November 6, 1969): Whitehead’s novels have been nominated for — and won — many top literary awards, including consecutive Pulitzers for fiction for The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys.

Birthdays sourced from Calendar of Literary Facts; biographical information sourced from Encyclopedia Britannica, Poetry Foundation, Biography.com, and author websites. Did we miss someone? Email and let us know!