Posted on July 23, 2023 at 8:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Here are the literary birthdays to celebrate over the week of July 23, 2023.
Raymond Chandler (July 23, 1888): Two of Chandler’s Philip Marlowe detective novels became film noir classics: Farewell, My Lovely (distributed as Murder, My Sweet) and The Big Sleep.
Alexandre Dumas père (July 24, 1802): Dumas was a popular dramatist before he became famous — in his time and in the long term — for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.
George Bernard Shaw (July 26, 1856): Shaw refused to accept the Nobel Prize in literature that he received for his play Saint Joan; however, he had no such qualms about his Academy Award for the screenplay of his play Pygmalion (which, upon its next film adaptation, became My Fair Lady).
Aldous Huxley (July 26, 1894): Huxley’s best-known novel, Brave New World, was an inspiration for many dystopian sci-fi works to come.
Beatrix Potter (July 28, 1866): The Tale of Peter Rabbit was originally written as a letter to a sick child, who loved it so much that Potter published it and launched a long, prolific career.
Booth Tarkington (July 29, 1869): Best known for The Magnificent Ambersons, which also became an Orson Welles movie, Tarkington appeared on annual bestseller lists nine times.
Categories: Today in Books