Bookish birthdays for the week of August 6, 2023

Here are the literary birthdays to celebrate over the week of August 6, 2023. 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (August 6, 1809): Tennyson, whose many poems include “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “The Lady of Shalott,” and "The Lotos-Eaters," was considered to be among the three most famous people of his time. (The other two were Queen Victoria and William Gladstone.)

Piers Anthony (August 6, 1934): Anthony, author of the Xanth fantasy series among many other novels, has been a New York Times bestseller twenty-one times.

Garrison Keillor (August 7, 1942): In addition to his Lake Wobegon stories, Keillor has written poetry, a screenplay, and fiction for all ages.  

Marjorie Rawlings (August 8, 1896): Rawlings won the O. Henry Memorial Award for short stories for “Gal Young Un” five years before The Yearling won a Pulitzer Prize.

Izaak Walton (August 9, 1593): Walton’s The Compleat Angler is one of the most frequently reprinted books in English literature.

Daniel Keyes (August 9, 1927): Keyes is best known for his classic science-fiction work Flowers for Algernon; the first version of it was a novella that won the Hugo Award, and its expansion into a full-length novel then won a Nebula Award.

P. L. Travers (August 9, 1899): Travers is best known for her Mary Poppins series of novels; she also worked as a journalist and critic and wrote books about myths from various cultures.

Jonathan Kellerman (August 9, 1949): Kellerman’s first novel, When The Bough Breaks, won Edgar Allan Poe and Anthony Boucher awards, became a bestseller, and was adapted into a movie; since its publication, Kellerman has released a bestselling crime novel every year.

Dorothy B. Hughes (August 10, 1904): Hughes’s hardboiled novels The Fallen Sparrow, Ride the Pink Horse, and In a Lonely Place all became films, and she later went on to become an Edgar Award-winning literary critic.

Alex Haley (August 11, 1921): Haley became famous for The Autobiography of Malcolm X and built upon his reputation with Roots: The Saga of an American Family, which won a Pulitzer Prize.

Joanna Cole (August 11, 1944): Cole began writing the Magic School Bus series for children in the 1980s and continued nearly until her 2020 death; the books have sold tens of millions of copies in that time.