Bookish birthdays for the week of August 17, 2025

Here are the literary birthdays to celebrate over the week of August 17, 2025.

Charlotte Grimke (August 17, 1837): Grimke’s poetry and essays brought her some acclaim during her lifetime, but she’s better known now for the diaries she kept from 1854-1864 and 1885-1892.

Ted Hughes (August 17, 1930): Hughes’s fame as a poet began with his award-winning collection The Hawk in the Rain (which he submitted at the encouragement of his wife Sylvia Plath) and continued throughout his life, including a stint as Britain’s poet laureate.

V.S. Naipaul (August 17, 1932): Naipaul received the Booker Prize for In a Free State and the Nobel Prize for Literature in recognition of his post-colonial novels, such as A House for Mr. Biswas.

Jonathan Franzen (August 17, 1959): Franzen is best known for his lengthy novels Freedom, Purity, and The Corrections, which was chosen both as the National Book Award winner and as an Oprah’s Book Club pick (to the irritation of its author).

H.P. Lovecraft (August 20, 1890): Lovecraft earned far more as a ghostwriter during his life, but since then, he has gained fame for his Cthulhu Mythos series, including, of course, “The Call of Cthulhu.”

Jacqueline Susann (August 20, 1918?): Susan’s second novel, Valley of the Dolls, was a massive hit and set her on the path to becoming the first author to have three consecutive number-one bestsellers (thanks to the follow-up novels The Love Machine and Once Is Not Enough). 

Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893): Parker was a celebrated writer of many forms, from verse to book reviews to short stories, but she is most generally known for her quips, including one you may still hear today: “Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses.”

Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920): Bradbury’s honors include the National Book Foundation Medal, the National Medal of Arts, and a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his lifetime of work including Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Dandelion Wine.

Annie Proulx (August 22, 1935): Proulx’s literary fame was cemented by her novel The Shipping News, which received both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, and her pop-culture fame came from the movie adaptation of her short story “Brokeback Mountain.”

Edgar Lee Masters (August 23, 1868): Masters’s poetry career peaked with Spoon River Anthology, though he also wrote other collections of verse, novels, and an autobiography.