Anthony Trollope, b. 1815. Has anyone else read any of Trollope’s novels? I read Barchester Towers a long time ago, and I remember enjoying it. However, I also think it moved very slowly, and I’ve read that all his books are about the same setting and similar characters— British country and small city, Anglican bishops and priests and church wardens and such. It all sounds perfect for a certain sort of mood–slow, gossipy, lazy, character-driven.
Last year I read Framley Parsonage and posted about it.
Trollope and Jane Austen.
Men and Marriage in Trollope’s Framley Parsonage.

Elizabeth Goudge, b. 1900, wrote adult novels and children’s books. I’m pretty sure I’ve read one or more of her books, too, maybe Linnets and Valerians, but I don’t remember anything about it. Looking around on the internet, she seems to share some characteristics in common with Trollope. Three of her adult books are collectively titled The Cathedral Trilogy, about characters in a Anglican cathedral city in England.

Robert Penn Warren, b. 1905. I just read All the King’s Men in March. Semicoln review here.

Evaline Ness, b. 1911. Author and illustrator who received the Caldecott Award for Sam, Bangs, and Moonshine, a book about distinguishing between fact and fiction, when to fantasize and when to be strictly factual.

Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, died on April 24, 1731; according to Wikipedia, he was probably in hiding from his creditors when he died.

“I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called – nay we call ourselves and write our name – Crusoe; and so my companions always called me.”

A collector recently bought at public auction, in London, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of Shakespeare; but for nothing a school-boy can read Hamlet and can detect secrets of highest concernment yet unpublished therein.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson in “Experience”

William Shakespeare, b.1564 or thereabouts.

Shakespearean literature for kids:
Stage Fright on a Summer’s Night by Mary Pope Osborne. Jack and Annie, via the Magic Treehouse, travel back in time to Shakespeare’s England and participate in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The Shakespeare Stealer, Shakespeare’s Scribe, and Shakespeare’s Spy by Gary Blackwood. Widge, a boy of unknown parentage, becomes an apprentice at William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Or maybe he’s a spy out to steal Mr. Shakespeare’s plays. Partially reviewed here.

Shakespeare’s Secret by Elise Broach. Shakespeare, and Queen Elizabeth, not to mention Edward de Vere and Anne Boleyn, keep intruding into Hero’s life as she tries, with the help of an elderly neighbor and an older boy named Danny, to sort out her place in her family and in school. Brief Semicolon review here.

Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare by Diane Stanley. A 48-page biography of Shakespeare with beautiful illustrations.

Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. I still like these retellings of Shakespeare’s plays, even though they were first published in 1807. You can download the ebook here.

Loving Will Shakespeare by Meyer. I have this book on my TBR list, but I haven’t gotten areound to it yet. It’ll be fun, I think.

For adults:
Blood and Judgement by Lars Walker is a take-off on Hamlet (for adults). Reviewed here.

And look what I bought at the library book sale on Saturday:

My Complete Works is falling apart, so I bought this huge tome for $12.00.

I bought both Lamb’s Tales and another illustrated re-telling by Leon Garfield.

The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood.

Northrup Frye on Shakespeare, lectures on the plays of Shakespeare by the Canadian professor.

A few selected links:

Mental Multivitamin: Loving Will.

Dominion Family: “Cry ‘God, for Harry, England, and St. George!'”

And, finally, Miss Erin has a Shakespeare Challenge.

Today is the birthday of Vladimir I. Lenin, b. 1870.

Also, Kurt Wiese, b. 1887. He was the illustrator of The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Bishop and also the Freddy the Pig books by Walter Brooks.

Jan de Hartog, b. 1914. Author of The Peaceable Kingdom and The Lamb’s War I think I read The Peaceable Kingdom back when I was in high school and had decided to become a Quaker and a pacifist. I didn’t find many (any) Quakers in West Texas to associate with, and I’m no longer a pacifist. Mothers with a brood of eight chicks tend to believe in defending the brood.

Immanuel Kant, b. 1754. I haven’t read Kant, but dense and cloudy would be appropriate words for him, from what I’ve heard.

Charlotte Bronte, b. 1816.

A Circle of Quiet recommends Jane Eyre on CD read by Juliet Stevenson.

I suggest the 1983 BBC version of Jane Eyre. I’ve not really seen any other televised or movie version (not the new one), but I do like this one very much.

BronteBlog is running a contest to give away five DVD copies of the Orson Welles/Joan Fontaine movie version of Jane Eyre.

Books related to the Brontes:
The Return of the Twelves by Pauline Clarke. It’s the story of a boy and his sisters who find in the attic of their new house twelve toy soldiers that magically come alive. The soldiers turn out to have belonged to another boy, Branwell, and his sisters, and keeping them a secret becomes a challenge.

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhyss. Semicolon review here. I didn’t really care for this story of Mr. Rochester’s wife, Bertha, as she descends into Caribbean madness, but you may like it. Definitely for adults.

Mrs. Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Bronte is a nice, cozy biography, just what you’d expect from a nice, cozy, Victorian gentlewoman. Perhaps it’s a bit hagiographic, but that’s a welcome change from the obligatory debunking that biographers do nowadays.

Blog Notes;
Lanier’s Books on Jane Eyre.

Dani Torres’s favorite passages from Jane Eyre.

Thornton Wilder, b. 1897. What a great writer! I probably read The Bridge of San Luis Rey thrity years ago, but I remember it being fascinating in terms of the questions it raised. I should read it again. Then, there’s Our Town, a play I’ve always liked, and The Matchmaker, which is the source for one of my favorite movies, Hello Dolly!.

From The Matchmaker:
Money is like manure; it’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around encouraging young things to grow.

Ninety-nine per cent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.

From Our Town:
Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. …Do human beings ever realize life while they live it? — Every, every minute?

“Miss Read” Dora Jessie Saint, b. 1913. I think I tried one of the Miss Read books a long time ago, but I don’t remember anything about it. Should I try again?

Gertrude Chandler Warner, author of The Boxcar Children was born on this day in 1890. It turns out she was a first grade teacher who never actually finished high school herself (although she did study with a tutor–homeschooled?). The bio I read said she taught 40 first graders in the morning and another 40 in the afternoon. And today’s teachers think they have a hard job! She wrote her mystery stories for her first graders who were just learning to read. (Today they’re recommended for third graders–another example of how American education has declined.) At any rate, I can remember still how intriguing the thought was of living in an old abandoned boxcar with only other children and using one’s ingenuity to earn enough to get food and other necessities. It was all so very romantic and adventurous. I must have read the books when I was six or seven, and I know I wanted to be one of the Boxcar children.

John Millington Synge, b. 1871. Irish dramatist, poet, and folklorist. I read his play The Playboy of the Western World a long time ago for a class in modern drama, but I can’t say I remember much about it.

Grace Livingston Hill, b. 1865. I read a few of Ms. Hill’s novels when I was a young adult, but I didn’t really enjoy them very much. Others do.
Review of Rainbow Cottage by Grace Livingston Hill from The Headmistress of The Common Room.
Review of Because of Stephen by the same author, same reviewer.
Review of Maris, again same author, same reviewer.
Neat and Dainty As a Flower is a blog dedicated to “feminine beauty and accomplishment as seen in the works of Grace Livingston Hill.”
Brenda of Coffee Tea Books and Me and Sallie of A Gracious Home also enjoy Ms. Hill’s fiction. So, if you do there’s company for you.

William Hazlitt, b. 1778. Journalist, essayist, Shakespearean scholar. He wrote many books, including Characters of Shakespeare and A View of the English Stage.
“If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.”

Matthew Calbraith Perry, b. 1794. US Navy commodore who negotiated the first treaty between the United States and Japan in 1854. The 1986 Newbery Honor book, Commodore Perry in the land of the Shogun by Rhoda Blumberg, is a great introduction to this historical episode.

Lew Wallace, b. 1827. Civil War general, Governor of New Mexico Territory, Ambassador to Turkey, and author of Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ.

Third paragraph of Ben Hur: “Judged by his appearance, he was quite forty-five years old. His beard, once of the deepest black, flowing broadly over his breast, was streaked with white. His face was brown as a parched coffee-berry, and so hidden by a red kufiyeh (as the kerchief of the head is at this day called by the children of the desert) as to be but in part visible. Now and then he raised his eyes, and they were large and dark. He was clad in the flowing garments so universal in the East; but their style may not be described more particularly, for he sat under a miniature tent, and rode a great white dromedary.” Does anyone know what Biblical character is being described in this paragraph?

William Booth, b. 1829. He and his wife Catherine founded the Salvation Army, a Christian ministry to feed, clothe, and evangelize the poor.
“In answer to your inquiry, I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.” William Booth

Joseph Pulitzer, b. 1847, d.1911. Hungarian American journalist and newspaper publisher. He left in his will an endowment to create the Columbia School of Journalism, and Columbia began in 1917 to award annual prizes for journalism, letters, fiction, drama, and education. Last year I looked at this list of Pulitzer-prize winning novels and counted the ones I’ve read: 12 out of 80. (Eight of the years say “No Award.” I wonder why.) Now I’ve read 14 and a half out of 81.

1919 The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. Read in 2006. Semicolon review here.
1921 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton
1925 So Big Edna Ferber
1928 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder
1932 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck
1937 Gone With The Wind Margaret Mitchell
1939 The Yearling Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1940 The Grapes Of Wrath John Steinbeck
1947 All the King’s Men Robert Penn Warren I read this one over my blog break and thought it was quite a reflection on depression-era Louisiana and the life and legacy of Huey Long. Scroll down for a review.
1952 The Caine Mutiny Herman B. Wouk
1953 The Old Man And The Sea Ernest Hemingway
1961 To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
1975 The Killer Angels Michael Shaara
1986 Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry This book constitutes the “half” in fourteen and a half. Actually, I don’t think I read quite half. Unappreciative Semicolon review here.
2005 Gilead Marilynne Robinson

So how many Pulitzer prize winning novels have you read, and which ones do you recommend? I recommend all of the above except the Hemingway and the Steinbeck and of course, Lonesome Larry’s Texas opus.