Maria Edgeworth, b. 1767, Irish novelist and children’s author. She met and corresponded with Sir Walter Scott. She also met Byron, and George III read one of her novels and said that he now had a better knowledge of his Irish subjects. Her father, who had four successive wives and twenty-two children (Maria was his second oldest child), insisted on editing and approving many of her books before he would allow them to be published.
Arthur Hugh Clough, b.1819, poet and friend of poet Matthew Arnold. Clough died at the age of thirty-one of malaria, and Arnold wrote the elegy Thyrsis in remembrance of his friend.
Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night
In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.
I see her veil draw soft across the day,
I feel her slowly chilling breath invade
The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey;
I feel her finger light
Laid pausefully upon life’s headlong train; —
The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,
The heart less bounding at emotion new,
And hope, once crush’d, less quick to spring again.
Sir James George Frazer, b. 1854. Scottish student of mythology and comparative religion, author of The Golden Bough. He saw the history of religion in Darwinian terms as “three rising stages of human progress — magic giving rise to religion, then culminating in science.” So now you know one source for that bit of nonsense.
E.M. Forster, b. 1879, English novelist and essayist. His most famous novels are Howard’s End, A Room With A View, and A Passage to India. I started reading A Passage to India but didn’t get very far into before giving up. I don’t remember what I disliked about it, but I did dislike it. Can anyone give me a good reason to try again?
J.D. Salinger, b. 1919, American author best known for his book The Catcher in the Rye. No, I’ve never read it.
I don’t know if I can give you a good reason to try again with Forster – reading tastes vary so much from person to person – but I enjoyed it 25 years ago in college, and again 15 years ago as a young mother, and a third time five years ago at the age of 40. I *do* like Forster’s books, so maybe it’s just a quirk. Many books I’ve tried to re-read have been such duds I decided I must have been a different person the first time around, and gave up re-reading as a lost cause.
On a totally different subject, I want to thank you for the pecans. I’m so late in thanking you, but they were delicious! We ate some plain, and made the rest into Guadalupe Barbeque Pecans and shared them with my parents. Very tasty treat, and fun to know that we were eating Texas pecans!
I love Forster. Start with “A Room with a View.” It’s so much better than the movie (which was beautiful in its own way). I like “Passage to India,” too. Hmm, it’s been years and years since I read any Forster – maybe it’s time to reread.
“Catcher in the Rye” has to be the most overrated book of all time. I tried it a couple of times and I haven’t gotten far.
Like Laura, I can’t come up with a *really* good, i.e. compelling reason for you to try Forster again, but I enjoyed his books, including “A Passage to India,” very much. So much that I went on to read “Howards End” and “Room with a View” on my own (PI was a Brit. Lit. assignment). He also wrote “Aspects of the Novel.” Originally a series of lectures presented at Cambridge, Forster transcribed them into this slim little volume of highly readable, dryly witty, and endearingly colloquial reflections on the nature of Great Books (and not-so-great books). Even if it’s not a “favorite,” it deserves a place of respect on the bookshelf.
I can’t comment on Forster, but I read an early 20th century book in 2006 about the KJV and it’s stamp on English literature. The author held Maria Edgeworth in high esteem, but didn’t think that Jane Austen’s books would have any lasting impact. I’m curious to read some of her (Edgeworth) work.