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.”
