The most significant events in the history of books on the 30th of November 1554: Sir Philip Sidney is born. This Elizabethan poet wrote one of the earliest sonnet sequences in English (Astrophil and Stella), and in his prose romance the Arcadia, he invented the name Pamela. The name means ‘all sweetness’ (from pan meaning […]
The most significant events in the history of books on the 29th of November 1832: Louisa May Alcott is born. She is best known for Little Women, a novel she didn’t really want to write. When her publisher suggested the idea of writing a ‘girls’ story’ to her, Alcott was less than enthusiastic. […]
The most significant events in the history of books on the 28th of November 1582: William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond for their marriage licence. 1628: John Bunyan is born. He wrote much of his defining work, The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), while imprisoned in Bedford Jail. As well as the […]
A short analysis of a classic autumnal poem by A. E. Housman (1859-1936) Much of A. E. Housman’s poetry requires no analysis or criticism; its meaning is plain enough to the reader. But the following poem, poem VIII from the posthumously published More Poems (1936) – sometimes known by its first […]
The most significant events in the history of books on the 27th of November 8 BC: Horace dies. The Roman poet whose full name was Quintus Horatius Flaccus once observed, ‘It is not enough that poetry is agreeable, it should also be interesting.’ He wrote the Satires, the Odes, and numerous other poems, including […]