The most significant events in the history of books on the 4th of December 1131: Omar Khayyám dies. This Persian poet and mathematician wrote the Rubaiyat (or ‘quatrains’), later translated into English by several Victorian poets, most famously by Edward FitzGerald. 1835: Samuel Butler is born. This unusual Victorian novelist is best known […]
The most significant events in the history of books on the 3rd of December 1857: Joseph Conrad is born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in Russian-occupied Poland. He would become fluent in several languages, including Polish, Russian, French, and English – and it would be in the last of these that he […]
The most significant events in the history of books on the 1st of December 1723: Susanna Centlivre dies. She was a popular playwright during the early eighteenth century, working closely with the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Her belated Restoration comedy, The Basset Table (1705), is probably her most famous play, although A Bold […]