The most significant events in the history of books on the 5th of December 1784: Phillis Wheatley dies. The first black poet of the Americas to publish a book, Wheatley was an eighteenth-century black slave taught to read by her owners. She composed over 100 poems in her lifetime. You can […]
The most significant events in the history of books on the 2nd of December 1814: Marquis de Sade dies. As well as giving us the word ‘sadist’ for one who enjoys inflicting pain on others, Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (to cite his full name) was also a novelist who […]
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 […]