Fun facts from the life of the great nineteenth-century American writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne 1. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great-great-grandfather, John Hathorne, was one of the judges at the Salem witch trials. Nathaniel added the ‘w’ to his family name in an attempt to distance himself from this controversial ancestry. The young Hathorne – […]
Fun facts about Bambi, the children’s book on which the classic Disney film was based 1. The classic Disney film Bambi was based on a largely forgotten book. Bambi: A Life in the Woods was written by Felix Salten (born Siegmund Salzmann), an Austrian author, and published in 1926. A perhaps surprisingly […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle 1. Nobody knows for sure why limericks are named limericks. There have been numerous theories put forward for why the five-line verse known as the ‘limerick’ is so named, but none of them is conclusive. The name ‘limerick’ was first applied to the five-line form in […]
Fun facts about Margaret Atwood, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale 1. Atwood has had a record number of nominations for the Booker Prize. The Canadian novelist has been nominated five times for the prestigious award, and on one of those occasions, Atwood won the coveted prize, for The Blind Assassin. Her 2009 […]
Interesting William Burroughs facts: concerning his life, his work, and his links with other writers 1. Before he became a famous novelist, William S. Burroughs worked in pest-control as an exterminator. Many writers started out in somewhat surprising jobs. Douglas Adams was a bodyguard to a Middle Eastern family of […]