Classic Author Focus: Charlotte Riddell

Charlotte Riddell Charlotte Riddell was an Irish/English writer who is best known now for stories of the supernatural. During her lifetime, she was very popular and was the author of more than 50 novels and short stories. She was also part owner and editor of St. James Magazine, a prominent London journal of the time. …

Advertisement

Classic Author Focus: Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling Rudyard Kipling was a British poet, novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. He was born in British India, the location of many of his works. He is not as much in fashion these days, as a lot of his work celebrated British Imperialism, although he also wrote stories about British soldiers in India and …

Classic Author Focus: Angela Thirkell

Angela Thirkell Angela Thirkell had quite the pedigree. She was the daughter of John William Mackail, a Scottish Classical scholar, and Margaret Burne-Jones, who herself was the daughter of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones. She was a cousin of Rudyard Kipling, and her brother Denis Mackail, was also a novelist. Thirkell was educated at St. …

Classic Author Focus: Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson Although Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from severe bronchial trouble most of his life, he still traveled extensively and was a prolific writer of novels, essays, poems, and travel books and articles. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of a lighthouse engineer. As a child, he suffered from ill health, as …

Classic Author Focus: Bessie Head

Bessie Head Although author Bessie Head was born in South Africa and lived there until she was nearly 30, she is considered Botswana's most influential writer. Her writings were concerned with the contradictions and values in pre- and postcolonial African society. Head had a damaging childhood. She was the daughter of a white woman, Bessie …

Classic Author Focus: Margaret Oliphant

Margaret Oliphant Margaret Oliphant was a prolific Scottish writer who is best known for her domestic realism novels, although she also wrote historical novels and tales of the supernatural. She led a very sad life. She wrote under the name of "Mrs. Oliphant." The daughter of a clerk, Oliphant began writing at an early age …

Classic Author Focus: Johanna Spyri

Johanna Spyri Johanna Spyri was a Swiss author who is primarily known for writing the beloved children's classic, Heidi. Not much is known about Spyri's life except that she was born in a canton of Zurich named Hirzel and spent most of her life in that area. The setting she used for her novels was …

Classic Author Focus: Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Katherine Mansfield was a New Zealand author who was considered a master of the short story form and one of the most influential and important Modernist authors. Her works explored anxiety, existentialism, and sexuality, and eventually developed a New Zealand identity. Mansfield was born in Thornton near Wellington to a socially prominent family. …

Classic Author Focus: Nikos Kazantzakis

Nikos Kazantzakis Nikos Kazantzakis was a Greek writer who was born in Heraklion, Crete, when it was claimed by the Ottoman Empire. At the time, Crete was revolting against the Ottomans, so Kazantzakis's parents had to flee with him for a while to the island of Naxos. Not much information is available about his younger …

Classic Author Focus: Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley It should be obvious why I picked Mary Shelley for my focus post this month, as her most famous work is the Gothic horror novel, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, so, totally appropriate for October. Mary Shelley was an English novelist who had a rather exciting life for an early 19th century woman …

Classic Author Focus: Miles Franklin

Miles Franklin Miles Franklin was an Australian writer and feminist who was determined to develop a uniquely Australian form of literature and whose success is measured by the Stella prize for the best Australian literature by a woman, established by her estate and named in her honor. (Her full name was Stella Maria Sarah Miles …

Classic Author Focus: Sir Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott was a Scottish novelist, playwright, translator, historian, and poet but also an advocate, judge, and legal administrator. He is primarily known for being the inventor of historical fiction and one of its greatest practitioners. When only a few years old, Scott survived a bout of polio that left him …

Classic Author Focus: Nellie Campobello

Nellie Campobello Nellie Campobello was a Mexican writer, ballet dancer, and choreographer. Her best known work is Carthucho, the only work by a woman novelist to document the Mexican Revolution. She was also a founder of the Mexico City Ballet and a director of the Mexican National School of Dance. The biographical articles I could …

Classic Author Focus: Isak Dinesen

Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) Isak Dinesen is the nom de plume of Danish writer Karen Blixen. She is best known for her memoir Out of Africa, about the years when she farmed a coffee plantation in Kenya, but she was mostly a short story writer and poet. Although Dinesen's family was among the Danish upper …

Classic Author Focus: Frans G. Bengtsson

Frans G. Bengtsson I wanted to write about Frans G. Bengtsson, because I so much enjoyed reading his book The Long Ships, an unexpectedly exuberant and funny novel about a Viking. However, this will be a short post, because there's not much information available online about him. Bengtsson was a Swedish novelist, essayist, poet, translator, …

Classic Author Focus: Flora Nwapa

Flora Nwapa Flora Nwapa has been called the mother of Nigerian writing, and she was the first African woman novelist to be published in English in Britain. She is best known for recreating the life and customs of the Igbo from a woman's viewpoint. She also worked with orphans and refugees who were displaced after …