Authors’ Words: Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau, (born July 12, 1817, Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.—died May 6, 1862, Concord), American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher renowned for having lived the doctrines of Transcendentalism as recorded in his masterwork, Walden (1854), and for having been a vigorous advocate of civil liberties, as evidenced in the essay “Civil Disobedience” (1849).

Thoreau was born in 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts, the third child of a feckless small businessman named John Thoreau and his bustling wife, Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau. Though his family moved the following year, they returned in 1823. Even when he grew ambivalent about the village after reaching adulthood, he never grew ambivalent about its lovely setting of woodlands, streams, and meadows. In 1828 his parents sent him to Concord Academy, where he impressed his teachers and so was permitted to prepare for college. Upon graduating from the academy, he entered Harvard University in 1833. There he was a good student, but he was indifferent to the rank system and preferred to use the school library for his own purposes. Graduating in the middle ranks of the class of 1837, Thoreau searched for a teaching job and secured one at his old grammar school in Concord. He found that he was no disciplinarian and resigned after two shaky weeks, after which he worked for his father in the family pencil-making business. In June 1838 he started a small school with the help of his brother John. Despite its progressive nature, it lasted for three years, until John fell ill.

In Emerson’s company Thoreau’s hope of becoming a poet looked not only proper but feasible. Late in 1837, at Emerson’s suggestion, he began keeping a journal that covered thousands of pages before he scrawled the final entry two months before his death. He soon polished some of his old college essays and composed new and better ones as well. He wrote some poems—a good many, in fact—for several years. A canoe trip that he and his brother John took along the Concord and Merrimack rivers in 1839 confirmed in him the opinion that he ought not be a schoolmaster but a poet of nature.

As the 1840s began, Thoreau formally took up the profession of poet. Captained by Emerson, the Transcendentalists started a magazine, The Dial. Its inaugural issue, dated July 1840, carried Thoreau’s poem “Sympathy” and his essay on the Roman poet Aulus Persius Flaccus. The Dial published more of Thoreau’s poems and then, in July 1842, the first of his outdoor essays, “Natural History of Massachusetts.” Though disguised as a book review, it showed that a nature writer of distinction was in the making. Then followed more lyrics, and fine ones, such as “To the Maiden in the East,” and another nature essay, remarkably felicitous, “A Winter Walk.” The Dial ceased publication with the April 1844 issue, having published a richer variety of Thoreau’s writing than any other magazine ever would.

Back in Concord Thoreau rejoined his family’s business, making pencils and grinding graphite. By early 1845 he felt more restless than ever, until he decided to take up an idea of a Harvard classmate who had once built a waterside hut in which one could read and contemplate. In the spring Thoreau picked a spot by Walden Pond, a small glacial lake located 2 miles (3 km) south of Concord on land Emerson owned.

Early in the spring of 1845, Thoreau, then 27 years old, began to chop down tall pines with which to build the foundations of his home on the shores of Walden Pond. From the outset the move gave him profound satisfaction. Once settled, he restricted his diet for the most part to the fruits and vegetables he found growing wild and the beans he planted. When not busy weeding his bean rows and trying to protect them from hungry groundhogs or occupied with fishing, swimming, or rowing, he spent long hours observing and recording the local flora and fauna, reading, and writing A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). He also made entries in his journals, which he later polished and included in Walden. Much time, too, was spent in meditation.

cabin at Walden PondReplica of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond State Reservation in Concord, Massachusetts.Heather Nicaise—iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Out of such activity and thought came Walden, a series of 18 essays describing Thoreau’s experiment in basic living and his effort to set his time free for leisure. Several of the essays provide his original perspective on the meaning of work and leisure and describe his experiment in living as simply and self-sufficiently as possible, while in others Thoreau described the various realities of life at Walden Pond: his intimacy with the small animals he came in contact with; the sounds, smells, and look of woods and water at various seasons; the music of wind in telegraph wires—in short, the felicities of learning how to fulfill his desire to live as simply and self-sufficiently as possible. The physical act of living day by day at Walden Pond is what gives the book authority, while Thoreau’s command of a clear, straightforward, elegant style helped raise it to the level of a literary classic.

Britannica.com Henry David Thoreau

Bio and image courtesy of Britannica.com.
Thoreau quote and image from anonymous.

Authors’ Words: Anais Nin

Anais Nin

Anais Nin was a 20th century diarist.  She began what became her life-long work of art in 1914 at the age of eleven and kept writing until her death 63 years later in 1977. 

Nin’s diary focused on her interior life and became the chronicle of her search for fulfillment in what was often for women a painfully restrictive culture. 

 Anais Nin was born in France in 1903.  Her Cuban-born parents lived as genteel artists, mainly in Paris and Spain.  In a blow that affected her all of her life, Nin’s composer father, Joaquin Nin, abandoned his wife and children, forcing them to set sail for a new life America.  While on board the ship young Nin wrote a letter to lure her father back to the family.  This letter was never sent, but it was the beginning of her famous diary.

…

While living a dual life in New York and Los Angeles during the 1960s, Nin made the risky decision to allow her diary to be published, though she chose to remove the most private details of her romantic relationships.  The first installment, published in 1966, was titled The Diary of Anais Nin and it was an immediate success.  Though it was a profoundly personal work, it hit a universal vein of experience — especially with women.  Nin found herself, then in her sixties and seventies, playing the part of an international feminist icon. 

While Nin traveled the world speaking about her writing and meeting fans, subsequent volumes of her edited diary were published.  They covered the period up through the end of her life and totaled seven volumes.  Finally, in 1977, Nin died of cancer in Los Angeles with Rupert Pole by her side.

Before she died it was Nin’s decision to have her early diaries published, as well as erotica she’d written in the 1940s.  As a result, Delta of Venus, Little Birds, and Nin’s childhood diary titled Linotte were released, as well as three volumes of The Early Diary of Anais Nin.  Also, in a decision that generated much controversy, Nin asked Rupert Pole to publish the “secret” parts of her previously-released diaries.  The first “unexpurgated” diary is titled Henry & June; it includes the material removed from Nin’s first published diary and was made into a feature film.  Other unexpurgated diaries include Incest, Fire, Nearer the Moon, Mirages, and Trapeze.

During her 63 years of highly personal and yet ultimately public writing, Anais Nin forged a style of expression that befits the 21st century.  She seemed to foresee our modern era of Internet communication, even wishing for what she called a “café in space” where she could keep in touch with others.  Nin believed that consciousness is a stream of images and words that flow from us as long as we live, and something to be shared. 

Resources:

https://theanaisninfoundation.org/bio

Authors’ Words: Larry L. King

Larry L. King

Larry L. King, (Lawrence Leo King), American writer and playwright (born Jan. 1, 1929, Putnam, Texas—died Dec. 20, 2012, Washington, D.C.), was most widely known as the co-writer of the popular musical stage play The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1977), based on a 1974 article of the same name that he wrote for Playboy magazine about the shuttering of a small bordello in southeastern Texas; the article exhibited his characteristic vivid and deeply personal writing style.

King contributed articles to various magazines, including Texas Observer (1964–74), Harper’s (1967–71), and Texas Monthly 1973–78), and several books of his collected articles were published. His other books include the memoir Confessions of a White Racist (1971).

Resources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Larry-L-King

Please Note: Image of Quote found on Google.com. Unable to determine origin. Credit to the creator of the image.

Authors’ Words: Edgar Allen Poe

Writers Unite!’s Write the Story project has been successful with more and more writers joining it. To celebrate the short story, a quote from a master teller of short stories and more, the amazing Edgar Allen Poe.

“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” —Eleonora by Edgar Allen Poe (published 1850)

Edgar Allan Poe

On January 19, 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe’s father and mother, both professional actors, died before the poet was three years old, and John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child in Richmond, Virginia. John Allan, a prosperous tobacco exporter, sent Poe to the best boarding schools and later to the University of Virginia, where Poe excelled academically. After less than one year of school, however, he was forced to leave the university when Allan refused to pay Poe’s gambling debts.

Poe returned briefly to Richmond, but his relationship with Allan deteriorated. In 1827, he moved to Boston and enlisted in the United States Army. His first collection of poems, Tamerlane, and Other Poems, was published that year. In 1829, he published a second collection entitled Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. Neither volume received significant critical or public attention. Following his Army service, Poe was admitted to the United States Military Academy, but he was again forced to leave for lack of financial support. He then moved into the home of his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia in Baltimore, Maryland.

Poe began to sell short stories to magazines at around this time, and, in 1835, he became the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, where he moved with his aunt and cousin Virginia. In 1836, he married Virginia, who was thirteen years old at the time. Over the next ten years, Poe would edit a number of literary journals including the Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and Graham’s Magazine in Philadelphia and the Broadway Journal in New York City. It was during these years that he established himself as a poet, a short story writer, and an editor. He published some of his best-known stories and poems, including “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and “The Raven.” After Virginia’s death from tuberculosis in 1847, Poe’s lifelong struggle with depression and alcoholism worsened. He returned briefly to Richmond in 1849 and then set out for an editing job in Philadelphia. For unknown reasons, he stopped in Baltimore. On October 3, 1849, he was found in a state of semi-consciousness. Poe died four days later of “acute congestion of the brain.” Evidence by medical practitioners who reopened the case has shown that Poe may have been suffering from rabies.

Poe’s work as an editor, a poet, and a critic had a profound impact on American and international literature. His stories mark him as one of the originators of both horror and detective fiction. Many anthologies credit him as the “architect” of the modern short story. He was also one of the first critics to focus primarily on the effect of style and structure in a literary work; as such, he has been seen as a forerunner to the “art for art’s sake” movement. French Symbolists such as Mallarmé and Rimbaud claimed him as a literary precursor. Baudelaire spent nearly fourteen years translating Poe into French. Today, Poe is remembered as one of the first American writers to become a major figure in world literature.

Resources

https://poets.org/poet/edgar-allan-poe

Image of Quote found on Google.com. Unable to determine origin. Credit to the creator of the image.

Authors’ Words – Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman

Prolific author Neil Gaiman was born and raised in England but moved to the United States in 1992, where he continues to reside outside Minneapolis. He is well known as a master storyteller working in a variety of mediums who mixes modern reality with the fantastic.

Gaiman began his career as a freelance journalist, writing for various British newspapers and magazines. He later moved into many other areas of writing, including comic books, screenplays, fiction, young adult novels, children’s books and nonfiction. Gaiman’s critically acclaimed comic book series The Sandman ran for 75 issues, from 1989 until 1996. The Sandman was later collected into a series of 10 graphic novels. In addition to creating The Sandman series, Gaiman has been called upon to reimagine other comic creators’ works, including The Eternals miniseries for Marvel Comics and an issue of Spawn for Image Comics. The Sandman series inspired a number of spin-off series by other writers as well as spin-offs by Gaiman, including Death: The High Cost of Living.

Gaiman’s fiction includes Neverwhere, which was originally conceived as a BBC television miniseries; Good Omens, a humorous novel about the apocalypse co-written with Terry Pratchett, who is known for his comic fantasy Discworld series; the short story collection Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions; and American Gods, which garnered numerable awards including the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, SFX and Locus.

The many awards Gaiman has won give evidence of his talent and popularity. His young adult novel The Graveyard Book won the Newbery Medal in 2009. Coraline won the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2003 Nebula Award for Best Novella and the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers. In 2000, The Sandman: The Dream Hunters won a Bram Stoker award for Best Illustrated Narrative. Issue #19 of The Sandman, entitled A Midsummer Night’s Dream, won the 1991 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction.

Resources:

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/neil_gaiman_461447

Please note: Image from the Internet… no source available. Credit to photographer. Bio from the Chicago Public Library Site.

Authors’ Words: Mark Twain

Mark Twain Biography

Born in Florida, Missouri in 1835, Samuel Langhorne Clemens would start a life that would be filled with great satire short stories. However, later in life he would go by his pseudonym, Mark Twain. A few years after his birth, he would move to Hannibal, MO. Like most boys his age, Twain was filled adventure and curiosity. He would wander through the woods and write down what he saw. After a while he started to work for his brother as a writer for one of his papers, Orion Clemens. He would then submit his first known writing to a Boston magazine. The piece was called Carpet-Bag.
Twain would then start to travel up down the Mississippi river, stopping here and there to submit writings to local newspapers while he is on his travels. In 1857, he would meet a man named Horace Bixby who was a riverboat captain. There Twain would be Bixby’s first mate for two years while they would travel down the Mississippi. Twain enjoyed this so much that he got his own pilot’s license. His adventures would come to an end when the Civil War was happening. Twain then decided to join the Confederate Army for a brief stint. After the war, he would move out to Nevada where is brother, Orion received a government job for helping Abraham Lincoln’s campaign for the presidency. While there, Twain didn’t get along with one of the other journalists and the other journalist wanted to resolve it through a duel, but Twain decided to flee to San Francisco to avoid legal conflictions. He would then travel along the western part of the country for a few years contributing stories such as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. After that, he would get on a boat that would take him to Europe and the middle east. During this travel, he would compile and complete his book The Innocents Abroad.
Over the next years, he would do some more traveling and eventually end up living in Connecticut. During this time he would publish stories such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He would pass into the afterlife in 1910 at the age of 75. Heart disease was later named the cause of death. People raved at Twain’s writing when he was walking on this earth. Still today people can’t get enough of his writing. Twain is truly one of the great faces of American literature.

Resources:

https://celebratedjumpingfrog.wordpress.com/

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau (baptized David Henry Thoreau) was born on July 12, 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts, to John Thoreau and Cynthia Dunbar. He was the third of four children. He was named after a recently deceased paternal uncle, David Thoreau, but since everyone always called him Henry, he eventually changed his name to Henry David, although he never petitioned to make a legal name change. Henry’s father was a businessman and active in the Concord Fire Society. His mother spent her time raising Henry and his three siblings, Helen, John and Sophia. 

young Thoreau

When Thoreau was sixteen, he entered Harvard College, where he was known as a serious though unconventional scholar. Henry’s older siblings, Helen and John, Jr., were both schoolteachers. When it was decided that their brother should go to Harvard, as had his grandfather before him, they contributed from their teaching salaries to help pay his expenses. While at college, Thoreau studied Latin and Greek grammar and composition, and took classes in a wide variety of subjects, including mathematics, English, history, philosophy, and four different modern languages. During his Harvard years he was exposed to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who later became his chief mentor and friend. 

After graduating in 1837 and into the early 1840s Thoreau was occupied as a schoolteacher and tutor. A canoe trip in 1839 convinced him that he should not persue a schoolteacher’s career but should instead aim to become established as a poet of nature. In 1841 he was invited to live in the Emerson household, where he remained intermittently until 1843. He served as handyman and assistant to Emerson, helping to edit and contributing poetry and prose to the transcendentalist magazine, The Dial. 

cabin at Walden

Thoreau came to consider that he needed time and space to apply himself as a writer and on July 4, 1845, he moved into a small self-built house in a second-growth forest around the shores of Walden Pond. He stayed there for two years, two months and two days, sometimes traveling into Concord for supplies and eating with his family about once a week. Friends and family also visited him at his cabin, where he spent nearly every night. While at Walden, Thoreau did an incredible amount of reading and writing, and also spent much time sauntering in nature. 

In July 1846, when Thoreau went into town to have a pair of shoes repaired, he was arrested for refusing to pay a poll tax meant to support America’s war in Mexico. He spent a night in jail. His most famous essay, Civil Disobedience (published 1849), which in its call for passive resistance to unjust laws was to inspire Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., was a result of this experience. The journal he kept at Walden became the source of his most famous book, Walden, Or Life in the Woods (1854), in which he set forth his ideas on how an individual should best live to be attuned to his own nature as well as to nature itself. 

Thoreau left Walden Pond on September 6, 1847. After that, he resided again in Emerson’s house (1847–49) and then for the rest of his life in his family home. He occasionally worked at the pencil factory and did some surveying work. He also traveled to Canada, Cape Cod, and Maine – landscapes that inspired his “excursion” books – A Yankee in Canada, Cape Cod, and The Maine Woods. By the 1850s he had become greatly concerned over slavery, and, having met John Brown in 1857, wrote passionately in his defence. 

Aware that he was dying of tuberculosis, Thoreau cut short his travels and returned to Concord, where he prepared some of his journals for publication. Although he never earned a substantial living by his writings, his works fill 20 volumes. 

Thoreau died of tuberculosis on May 6, 1862, at the age of 44. He is buried on Authors’ Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. 

Resources: http://www.thoreau-online.org/henry-david-thoreau-biography.htm

Authors’ Words: Charles Dickens

Dickens’s A Christmas Carol has become an iconic fixture in our celebration of the holiday. Everyone has their favorite movie version of this story of goodwill to all men and redemption for one man. However, to read the novel is to experience the true depth of character and spirit that Dickens intended.

“And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!” 
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens, in full Charles John Huffam Dickens, (born February 7, 1812, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England—died June 9, 1870, Gad’s Hill, near Chatham, Kent), English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian era. His many volumes include such works as A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual Friend.

Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity during his lifetime than had any previous author. Much in his work could appeal to the simple and the sophisticated, to the poor and to the queen, and technological developments as well as the qualities of his work enabled his fame to spread worldwide very quickly. His long career saw fluctuations in the reception and sales of individual novels, but none of them was negligible or uncharacteristic or disregarded, and, though he is now admired for aspects and phases of his work that were given less weight by his contemporaries, his popularity has never ceased. The most abundantly comic of English authors, he was much more than a great entertainer. The range, compassion, and intelligence of his apprehension of his society and its shortcomings enriched his novels and made him both one of the great forces in 19th-century literature and an influential spokesman of the conscience of his age.

Resources:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Dickens-British-novelist

Authors Words: Stan Lee

QUOTES: “As far as I’m concerned, a really great comic-book story is every bit as creative and important as a great story done in any other form of the media.”—Stan Lee

Stan Lee Biography

Television Producer, Producer, Author, Editor, Publisher (1922–2018)

Stan Lee was a revered comic-book creator who co-launched superheroes like the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and the X-Men for Marvel Comics.

Born in New York City on December 28, 1922, Stan Lee went on to work for the company that would eventually become Marvel Comics. With artist Jack Kirby, Lee launched the superhero team the Fantastic Four in 1961, and was soon responsible for creating popular characters like Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Hulk and Thor. Lee later worked in a number of comic-related business and multimedia ventures.

Early Life and Career

Stanley Martin Lieber was born on December 28, 1922, in New York City to Romanian immigrants Celia and Jack Lieber. With part of his childhood spent during the Great Depression, Lieber and his younger brother, Larry, watched his parents struggle to make ends meet for the family.

Lieber, who later shortened his name to “Lee” as a writer, went on to be hired as an office assistant at Timely Comics in 1939 and became an interim editor for the company in the early 1940s. Lee also served domestically in the Army during World War II, working as a writer and illustrator.

Co-creating the Fantastic Four

In the early ’60s, Lee was called upon by his boss to create a series for Marvel Comics(Timely’s new name) that could compete with rival DC Comics’ hit title Justice League of America. Citing writing influences like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne, and following the encouragement of his wife, Joan, Lee did away with some of the usual superhero conventions. Hence, with artist and co-creator Jack Kirby, the Fantastic Four was born in 1961. 

Hulk, Spider-Man and More Join Marvel’s Lineup

Following the success of the Fantastic Four, a slew of new characters soon sprung from Lee and his Marvel cohorts, including the Hulk, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Daredevil and the X-Men.

Lee was particularly known for his dynamism with copy and for imbuing his characters with a sense of humanity, tackling real-world issues like bigotry and drug use, which would influence comics for decades. An outgoing, humorous showman, he also developed a number of slogans as part of his shtick, including a Latin-derived call to rise, “Excelsior!”  

Marvel Comics became a highly popular franchise, and Stan Lee was promoted to editorial director and publisher in 1972. He later moved to the West Coast to be involved in Marvel’s film ventures and eventually became chairman emeritus.

Shepherding the Rise of a Blockbuster Industry

Lee has become involved in a variety of multimedia projects while also serving as an ambassador for Marvel, even though he has filed lawsuits against the company and been the subject of debate over appropriate compensation for comic creators. The writer has seen Marvel develop into an entity that has inspired blockbuster film entertainment like the Iron Man, X-Men, Thor and The Avengers franchises.

Lee started intellectual-property company POW! Entertainment in 2001 and the following year published his autobiography, Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee. Later in the decade he received a Medal of Arts honor from President George W. Bush and launched the History Channel show Stan Lee’s Superhumans, a series that looked at people with remarkable skills and abilities.

2012 saw more new ventures. Lee co-wrote a graphic novel, Romeo and Juliet: The War, which landed on The New York Times‘ best-seller list and launched a YouTube channel, Stan Lee’s World of Heroes, which features comic, comedy and sci-fi content. At the end of the year, the ever-active Lee turned 90.

Later Health Problems, Legal Battles & Death

Lee endured the loss of his wife of nearly 70 years, Joan, in July 2017. He then gave fans a scare when he checked into a hospital for an irregular heartbeat and shortness of breath the following January. However, the comic book titan was discharged shortly afterward, and announced he was ready to resume a full schedule with the latest Marvel feature, Black Panther, soon to be released. 

Although things seemed to be humming along nicely for Lee and the Marvel universe, an April 2018 feature in The Hollywood Reporter painted a far different story. According to the publication, Lee’s daughter J.C. and other insiders were engaged in a battle over care of the 95-year-old and the future of his estate, the sides pitting Lee against one another and inducing him to dismiss formerly trusted associates. The piece also described J.C.’s tempestuous relationship with Lee, including an incident in which she physically assaulted both of her elderly parents.  

Resources:

Lee died on November 12, 2018 in Los Angeles, California.

https://www.biography.com/people/stan-lee-21101093

Words of Hunter S. Thompson

 

 

Hunter S. Thompson was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1937. He showed a knack for writing at a young age, and after high school began his career in journalism while serving in the United States Air Force. Following his military service, Thompson traveled the country to cover a wide array of topics for numerous magazines and developed an immersive, highly personal style of reporting that would become known as “Gonzo journalism.” He would employ the style in the 1972 book for which he is best known, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which was an instant and lasting success. For the remainder of his life, Thompson’s hard-driving lifestyle—which included the steady use of illicit drugs and an ongoing love affair with firearms—and his relentlessly antiauthoritarian work made him a perpetual counterculture icon. However, his fondness for substances also contributed to several bouts of poor health, and in 2005 Thompson committed suicide at the age of 67.

https://www.biography.com/people/hunter-s-thompson-9506260