Mary Shelley – creator of Frankenstein

Mary Shelley was a British novelist, the author of Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus.
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born on August 30, 1797 in London. Mary was born into the family of well-known feminist, teacher, and writer Mary Wollstonecraft and equally famous liberal philosopher, journalist and atheist-anarchist William Godwin. Her mother died in childbirth, and her father, who was forced to take care of Mary and her half-sister Fanny Imlay, quickly married again. Mary received an excellent education, which was rare for women at that time.
She met Percy Shelley, the same radical and free-thinker like her father, when Percy and his first wife Harriet visited Godwin’s home in London. In the summer of 1814 he and Mary, who was then only 16, fell in love with each other. They fled to France together with Mary’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont. It was the second escape of the poet; he had already ran away with Harriet three years earlier. Returning a few weeks later, the young couple was astonished that Godwin did not want to see them.
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Ben Carson – neurosurgeon and author

Ben Carson is American neurosurgeon and author. He was the first doctor who successfully performed an operation to separate Siamese twins who were born joined at the head. In 2008 the 43rd US President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was a candidate for the US presidency in 2016.
Benjamin Solomon “Ben” Carson Sr. was born on September 18, 1951 in Detroit, Michigan. His parents divorced when Ben was eight years old. His mother had only a third-grade education and worked as a maid, sometimes holding two or even three jobs to support her family. The family was poor.
While studying in secondary school, Ben had a dream – to become a doctor.
He graduated from Yale University (Department of Psychology), and then the medical department of the University of Michigan.
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Carrie Fisher – actress and novelist

Carrie Fisher is an American actress, screenwriter and novelist, the daughter of actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher. She became famous after her role of Princess Leia Organa in film series Star Wars.
Carrie Fisher was born on October 21, 1956 in Beverly Hills, California. Her father Eddie Fisher was a crooner and her mother Mary Frances was an actress, known under the name Debbie Reynolds. Carrie has a younger brother, Todd Fisher. Her two half-sisters, Joely Fisher and Tricia Leigh Fisher, are also actresses. When Carrie was 2 years old, her parents divorced and her father married actress Elizabeth Taylor. The following year, her mother married Harry Karl, the owner of a chain of shoe stores.
Carrie’s dream was to become an actress like her mother. Her debut was in 1973 in the musical Irene, the revival of the Broadway hit, where she acted together with her mother.
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Franz Kafka – great writer

Franz Kafka was one of the greatest German-language writers of the XX century. Most of his work was published posthumously. His works filled with nonsense and fear of the outside world and the highest authority are unique phenomenon in world literature. Many later writers have acknowledged Kafka’s influence, including Jorge Luis Borges, Milan Kundera, Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, and Salman Rushdie.
Franz Kafka was born on July 3, 1883 in Prague, Austria-Hungary. His father – Herman Kafka (1852-1931), came from a Czech-Jewish community in South Bohemia, since 1882 was a wholesaler haberdashery. The mother of the writer Julia Kafka (nee Etl Levy) (1856-1934) was the daughter of a wealthy brewer. Kafka had two younger brothers and three younger sisters. Both brothers died before Kafka was 6 years old.
Kafka attended only German schools: from 1893 to 1901 the most severe grammar school, the Deutsches Staatsgymnasium in the Old Town Square, and from 1901 to 1906 the Karl Ferdinand University of Prague. As a student Kafka made acquaintances with other intellectuals and aspiring artists. He befriended Max Brod, a lifelong friend and confidant, to whom he would later entrust his literary estate.
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Alexandre Dumas Son – French playwright

Alexandre Dumas Son (Fr. Alexandre Dumas fils) was a French playwright and writer, member of the French Academy (since 1875), the son of Alexandre Dumas.
Alexandre Dumas Son was born on July 27, 1824 in Paris. His mother, Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay, was a simple Parisian seamstress. Dumas Sr. left the boy’s mother. He didn’t want to marry her and recognize her child. On March 17, 1831 his father officially legitimized his son and gave him a good education.
At the age of 18 Dumas began to write poems in periodicals. In 1847 he published his first book of poems, «Péchés de jeunesse» (The sins of youth) which was followed by a series of small novels and short stories, which partly reflected the influence of his father ( Aventures de quatre femmes et d’un perroquet ( The Adventures of four women and a parrot), Le Docteur Servans (Dr. Servan), Cesarine, Le Roman d’une femme, Trois hommes forts etc. Later he published more original novels and stories: Diane de Lys, Un paquet de lettres, La dame aux perles, Un cas de rupture and others.
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Alexandre Dumas Father – French writer

Alexandre Dumas was a French writer, playwright and journalist. His works have been translated into almost a hundred languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. He also wrote many articles for magazines and travel books. His work consists of 100 000 pages. In 1847 Dumas founded Historic Theatre in Paris. He earned his reputation thanks to the two most famous novels of French literature Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.
Alexandre Dumas was born on July 24, 1802 in Villers-Cotterets. He was born into the family of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas and Marie-Louise Labouret, the daughter of the innkeeper. His grandmother was a black slave from San Domingo. His grandfather French Marquis sold all their four children into slavery. Only four years later, he bought back one of his sons who subsequently became the father of the great French writer.
Dumas wanted to become a playwright. He attended the theater to study the profession of playwright.
Dumas, who had to support his mother and an illegitimate son Alexander, wrote Henry III And His Court for two months. The premiere took place on February 10, 1829 in the Comedie Francaise. It was a success.
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Fedor Dostoevsky – great Russian writer

Fedor Dostoevsky is regarded as one of the world’s great novelists. In Russia he was surpassed only by Leo Tolstoi. Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist and short story author whose writings often focus on the psychological aspects of deep human emotion and suffering.
Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in a Moscow hospital where his father was a physician. His mother died before he was 16, and, allegedly, the household servants murdered his father while Dostoevsky was away at school.
13-year-old Fedor was sent to a Moscow boarding school, and then he entered military engineering school in St. Petersburg.
In 1843 he finished his first novel, Poor Folk, a social tale about an abject civil servant.
In April 1849 Dostoevsky was imprisoned and sentenced to be shot, but at the last minute their sentence was changed to four years of hard labor in a prison in Omsk, Siberia. There he read and reread the New Testament, the only book he had. It was the wife of the Decembrist Fonvizin who gave him the book.
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