Francesco Petrarca (or Petrarch) was a Renaissance humanist, historian, and poet. He is widely recognized as the “father of humanism.” He played a major role in launching the Renaissance in literature.
Francesco Petrarca was born on July 20, 1304 in Arezzo. His father, Pietro di Parenzo, was a notary who had migrated to Florence from his hometown of Incisa. In 1305, Petrarch and his mother, Eletta Canigiani, moved to Incisa, where his brother Gherardo was born in 1307. The family spent six years in Incisa and moved to Pisa in 1311. The following year they moved to Carpentras in southern France. In 1316, his father decided that Petrarch should become a lawyer and sent him to the University of Montpellier.
In 1320, Francesco and his brother went to Bologna to continue his legal studies. When his father died in April 1326, he returned to Avignon.
On April 6, 1327 in the Church of Saint Clare in Avignon, Petrarch saw and fell in love with a woman who inspired his poetic imagination for the rest of his life.
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Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, playwright, and novelist during the time of the Enlightenment. He is best known as the editor of the Encyclopedie.
Denis Diderot was born on October 15, 1713 in Langres, Compagne.
In 1726 Denis enrolled in the Jesuit college of Louis-le-Grand. Later he attended the Jansenist College d’Harcourt in Paris. While studying, Diderot worked as a tutor for wealthy families, wrote sermons, and did English translations.
In 1732 he earned a master of arts degree in philosophy.
In 1734 Diderot decided to become a writer. He broke with his family and for the next 10 years lived a rather bohemian existence.
In 1743 he married Antoinette Champion, who gave birth to one child, Angelique.
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Alan Alexander Milne was a British essayist, a playwright, a poet, and an adult novelist. He is best known as a master of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh.
A.A. Milne was born on January 18, 1882, in London, England. He was the youngest of three sons. His father, John Vine Milne, was the headmaster at Henley House, a private school, where Milne received his early education. He continued his education at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in mathematics in 1903. He was elected the editor of the literary magazine, Granta.
After college Milne began a career as a freelance writer. Later he was hired as an assistant editor for Punch magazine. During this period he also published his first novel, Lovers in London, a collection of sketches.
On June 4, 1913, Milne married Dorothy de Selincourt.
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Louisa May Alcott was a U.S. author best known for her novel Little Women. The book was based on her own experience growing up in a close-knit New England family. It is one of several of her stories that are still cherished by young readers.
She was also a reformer, working in the causes of temperance and woman’s suffrage.
Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Louisa May was the second of four daughters. She and her three sisters spent their childhood in poverty. Her father was a teacher and philosopher and Louisa received most of her schooling from him. She began writing at a young age. When Louise was two years old, the family moved to Boston, where her father founded an experimental school and joined the transcendentalists club, led by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Soon the Alcotts moved to Concord, Massachusetts, where they joined the utopian settlement Fruitlands, based by transcendentalists.
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Gwendolyn Brooks was an American poet. She wrote especially about the everyday lives of blacks in cities. Her poems describe the racism and poverty that African Americans have faced.
Gwendolyn was born on June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas. She was born into a family of a former school teacher and the son of a runaway slave – a former member of the Civil War. When the girl was only six weeks old, the family moved to Chicago. She started writing poetry when she was barely 7 years old.
When Gwendolyn was 13 years old, her poems were first published. By the age of 16 she had at least 75 published poems. The relationships between black people and white people strongly influenced her work.
After graduating from Wilson Junior College in 1936, she worked briefly at a Chicago tenement building – The Mecca.
In 1939 she married Henry L. Blakeley, and together they would raise two children. Brooks wrote poetry when the children were asleep or later while they were in school.
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Margaret Mitchell was the author of Gone With the Wind, one of the most popular books of all time. The novel was published in 1936 and sold more than a million copies in the first six months. It has been translated into twenty-seven languages. In 1937 Mitchell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
Margaret Mitchell was born on November 8, 1900 in Atlanta. Her mother, Mary Isabelle Stephens was of Irish-Catholic ancestry. Her father, Eugene Muse Mitchell, descended from Scotch- Irish and French Huguenots. Her mother was fond of reading and encouraged her daughter to write her own stories. Margaret wrote spooky ghost tales and short skits, and Margaret usually cast herself as the hero. Margaret’s mother was a devout Catholic. She was one of the founders of the League of Women Voters in Georgia and often took Margaret to suffragette rallies.
Margaret was a lively and spirited girl with a great sense of humor. In June 1918 she graduated from Washington Seminary and wanted to enter Smith College in Massachusetts. That summer she met and fell in love with Lt. Clifford Henry. Soon she received word that Clifford died in battle.
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Stephen Fry is a comedian, successful novelist, star of the silver screen. He is the nation’s favourite teddy bear and the most beloved of all television personalities. Fry has spent more than two decades as one of British television’s favorite comic actors.
Stephen Fry was born on August 24, 1957 in Hampstead, London into a family of an English physicist and inventor Alan John Fry and his wife Marianne Eve Fry (née Newman).
At the age of 17 Stephen left College of West Anglia and ran away from home. He took a credit card of a family friend. He was arrested in Swindon and spent three months in jail.
Fry continued his studies at City College Norwich. Later he entered the famous Queens College, where he studied English literature. In addition to his studies, he took part in productions of students’ theater, where he met his friend and colleague Hugh Laurie.
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