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Authors’ Club
The Authors' Club is a British membership organisation established as a place where writers could meet and talk. It was founded by the novelist and critic Walter Besant in 1891. It is headquartered at the National Liberal Club. The Authors' Club was based for many years next door to its present site, on Whitehall Court, first moving into the National Liberal Club in 1966. After ten years there, in 1976 the Authors' Club joined forces with The Arts Club in Dover Street, London W1. In 2011 it moved to Blacks, a Grade 2* listed building by John Meard in Dean Street, Soho — a house that was once home to a club run by Samuel Johnson and Thomas Gainsborough — where it remained for three years. It has now returned to its old home in the National Liberal Club. The Club welcomes both men and women as members, and is open to all those "professionally engaged with literature". It was at a dinner at the Authors' Club that Oscar Wilde denounced the censorship of his play ''Salome''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman, (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, helping to save St Pancras railway station from demolition. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television. Life Early life and education Betjeman was born in London to a prosperous silverware maker of Dutch descent. His parents, Mabel () and Ernest Betjemann, had a family firm at 34–42 Pentonville Road which manufactured the kind of ornamental household furniture and gadgets distinctive to Victorians. During the First World War the family name was changed to the less German-looking Betjeman. His father's forebears had actually come from the present day Netherlands more than a century earlier, setting up their home and business in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Dunsany
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany (; 24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957), commonly known as Lord Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. He published more than 90 books during his lifetime, and his output consisted of hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, and essays; further works were published posthumously. Having gained a name in the 1910s as a writer in the English-speaking world, he is best known today for the 1924 fantasy novel ''The King of Elfland's Daughter'', and his first book, ''The Gods of Pegāna'', which depicts a fictional pantheon. Many critics feel his early work laid grounds for the fantasy genre. Born in London as heir to one of the oldest Irish peerages, he was raised partly in Kent, but later lived mainly at Ireland's possibly longest-inhabited home, Dunsany Castle and Demesne, Dunsany Castle near Tara, Ireland, Tara. He worked with W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, and supported the Abbey Theatre and some fellow writers. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banister Fletcher
Sir Banister Flight Fletcher (15 February 1866 – 17 August 1953) was an English architect and architectural historian, as was his father, also named Banister Fletcher. They wrote the standard textbook ''A History of Architecture'', which is also often referred to just as Banister Fletcher. Life Fletcher was born and died in London, where he trained at King's College and University College. He joined his father's practice in 1884, also studying at the Royal Academy Schools, the Architectural Association, and the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. He became a partner in 1889, and on his father's death in 1899 took over the practice, which continued to be called Banister Fletcher & Sons. Fletcher worked closely with his younger brother Herbert Phillips Fletcher (1872–1916) as well as his father. Herbert was also a partner in the family firm and they wrote some books together. He was "regarded as a minor figure in the modernist movement" in his early career, and gen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian era, Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain such as those from his native South West England. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as ''Far from the Madding Crowd'' (1874), ''The Mayor of Casterbridge'' (1886), ''Tess of the d'Urbervilles'' (1891) and ''Jude the Obscure'' (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgian Poetry, Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Meredith
George Meredith (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first, his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but Meredith gradually established a reputation as a novelist. '' The Ordeal of Richard Feverel'' (1859) briefly scandalised Victorian literary circles. Of his later novels, the most enduring is '' The Egoist'' (1879), though in his lifetime his greatest success was '' Diana of the Crossways'' (1885). His novels were innovative in their attention to characters' psychology, and also portrayed social change. His style, in both poetry and prose, was noted for its syntactic complexity; Oscar Wilde likened it to "chaos illumined by brilliant flashes of lightning". Meredith was an encourager of other novelists, as well as an influence on them; among those to benefit were Robert Louis Stevenson and George Gissing. Meredith was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. Life Early years, educa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction. Doyle was a prolific writer. In addition to the Holmes stories, his works include fantasy and science fiction stories about Professor Challenger, and humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels. One of Doyle's early short stories, "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (1884), helped to popularise the mystery of the brigantine ''Mary Celeste'', found drifting at sea with no crew member aboard. Name Doyle is often referred to as "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" or "Conan Doyle", implying that "Conan" is part of a Double-barrelled name, compound surname rather than a mid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British statesman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. Attlee was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Deputy Prime Minister during the Churchill war ministry, wartime coalition government under Winston Churchill, and Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom), Leader of the Opposition on three occasions: from 1935 to 1940, briefly in 1945 and from 1951 to 1955. He remains the longest serving Labour leader. Attlee was born into an upper middle class family, the son of a wealthy London solicitor. After attending Haileybury College and the University of Oxford, he practised as a Barristers in England and Wales, barrister. The volunteer work he carried out in London's East End exposed him to poverty, and his political views shifted leftwards thereafter. He joined the Independent Labour Party ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TS Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, vi He was a leading figure in Modernist poetry in English, English-language Modernist poetry where he reinvigorated the art through his use of language, writing style, and verse structure. He is also noted for his critical essays, which often re-evaluated long-held cultural beliefs. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25 and went on to settle, work, and marry there. He became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39 and renounced his American citizenship. Eliot first attracted widespread attention for " The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915), which, at the time of its publication, was considered outlandish. (citing an unsigned review in ''Literar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bram Stoker
Abraham Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912), better known by his pen name Bram Stoker, was an Irish novelist who wrote the 1897 Gothic horror novel ''Dracula''. The book is widely considered a milestone in Vampire fiction, and one of the most famous classics of English literature. The primary antagonist of the novel, Count Dracula, is often ranked among the most iconic and best-known fictional figures of the entire Victorian era, and the character's popularity has led to over 700 adaptations for films, movies, plays, comics, video games, cartoons, stage performances, and other forms of media. Although he was the author of 12 mystery novels and novellas, Stoker's reputation as one of the most influential writers of Gothic horror fiction lies solely with ''Dracula''. During his life, he was better known as the personal assistant of the actor Sir Henry Irving and business manager of the West End's Lyceum Theatre, which Irving owned. Stoker was also a distant relative o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, during the Second World War) and again from 1951 to 1955. For some 62 of the years between 1900 and 1964, he was a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member of parliament (MP) and represented a total of five Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, constituencies over that time. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire into the wealthy, aristocratic Spencer family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels ''Little Lord Fauntleroy'' (1886), ''A Little Princess'' (1905), and ''The Secret Garden'' (1911). Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in Cheetham Hill, Cheetham, Manchester, England. After her father died in 1853, when Frances was 4 years old, the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 emigrated to the United States, settling in New Market, Tennessee. Frances began her writing career there at age 19 to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines. In 1870, her mother died. In Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1873 she married Swan Burnett, who became a medical doctor. Their first son Lionel was born a year later. The Burnetts lived for two years in Paris, where their second son Vivian was born, before returning to the United States to live in Washington, D.C. Burnett then began to writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
