Literati and Libations

October/Part II

Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

Once again, it’s 5 pm… somewhere, and because it is, why not raise an additional glass in celebration of more literary greats with October birthdays, including:

• 16^th

  Noah Webster, compiler of the first American language dictionary (1758); Oscar Wilde, author (1854); Eugene O’Neill, playwright (1888); and Günter Grass, novelist and playwright (1927);

• 17^th

  Jupiter Hammon, first Black American published poet (1711); Georg Buchner, dramatist (1813); Elinor Glyn, novelist, scriptwriter and romance writer (1864); Nathanael West, novelist (1903); Arthur Miller, playwright (1915); Lerone Bennet, Jr., editor, Black historian and writer (1928); and Les(lie) Murray, poet (1938);

• 18^th

  [Bernd] Heinrich [Wilhelm] von Kleist, romantic dramatist and poet (1777); Thomas Love Peacock, poet, essayist and novelist (1785); H(arold) L(enoir) Davis, reporter, poet and novelist (1894); Philip Pullman, fantasy novelist (1946); Ntozake Shange, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1948); Wendy Wasserstein, playwright (1950); and Terry McMillan, novelist (1951);

• 19^th

  Sir Thomas Browne, writer (1605); [Pierre Ambroise Francois] Choderlos de Lacloc, epistolary novelist (1741); [James Henry] Leigh Hunt, poet and essayist (1784); Vincas Kreve-Mickievicius, poet and playwright (1882); Fannie Hurst, novelist and short story writer (1889); Miguel Angel Asturias, poet and novelist (1899); and John Le Carré -aka- David John Moore Cornwell, spy novelist (1931);

• 20^th

  Thomas Hughes, author (1822); Daniel Owen, novelist (1836); Arthur Rimbaud, poet (1854); Frederic Dannay -aka- Daniel Nathan, screenwriter (1905); Art Buchwald, columnist and author (1925); and Robert Pinsky, poet (1940);

“I drink to not giving a damn . . .” ― Sheridan Hay, The Secret of Lost Things

• 21^st

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and critic (1772); Alphonse [Marie Louis de Prat] Lamartine, poet and man of letters (1790); and Ursula LeGuin, sci-fi and fantasy writer (1929);

• 22^nd

  Ivan Bunin, poet and novelist (1870); Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak, writer, translator, and children’s poet (1887); Dámaso Alonso, philologist, critic, and poet (1898); Sidney Kingsley, playwright and screenwriter (1906); and Doris Lessing, novelist (1919);

• 23^rd

  Robert [Seymour] Bridges, poet (1844); Emily Kimbrough, editor and memoirist (1899); Michael Crichton, novelist (1942); and Gordan Korman, children’s and YA author (1963);

• 24^th

  Moss Hart, playwright (1904); Denise Levertov, poet (1923); and Elaine Feinstein, poet, novelist, and biographer (1930);

• 25^th

  [Henri] Benjamin Constant [de Rebecque], writer (1767); Thomas Babbington Macaulay, poet and historian (1800); Eduardo Barrios, novelist (1884); Henry Steele Commager, historian (1902); John Berryman, poet (1914); Harold Brodkey, novelist and writer (1930); and Anne Tyler, novelist (1941);

“Here’s to all the guys better looking than us. May they all die first.” ― Richard Kadrey, Sandman Slim

• 26^th

  [Desiderius] Erasmus, humanist and writer (1466); Charles Sprague, poet (1791); Beryl Clutterbuck Markham, memoirist (1902); John Arden, novelist and playwright (1930); Pat Conroy, writer (1945); Robb Forman Dew, novelist (1946); and Andrew Motion, biographer and poet (1952);

• 27^th

  Dylan Marlais Thomas, poet (1914); Sylvia Plath, poet (1932); Enid Bagnold, author (1889); Neil Sheehan, author and reporter (1936); and Fran Lebowitz, humorist (1950);

• 28^th

  Ivan Turgenev, novelist, poet, and playwright (1818); Velimir Khlebnikov -aka- Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov, futurist poet; Evelyn [Arthur St. John] Waugh, novelist (1903); and Ayi Kwei Armah, essayist and novelist (1939);

• 29^th

  James Boswell, diarist and biographer (1740); Guillermo Valencia, poet and translator (1873); Jean [Hippolyte] Giraudoux, playwright and novelist (1882); and Henry Green -aka- Henry Vincent Yorke, novelist (1905);

• 30^th

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan, playwright (1751); André Marie de Chénier -aka- Constantinople, poet and political journalist (1762); Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, novelist (1821); Paul Valéry, poet and essayist (1871); Ezra [Weston Loomis] Pound, poet and critic (1885); and Larry Woiwode, novelist and poet (1941); and

• 31^st

  John Evelyn, diarist (1620); John Keats, poet (1795); and Dick Francis, novelist (1920).

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“We drink to those who love us, we drink to those who don’t. We drink to those who fuck us, and fuck those who don’t!” ― Tamsyn Bester, The Line Between

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L’chaim!

Thanks for reading,