Drew Mercantini
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American journalist and novelist Ernest Hemingway‘s legacy to American literature lies in his economical and understated writing style, which he termed the “iceberg theory” and writers who came after him either attempted to emulate or avoid. After his reputation was established with the publication of The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway essentially became the spokesperson for…
Born in the fall of 1896, F. Scott Fitzgerald, is widely regarded as the greatest novelist of the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald’s struggles in love, work, and fame became the fundamental motifs and themes of his novels. Despite the losses he suffered, the success of his novels in the years following his early death immortalized his…
Miss Jane Austen, born in late 1775, lived a life of relative obscurity. Now revered as an exceptional English novelist, Austen’s work provides a thorough social commentary on the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen’s plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favorable social…
Born in the mid-1700s in relative poverty, Alexander Hamilton rose to prominence as one of America’s founding fathers and the first treasury secretary of the United States. He founded the nation’s financial system, the Federalist Party, the United States Coast Guard, the New York Post newspaper, and he was the main author of the economic…
Ayn Rand, born in 1905 as Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, was a Russian-born American writer who emigrated to the U.S. in 1925. Upon gaining permanent residency in 1929, she became a famous novelist and philosopher. Her analysis of the human condition and the role of reason in human affairs made her books of lasting influence on…
Born in Ireland in 1882, James Joyce is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. His novel Ulysses (1922) is a landmark in which the episodes of Homer’s Odyssey are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, particularly stream of consciousness and his other well-known works include A…
John le Carré, born in October of 1931 as David John Moore Cornwell, was a British intelligence officer and and novelist during the latter half of the 20th century. After serving in British intelligence during the 1950s and 60s, le Carré‘s fame as a novelist in post-war Britain was established with his third novel, The…
Born on January in either 1705 or 1706, Benjamin Franklin is one of the most well known Founding Fathers in American history. A polymath, Franklin was well known for both his political and scientific contributions to colonial America. Along with these pursuits, he also established the first newspaper chain, the first public library in America,…
Born in 1822, Ulysses S. Grant was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War in 1865 and thereafter briefly served as Secretary of War. Later, as president,…
In 1982, a novel called Memorial do Convento was published in Portugal. A love story set against 18th-century Inquisitorial Lisbon, the novel captured the imagination of many readers, garnering widespread acclaim. Its author, then sixty year old José Saramago, was not known for literature, but for journalism. With this novel, his fourth to be published,…
Thursday, September 21st marked Stephen King‘s seventy-fifth birthday. Born in 1947 in Maine, King was raised by his mother who, with her two sons, moved several times before settling in Durham, Maine. King’s love for horror blossomed in his childhood, when he discovered a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories in an attic. As he entered…
Born in April of 1926, William Klein grew up in the heart of New York City, during the Great Depression and World War 2. Despite his economic circumstances, Klein proved to be a precocious student, enrolling at the City College of New York when he was only 14 years old. After joining the Army, Klein…
September 13th marks the birthday of Roald Dahl, one of the most popular authors of children’s literature of the 20th century. Born in Wales in 1916, Dahl was a first generation Englishman who spent most of his life in the United Kingdom. His famous stories, such as Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and…
Richard Feynman, born in May 1918, became one of the most well-known physicists of all time. Feynman was born in New York to Jewish parents, though he held no strong feelings toward his faith. He discovered early on his talent for engineering, maintaining a small experimental laboratory where he would repair radios. His practical scientific…
Born on July 10, 1871 in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, famed French novelist Marcel Proust was born into a France torn by internal conflict. Though Paris was gripped by political turmoil and France’s modernization put pressure on the class system, Proust and his educated aristocratic parents were largely unaffected. Marcel, however, was a…
Born on May 8th, 1899 in Vienna, Friedrich August von Hayek was a scholar by nature and pedigree. His father and grandfathers either taught or studied the natural sciences and economics. When Hayek entered the University of Vienna, his intellectual appetites led him to pursue courses in philosophy, psychology, and economics. He was hired soon…
Nikos Kazantzakis, born in 1883 on the island of Crete, had a tremendous desire for truth, a sharp intellect to seek it out, and an adventurous disposition that brought him around the world. His fiction largely reflects his philosophical training and religious values, while his work as a translator reflects his concern for the education and…
