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Biography
Adgar
Allan Poe (1809-1849),
American short story writer, poet and
critic was born in Boston, he was orphaned
in 1811, and spent most of his life
in poverty and ill health. He joined
the army in 1827 and was court-martial
led (1830) for deliberate neglect of
duty. He failed to earn a living by
writing, became an alcoholic. Read
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Anton
Pavlovich Chekhov was born
in the small seaport of Taganrog, southern
Russia, the son of a grocer. Chekhov's
grandfather was a serf, who had bought
his own freedom & that of his three
sons in 1841. He also taught himself
to read & write. Yevgenia Morozov,
Chekhov's mother, was the daughter of
a cloth merchant.
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Aristophanes
began to write his comedies by the time,
democracy had already begun to sour
for the Athenians.The people were increasingly
demoralized by the ongoing conflicts
of the Peloponnesian War & the loss
of their greatest hero, Pericles, had
been taken from them & replaced
by unscrupulous politicians such as
Cleon & Hyperbolus. It is little
wonder, therefore, that Aristophanes
laughter is tinged.
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Arthur
Miller was born in Harlem,
New York City; the family moved shortly
afterwards to a six-storey building
at 45110th Street between Lenox and
Fifth Avenues. His father, Isidore Miller,
was an illiterate Jewish immigrant from
Poland. His succesfull ladies-wear manufacturer
and shopkeeper was ruined in the depression.
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August Strindberg was born
in Stockholm. His father, Carl Oscar
Strindberg, proud of a trace of aristocratic
blood, was a shipping agent, but his
business success was relatively modest.
Strindberg's mother, Ulrika Eleanora
Norling, had a proletarian background.
She was a tailor's daughter, who had
been a domestic servant and become Carl
Oscar's mistress. Read
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August
Wilson was born on 1945
and grew up in the Hill district of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His childhood
experiences in this black slum community
would later inform his dramatic writings,
including his first produced play, Black
Bart and the Sacred Hills,
which was staged in 1981.
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Authol
Fugrad was Born in the
remote village of Middleburg, Cape Province,
and grew up in Port Elizabeth, the setting
for most of his plays. His full name
is Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard and as
a child he was known as Hally before
he decided he wanted to be called Athol.
His parents were English and Afrikaans,
with English as his mother tongue (he
describes himself as an Afrikaner writing
in English).
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Charles
Dickens was born in Landport,
Hampshire, during the new industrial
age, which gave birth to theories of
Karl Marx. Dickens's father was a clerk
in the navy pay office. He was well
paid but often ended in financial troubles.
In 1814 Dickens moved to London, and
then to Chatham, where he received some
education. Read
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Daniel
Defoe was born as the son
of Alice and James Foe. His father was
a City tradesman and member of the Butchers’
Company. James Foe's stubborn puritanism
– the The Foes were Dissenters, Protestants
who did not belong to the Anglican Church
– occasionally comes through Defoe's
writing. He studied at Charles Morton's
Academy, London. Read
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Ernest
Hemingway was born inn
Oak Park, Illinois. His mother Grace
Hall, whom he never forgave for dressing
him as a little girl in his youth, had
an operatic career before marrying Dr.
Clarence Edmonds Hemingway; he taught
his son to love out-door life. Hemingway's
father took his own life in 1928 after
losing his healt to diabetes and his
money in the Florida real-estate bubble.
Hemingway attended the public schools
in Oak Park and published his earliest
stories and poems in the school newspaper.
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Eugene
O'Neill was born in New
York into an Irish-Catholic theatrical
family. His early life was restless:
his father, who was an actor, spent
most of his career touring in the lead
role of the popular melodrama The Count
of Monte Cristo. In 1895 O'Neill was
enrolled in the St. Aloysius Academy
for Boys, and transferred in 1900 to
the DeLa Salle Institute in Manhattan.
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Mary
Ann Evans (George Eliot)
was born in Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire.
Her father was a carpenter who rose
to be a land agent. When she was a few
months old, the family moved to Griff,
a 'cheerful red-brick, ivory-covered
house', and there Eliot spent 21 years
of her life among people that she later
depicted in her novels. Read
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Harriet
Beecher Stowe was born
in Litchfield, Connecticut, into a large
family. She had two sisters (Catharine
and Mary), one half-sister (Isabella),
five brothers (William, Edward, George,
Henry Ward, and Charles), and two half-brothers.
Harriet herself was the seventh child
of her parents, Lyman and Roxana Beecher.
Stowe was named after her aunt, Harriet
Foote, who influenced deeply her thinking,
especially with her strong belief in
culture. Samuel Foote, her uncle, encouraged
her to read works of Lord Byron and
Sir Walter Scott. Read
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Henrik
Ibsen was born in Skien,
a tiny coastal town in the south of
Norway. His father, Knud Ibsen, was
a prosperous merchant, whose financial
failure changed the family's social
position. Later Ibsen bitterly recalled
how his father's friends broke all connections
with him and the "Altenburg Manor",
earlier known for it dinners and festivities.
In disgrace the family moved to Venstøp
farmhouse, provided to them by the creditors.
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