Lincoln & Booth
April 14:
Abraham Lincoln was shot on this day in 1865, dying the following morning. Walt
Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is one of the
most famous laments for Lincoln, but Booth had his eulogists too, as well as
his legend-mak...
Heaney in County Derry
April 13:
On this day in 1939 Seamus Heaney was born, the eldest of nine children on a
County Derry farm. Heaney's first collection of poems earned four major awards
and provoked Christopher Ricks to declare that those "who remain unstirred
by Seam...
Dylan & Caitlin
April 12:
Dylan Thomas met Caitlin McNamara on this day in 1936. The most recent
biography, Andrew Lycett's Dylan Thomas,
warns that some details of this legendary first meeting may well have been
embroidered—for example, that when Thomas sli...
Sándor Márai
April 11:
The Hungarian novelist Sándor Márai was born on this day in 1900. Márai's books
have become bestsellers recently, after having been nearly forgotten for
decades. Fiercely anti-Nazi and anti-Communist, Márai fled...
Appomattox and After
April 9: General Robert E. Lee surrendered to
General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia on this day in
1865, signaling the end of the American Civil War. The eyewitness records of
the event include the diary of William G. Hin...
West’s Lonelyhearts
April 8: Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts was published on this day in 1933. The oddball
mix of distress, black comedy, and religion in West's "novel in the form
of a comic strip" (his description) was highly praised by many critics,
but lik...
To Soar Angelic
April 7: The
psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond coined the term "psychedelic" on this
day in 1956, by way of a couplet competition with Aldous Huxley. Huxley's
mescaline experiences with Osmond had inspired The Doors of Perception, and now Osmond was hims...
Wilde at the Cadogan
April 6:
Oscar Wilde was arrested on this day in 1895 and Sir John Betjeman was born on
this day in 1906. The two cross paths at the location where Wilde, having delayed too
long any attempt to flee the country, was taken into custody: "Mr. Woilde,
...
Hobbes & Darwin
April 5:
On this day in 1588, the natural law philosopher Thomas Hobbes was born. His
famous description of man's "nasty, brutish and short" prospects
comes in Leviathan (1651), a book in
which some commentators see the seeds of Social Darwinism; D...
Angelou’s "Remedy of Hope"
April 4:
On this day in 1928, Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, as Marguerite Johnson.
She got the nickname "Maya" ("mine") from her brother; she
chose the "Angelou" later, an adaptation of her first husband's name.
She says that her remarkable a...
Beat-Bashing
April 2: The term
"beatnik" was coined on this day in 1958 by Herb Caen in his column
for the San Francisco Chronicle. Caen said that "the word
popped out," a flip comment inspired by the recent Sputnik launch, but the
context and tone of the coina...
Of Food & Folly
April 1: Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the French lawyer, politician, and gastronome, was
born on this day in 1775. Brillat-Savarin's The
Physiology of Taste is a culinary classic and, together with April Fool's
Day, the inspiration for the food-bo...
