Sep. 30: Truman Capote, American author

BORN SEPTEMBER 30th:

Truman Capote (1924-1984) American author of near-perfect works, both fiction (Breakfast at Tiffany's) and non-fiction (In Cold Blood) whose works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television dramas. His fostering by a family member in Monroeville, Alabama, made him neighbors and friends with Harper Lee; he shows up as "Dill" in To Kill a Mockingbird.

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Sep. 29: Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish novelist

BORN SEPTEMBER 29th:

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright who holds a position in Spanish literature equal to that of Shakespeare in English. He is renowned for The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha, featuring a minor nobleman whose fevered imagination causes him to think that he is a knight errant out on adventures with his trusty "squire" (actually a simple farmer) Sancho Panza, a point of view that gives rise to the expression "tilting at windmills" (which he does, believing they are giants).

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Sep. 28: Confucius, Chinese philosopher

BORN SEPTEMBER 28th:

Confucius (551-479 BCE) Chinese philosopher; credited with three of Confucianism's "Four Books" (the fourth is The Mencius, attributed to Mencius, a disciple of Confucius's grandson): The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, and--probably most important of all--The Analects; he is credited with several other books, but most likely everything attributed to him was written by his disciples. His ideas are the foundation stones of all of Chinese culture, and have inspired numerous horrible jokes.

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Sep. 27: George Wharton James, Anglo-American author

BORN SEPTEMBER 27th:

George Wharton James (1858-1923) Anglo-American author of Californiana who wrote The Wonders of the Colorado Desert; Through Ramona's Country; and In and Out of the Old Missions of California. Born in England, he moved to the U.S. to serve as a Methodist minister in Nevada and Southern California, where he wrote over 40 books and untold articles and pamphlets about his adopted region.

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Sep. 26: T. S. Eliot, American-British poet and author

BORN SEPTEMBER 26th:

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American-British poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, and critic best known for poems such as "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"; "The Waste Land"; "The Hollow Men"; and Four Quartets. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Sadly, though, despite writing some of the most quotable poetry of the 20th century, he will probably be best remembered by the public for writing the silly book on which the musical Cats was based.

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Sep. 25: William Faulkner, American author

BORN SEPTEMBER 25th:

William Faulkner (1897-1962) American novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, and essayist whose novels include The Sound and the Fury; As I Lay Dying; and Absalom, Absalom! He won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1949), and two Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction (1955 and 1963). He single-handedly created a mythical Mississippi county named Yoknapatawpha and peopled it with the characters of 14 of his 19 novels and over 50 of his roughly 125 stories.

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Sep. 24: F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist

BORN SEPTEMBER 24th:

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) American novelist and short story writer best known for The Great Gatsby; also The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Career struggles forced him to work as a Hollywood script doctor, where he died at age 44 after years of alcoholism.

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Sep. 23: John Coltrane, American jazz musician

BORN SEPTEMBER 23rd:

John Coltrane (1926-1967) American jazz saxophonist and composer known especially for the "bebop" and "hard bop" genres. Compositions include "Blue Train"; noted performance "My Favorite Things." He has been named a saint in the African Orthodox Church.

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Sep. 22: Michael Faraday, British scientist

BORN SEPTEMBER 22nd:

Michael Faraday (1791-1867) British scientist who focused on physics (especially electromagnetism) and chemistry (especially electrochemistry). Numerous laws, constants, and other phenomena bear his name, including the near-mystical Faraday cage.

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Sep. 21: H. G. Wells, English novelist

BORN SEPTEMBER 21st::

H. G. Wells (1866-1946) English novelist who wrote The Time Machine; The Invisible Man; The War of the Worlds; The Island of Doctor Moreau. His The Outline of History is a very entertaining look at the subject. His use of everyday details in extraordinary contexts caused Joseph Conrad to exclaim of him, "O Realist of the Fantastic!"

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Sep. 20: Upton Sinclair, American novelist

BORN SEPTEMBER 20th::

Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) American novelist, activist, and journalist known for The Jungle; Oil!; and the "Lanny Budd" series. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1943). His work will forever be associated with muckraking journalism, which exposes corruption in industry and politics.

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Sep. 19: William Golding, British writer

BORN SEPTEMBER 19th:

William Golding (1911-1993) British novelist, playwright, and poet known for novel Lord of the Flies, which has made it onto many top 100 lists and is (alarmingly) taught in many high schools. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1983).

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Sep. 18: Samuel Johnson

BORN SEPTEMBER 18th:

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English man of letters known for A Dictionary of the English Language; the annotated Plays of William Shakespeare; The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia; Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. The outsized personality of "Dr. Johnson" was so well-chronicled in James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson that to this day a person who records the life of an intimate (usually famous) companion is called "a Boswell."

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Sep. 17: William Carlos Williams

BORN SEPTEMBER 17th:

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) American poet known for poems "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "This Is Just To Say"; books Spring and All and Paterson. Won the first National Book Award for Poetry ever given, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1963). In parallel to his life as a poet he was a successful physician, having served as chief of pediatrics in a New Jersey hospital for nearly 40 years.

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Sep. 16: Hildegard of Bingen

BORN SEPTEMBER 16th:

Hildegard of Bingen: (1098-1179) German abbess, philosopher, and mystic known for spiritual works Scivias (Know the Ways); Liber Vitae Meritorum (Book of Life's Merits); Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works). In addition to her prolific output as a composer of sacred chant (her works make her the most recorded composer of such works in modern history), she is also (surprisingly) considered by some to be the founder of the scientific approach to natural history in Germany.

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Sep. 15: Agatha Christie, English crime novelist

BORN SEPTEMBER 15th:

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) English crime writer known for creating Hercule Poirot and Miss (Jane) Marple. Best-known of her novels include Murder on the Orient Express; Death on the Nile; The ABC Murders; and And Then There Were None. With 74 novels, 28 short story collections, and 16 plays, she holds the Guinness record as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, with more than two billion copies of her novels sold.

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Sep. 14: William H. Brewer, American botanist

BORN SEPTEMBER 14th:

William H. Brewer (1828-1910) American botanist. A native of New York state, he worked on the first California Geological Survey and wrote numerous letters to friends and family, which in 1930 were assembled and published as Up and Down California in 1860-64. His papers are archived at Yale on 36 linear feet of shelving.

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Sep. 13: Daniel Defoe, English writer

BORN SEPTEMBER 13th:

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) English writer of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders" He helped popularize the very idea of the English novel; it's said that Robinson Crusoe is second only to the Bible in the number of translations made from English. He also did prison time for some of his political tracts.

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Sep. 12: H. L. Mencken, American man of letters

BORN SEPTEMBER 12th:

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American man of letters known for The American Language. Proud son of Baltimore, Maryland, where he was born and died. Famed for his acerbic pen, as a working journalist he covered the trial of a Tennessee teacher accused of teaching evolution and dubbed it the "Monkey Trial."

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Sept. 11: D. H. Lawrence, English writer

BORN SEPTEMBER 11th:

D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) English writer known for novels Sons and Lovers; Women in Love; and Lady Chatterley's Lover; and short stories such as "The Rocking-Horse Winner." His books earned him a reputation as something of a pornographer during his lifetime; with his wife Frieda he spent much of his later years in self-imposed exile in a "savage pilgrimage" (his term) to Australia, Italy, France, Sri Lanka, the U.S., and Mexico.

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