Author Name (Real Name) Bio. Here you talk about them as a kid. And as a teenager. Then as an adult. Then as a successful person. Works x y z a b c Cool Quotes References Worth Looking At Info. Birth date-death date Parents: Spouse: Children: Age: Nationality: Genre: Literary Era: Themes

Author Name (Real Name) Bio. Here you talk about them as a kid. And as a teenager. Then as an adult. Then as a successful person. Works x y z a b c Cool Quotes References Worth Looking At Info. Birth date-death date Parents: Spouse: Children: Age: Nationality: Genre: Literary Era: Themes

F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald September 24, 1896- December 21, 1940 Parents: Edward Fitzgerald & Molly McQuillan Spouse: Zelda Fitzgerald (m. 1920-1940) Children: Frances Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald (1921-1986) Age: 44 Nationality: American Genre: Tragedy Literary Era: Modernism Info. Works St. Paul Plays (1914) The Apprentice Fiction (1917) Spires and Gargoyles (1919) Benediction (1920) Bernice Bobs Her Hair (1920) Flappers and Philosophers (1920) Head and Shoulders (1920) May Day (1920) Mr. Icky & Porcelain and Pink Myra Meets His Family (1920) The Camel's Back (1920) The Four Fists (1920) The Jelly-Bean (1920) The Lees of Happiness (1920) The Short Stories (1920) This Side of Paradise (1920) Jemina & Tarquin of Cheapside (1921) Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) The Beautiful and Damned (1922) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1922) The Diamond as Big as the Ritz (1922) Gretchen's Forty Winks (1924) The Best Early Stories (1924) The Cruise of the Rolling Junk (1924) Love in the Night (1925) All the Sad Young Men (1926) The Great Gatsby (1926) The Rich Boy (1926) Magnetism (1928) The Basil and Josephine Stories (1928) Babylon Revisited (1931) The St. Paul Stories (1931) Tender is the Night (1934) Taps at Reveille (1935) The Fantasy and Mystery Stories (1935) The Night at Chancellorsville (1935) The Crack-Up (1936) Poems (1940) The Pat Hobby Stories (1940) The Last Tycoon (1941) Lost Decade and Other Stories (1968) The Notebooks of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1978) The Price Was High (1979) A Life in Letters (1980) Afternoon of an Author (1987) Trimalchio (2000) The Popular GIrl (2006) A Short Autobiography (2011) On Booze (2011) The Thoughtbook of F. Scott Fitzgerald (2013) The Love Boat (2015) I'd DIe For You (2017) Bio. Here you talk about them as a kid. And as a teenager. Then as an adult. Then as a successful person. Themes Materialism (excess) and The American Dream Ambition and Loss Discipline versus Self-Indulgence Love and Romance Wealth and Class Dysfunctional Relationships Jazz and Booze (if you know what I mean) Cool Quotes I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library. Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures. Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy. References Worth Looking At F. Scott Fitzgerald Society (the place for all of Fitzgerald's fans) fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org "F. Scott Fitzgerald: Home" (a database of primary sources on the author) Duquense University Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Matthew J. Bruccoli "F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Genius Behind The Great Gatsby" YouTube.com Back. Onward!

Herman Melville August 1, 1819-September 28, 1891 Parents: Allan Melville & Maria Gansevoort Spouse: Elizabeth Knapp Shaw (m. 1847–1891) Children: Malcolm Melville (1849-1867), Stanwix Melville (1851-1886), Elizabeth Melville (1853-?), Francis Melville (1855-1938) Age: 72 Nationality: American Genre: Travel-fiction, Adventure, Psychological Literary Era: Romanticism Info. Bio. Herman Melville is synonymous with the romantic ideal of a starving artist. PBS remarked that"Melville fought for a greatness that would not be realized during his lifetime" (pbs.org). How depressing is that? Herman Melville was born August 1, 1819 in New York City as the third of eight children. In his childhood, Melville fell prey to scarlet fever (the very same that affected Helen Keller), which left his vision permanently impaired the rest of his life. His father, Allan Melville, worked as a high-end importer. The work paid handsomely, but Allan had borrowed so much, he decided to start fresh in the fur industry and moved upstate to Albany. The business flopped and Allan suddenly died, leaving the Melville family impoverished and impossibly hopless. The death of his father and the family's financial situation constantly interfered with Melville's education. Herman's eldest brother took control of the fur business. Herman clerked at a nearby bank to help make ends meet. The situation stabilized enough and Herman was able to return to school at Albany Academy where he studied classic literature and wrote extensively. In 1837, he left home for a teaching position in Massachuessetts. As quickly as he came, he left, deeming the work as "unfulfilling." That same year, his brother's business folded and the family was thrust into a dire situation. The Melvilles relocated and Herman was urged to finish school as a surveyor so he could quickly gain employment for the Eerie Canal project. Despite the lack of serious education and the spare time, Melville was a highly voracious reader devouring everything from Greek mythology to Shakespearean tragedies. He also loved hearing the story of the Essex, a U.S. ship that had been attacked and sunk by a whale (hint, hint foreshadowing). Melville was unable to get a job as a surveyor, though, and at his oldest brother Gansevoort's (yes that is his actual name) urging, he took a position as a cabin boy on the St. Lawrence in 1839. He was 20 years old. Being a sailor must've paid handsomley or provided a thrill because once the St. Lawrence returned, Herman set sail on the Acushnet, which unlike his first voyage was a whaling one. And in the Pacific. After the Acushnet arrived in Polynesia (a year and a half of being on ship), Melville and a friend deserted the ship, only to be captured by cannibals known as the Typee. Melville was treated extremely well, but he still fled and sought board with the Lucy Ann after four months of imprisonment. He must've not learned his lesson about disobedience because not long after he was jailed for joining a minority of the crew in mutiny against the captain. He escaped to the island Eimeo and joined the crew of the Charles and Henry as a harpooner. Five months later, Charles and Henry anchored (a sailor term for when a boat "retires" in a port for a while) and Melville took up clerical work in Maui. In the August of that year (1843), only four months after docking, Herman enlisted in the US Navy. Herman Melville returned home (and by that I mean his mother's basement) in October 1844, three years of adventures behind him. He went to work putting pen to paper to detail his tales in story form. Typee (1846) was based on his real life experience as a prisoner of cannibals in Polynesia, which American publishers initially rejected as being "too far-fetched." An English publisher agreed to publish it, where it was a sensational success among the British. When one of Melville's former crewmates came forward and publicly validated the accuracy of the story, American publishers agreed to publish it and the book became an international success (19th century speaking). Omoo followed as a overnight success. During this time as a successful writer, Herman Melville married Elizabeth Shaw, the chief justice of Massachuessetts daughter, in 1847. He moved his family and his wife to an apartment in New York City, where he proceeded to complete two more books in two years. His later works were modest hits, but nothing else would amount to the critical success Melville had experienced with his first two novels the rest of his lifetime. As he started working on the manuscript for Moby Dick, he befriended author Nathaniel Hawthorne who provided critiques and encouragement for the book-in-progress. The book would become a great masterpiece that detailed the American identity featured in the preceding whaling industry, however upon it's release, critics ghosted and the book flew under the radar. The anticlimatic and ultimately disappointing release of Moby Dick served as a precursor to a floundering literary career the rest of Melville's life. Melville's subsequent works performed poorly and Herman began to give up on writer. He continued to battle against the approaching obscurity and financial ruin that came with flop after flop. During this time, Melville sank into deep depression, which he coped with by beating his wife. He took up work as a dock inspector, writing short stories and speeches on the side. His familial relationships continued to worsen. In 1867, Melville's oldest son Malcolm (18) committed suicide. Melville desperate for some source material (and material success for that matter) travelled Europe, the Holy Land, and reflected back on his sailing days. He was nearly finished with Billy Budd , The Sailor when he died of a heart-attack at 72. Closer analysis on many of Herman Melville's works will reveal many homosexual allusions (especially in his last book), causing some to wonder if perhaps Herman was a homosexual. Melville's works received a revival in the 1920s where his name gained the presitge he had so sought after his entire life. Works Typee (1846) Omoo (1847) Mardi (1849) Redburn (1849) White Jacket (1850) Moby Dick (1851) PIerre or The Ambiguities (1852) Bartleby (1853) Israel Potter (1855) The Piazza Tales (1856) The Confidence-Man (1857) The Apple-Tree Table (1922) Billy Budd, Sailor (1924) I Would Prefer Not To (2021) Themes Revenge and Death Madness and Obsession Fate vs. Free Will Duty and Friendship Masculinity & Sexual Identity Corruption of Innocence The Sea as Symbolism for Life Cool Quotes It is better to fail in originality than succeed in imitation. To write a mighty book, you must first choose a mighty theme. There are hardly five critics in America; and several of them are asleep. References Worth Looking At "The Melville Society" (a website for fans of Herman Melville) melvillesociety.org "Herman Melville and Nantucket" Nantucket Historical Society (which hosts a Melville celebration every August 1st) "Melville's Marginalia Online" (a website that has all of Melville's annotation digital viewable) The Newbedford Museum of Whaling Melville: His Work and World by Andrew Delbanco Melville: A Biography by Janet Robertson-Lorant "The Sea and Sexual Freedom" (WARNING: contains sexual content; an analysis from an English teacher on Herman's sexuality) The Gay and Lesbian Review "Melville Mystery Cannot Be Stifled by New Biography" (WARNING: contains descriptors of domestic abuse; a fascinating read on the controversial character that is Herman Melville "The Life of Herman Melville" pbs.org Back. Onward!

Author Name (Real Name) Bio. Here you talk about them as a kid. And as a teenager. Then as an adult. Then as a successful person. Works x y z a b c Cool Quotes References Worth Looking At Info. Birth date-death date Parents: Spouse: Children: Age: Nationality: Genre: Literary Era: Themes

Author Name (Real Name) Bio. Here you talk about them as a kid. And as a teenager. Then as an adult. Then as a successful person. Works x y z a b c Cool Quotes References Worth Looking At Info. Birth date-death date Parents: Spouse: Children: Age: Nationality: Genre: Literary Era: Themes

Mary Shelley August 30, 1797-February 1, 1851 Parents: William Godwin & Mary Wollstonecraft Spouse: Percy Bysshe Shelley (m. 1816–1822) Children: Clara Shelley (1815-1815) William Shelley (1816-1819), Clara Everina Shelley (1817-1818), Percy Florence Shelley (1819-1889) Age: 53 Nationality: British Genre: Gothic, Sci-Fi, Horror Literary Era: Romantic Info. Works Frankenstein or The Modern-Day Prometheus (1818) The Last Man (1826) The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830) Lodore or The Beautiful Widow (1835) Falkner (1837) Prosperpine and Midas (1922) Mathilda (1959) Maurice or The Fisher's Cot (1998) Bio. Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin on August 30, 1797 to political philosopher William Godwin and famed feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Her mother died shortly after childbirth and Mary Shelley was left the only child of a widowed father (she had a half-sister named Fanny Imlay who was the result of an affair Wollstonecraft had had with a soldier). Shelley knew death at a young age. Her father eventually remarried to Mary June Clairmont, who brought her two previous children into the household and had a son with Godwin. That meant two half-siblings and two step-siblings for Shelley and a step-mother she never asked for and never got along with. Her stepmother saw it fit to send her own daughter to boarding school, but thought education was unnecessary for Shelley herself. Although she didn't have a formal education, Mary Shelley made great use of her father's library and could be found reading or daydreaming to escape the difficulties of her family life. She eventually took up writing as a way to cope with it, publishing her first poem at age 10. Because of her father's scoail standing as a prominent political figure, the Godwin household had visits from many prestigious people such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. One visitor, Percy Bysshe Shelley (a well-to do poet), caught Mary's eye. The two began a romantic relationship, even though Percy was already married. When her father found out, Mary and Percy eloped to Europe (she was 17) along with Mary's step-sister Jane. Percy had a polyamorous relationship, one with his actual wife, who was estranged some place else and occasionally demanded compensation from Percy to continue to live. Then Percy had Mary and when he was in the mood her step-sister Jane. This new style of love was something Mary and Percy Shelley adamantly believed in and was very counterculture for the time. These actions alienated Mary from her father, who refused to speak to her for years. In 1815, as the Shelleys roamed Europe, Mary and Percy's first child, Clara, was born on February 22 and then died 12 days later due to a premature birth. The lost devasted Mary. The next summer, Mary and Percy were at a mountain retreat in Switzerland with Lord Byron, Jane Clairmont (Shelley's step-sister, who also was pregnant with Lord Byron's child at the time), and John Polidori. On a rainy day, the friends entertained themselves by reading ghost stories. Lord Byron proposed that in a year, the friends should return each with the best chilling tale they could conceive. Mary Shelley took the challenge to heart and began work on what would be Frankenstein (ironically she was the only person to complete the challenge). The vast majority of her masterpiece came to her one night in a lucid dream and Shelley went to work detailing the dream into a story. Near the end of 1816, Mary's half-sister Fanny committed suicide. To only worsen to those problems, Percy's wife also committed suicice, while being pregnant with another man's child. Mary was horrified, but with the death of Percy's former wife, the two were able to marry. In 1818, Mary Shelley completed and published Frankenstein as a 19 year-old girl. Because of that, she also published it anonymously. It was an immense success and the Shelley's moved to Italy. During this time period, Mary lost two more children and Percy Florence was the only of her children to live to adulthood. Mary Shelley was also under constant stress with her husband's adultery and her step-sister Jane (who changed her name to Claire at some point) Clairmont's affairs. In 1822, Mary Shelley was shocked to wake up one morning to the news that her husband had drowned while sailing with a friend in the Gulf of Spezia. She was 24. Shelley spent the rest of her widowed years raising her son, writing her stories, and promoting her husband's place in literary history. Lord Byron, a longtime friend at this point, provided for Shelley in more ways than one, and Shelley and her son spent most of their times at Byron's estate. She kept a vial of her husband's cremated heart in her writing desk. At 53, Mary Shelley passed away from brain cancer. She was a well respected writer at the time. One can't help but knowingly nod at her obsession with death and despair. One also can't help but pity her a little bit. Birth and Creation Fate versus Free Will Death and Grief Human Nature and Hubris Danger and Knowledge Nature and Invention Obsession and Revenge Themes Cool Quotes Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos. Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated. References Worth Looking At "The Woman Who Created a Monster" The New York Times Mary Shelley (a British biographical film on Mary Shelley) IFC films "Mary Shelley Documentary" (10/10 video on Mary Shelley's life) YouTube.com Mary Shelley: The Strange True Tale of Frankenstein's Creator by Catherine Reef "Everything You Need to Know Before You Read Frankenstein" TedEd Frankenstein (a dramatized play of the novel featuring Benedict Cumberbatch) The National Theatre Back. Onward!

CONTEMPORARY R A From the 1950s onward to present day, we find ourselves in the Contemporary Era of literature. As the name implies, this type of literature centers around current world issues, viewpoints, and realistic characters. Writing styles here become much easier to read (for the most part) and become more experimental with genre. It's in the Contemporary Era where genres arguably diverged. Sci-fi, romance, paranormal, realistic, YA, and mystery all began to occupy the same era at the same time. In this era, we find a lot of breakthroughs in the world of literature: more diverse authors and more diverse stories. With that diversity comes various different prominent themes in contemporary literature. We love us some good redemption arcs for a questionable character, we devour coming of age stories, and nearly every story centers on the moral complex issue of good versus evil. Unsuprisingly with a more diverse cast of authors and a world coming to terms with equality and empowerment, contemporary literature often also finds a way to focus on oppression. Finally! The familiar authors! Or are they so familiar? From children's author Dr. Seuss to groundbreaking sci-fi author Octavia Butler to the Great American author Harper Lee, scroll down to see the list of Contemporary Era authors. If you're wanting to explore this colorful cast of characters chronologically (talk about experimental writing styles!) scroll to the very bottom of the page and click on the Onward! button. Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) Maya Angelou (1928-2014) Margaret Atwood (1939-now) Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) Octavia Butler (1947-2006) Truman Capote (1924-1984) Beverly Cleary (1916-2021) Paulo Coehlo (1947-now) Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) Neil Gaiman (1960-now) Stephen King (1947-now) Louis L'Amour (1908-1988) Harper Lee (1926-2016) Toni Morrison (1931-2019) Haruki Murakami (1949-now) Salman Rushdie (1947-now) JD Salinger (1919-2010) Dr. Seuss (1904-1991) JRR Tolkein (1892-1973) Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) E.B. White (1899-1985) Take me to Search Onward! Back to Modernism

modernism ERA Today, we consider ourselves modern, but at the turn of the 20th century, so did the people of the 1900s. Enter the Modernism Era, a period of complete rebellion. If Romanticism represented literature's teenage years, Modernism is the midlife crisis of literature. As the world became more interconnected and everything changed from the traditional style, Modernists sought to do the same with literature. Many of the authors had been raised during the late 1800s when life was still relatively traditional, as they became adults, they entered a brave, new world if you will, full of technological advancements (like the vacuum cleaner), polarizing political choices (can you say Prohibition?), and life-changing world events (the Great Depression and the Great War to name a few). This super saturated world of change startled some like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Franz Kafka. ​ The Modernist Era focuses on symbolism, psyche, and society heavily. Modernism had various sub-variations. The most notable--existentialism--focused on the complete annihilation of truth. These authors often focused on the concept of absolute truth as an impossibility and life as chaotic and meaningless. They were disillusioned with the world and that bled through into their work. Other modernism literature was solely abstract: playing with style and presentation. This is where meta versions of characters (Six Characters in Search of an Author ), stream of consciousness (Ulysses ), and nonlinear storytelling (Mrs. Dalloway ) began to appear. Ready to learn more about the Modernists? Below is an alphabetical list of the Modernism Era authors. If you're wanting to counterintuitively approach them by going chronologically, click the Onward! button at the bottom of the page to explore. Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Agatha Christie (1890-1976) Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) E.E. Cummings (1894-1962) T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) William Faulkner (1897-1962) F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) Franz Kafka (1883-1924) C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) George Orwell (1903-1950) Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Next Era Please Onward! Back to Realism

Kurt Vonnegut November 11, 1922-April 11, 2007 Parents: Kurt Vonnegut Sr. & Edith Lieber Spouses: Jane Marie Cox (m. 1945-1979) & Jill Krementz (m. 1979-2007) Children: Mark Vonnegut (1947-now), Edith Vonnegut (1949-now), Steven Adams (adopted 1958, born 1947), Lilly Vonnegut (1982-now) Age: 84 Nationality: American Genre: Satire, Humor, Sci-Fi Literary Era: Contemporary Info. Bio. ​Kurt Vonnegut (Jr.) was born in Indianapolis, IN on Armistice Day (the day when WWI ended). Some may call that coincidental, others a sign, and still others may view it as ironic. His parents were well-to-do and his father, Kurt Vonnegut Sr. was a successful architect. Then along came the Great Depression. Kurt's father saw his mental health, financial wealth, and job opportunities plummet. The family was hit hard by the Depression and like many family's had to scrape by on limited amounts of money. As a teenager, Kurt Vonnegut wrote for his high school's (Shortridge High School) newspaper the Daily Echo. Once he graduated, he attended Cornell University in New York. He continued to write, this time for the Cornell Sun, he was majoring in biochemistry. His father had urged his son to major in the "hard" sciences to prevent his son from the same financial failure he experienced. Biochemistry proved too difficult, so Vonnegut dropped out and joined the U.S. Army in 1942. The Army sent him to the University of Tennessee to complete a mechanical engineering degree. Once done, Kurt Vonnegut was shipped off to the European Theatre in WWII, working as an infantry battalion scout. During the Battle of the Bulge, (Dec. 14, 1944) Kurt was captured by German soldiers and taken to a prisoner of war (POW) camp in Dresden, Germany where Kurt and the other POWs were contained in the basement of a meat slaughterhouse (Much of his war experience inspired Slaughterhouse Five). Luckily this prison served as the POWs savior when Allied forces firebombed Dresden mercilessly for two days. The remaining German survivors forced the POWs to exhume dead bodies from the rubble while spitting and harassing them for the damage the Allies did. Shortly after the bombing, though, Soviet forces rolled in and freed the POWs. Kurt Vonnegut returned home to the United States in May 1945, receiving a Purple Heart for his endeavors. Although in later years he protested U.S. military involvement, he looked back on his time in the Army as "the right thing to do." Upon his return, Vonnegut married his high school girlfriend Jane Marie Cox. Then, he tried to pursue an M.A. in anthropology at the University of Chicago. The keyword is tried here. His thesis titled "Fluctuations Between Good & Evil in Simple Tales" was promptly rejected. At the urging of his brother, who was a scientist for General Electric, Kurt moved to Schenectady, New York in 1947. He worked as a public relations writer for G.E., which inspired a lot of his short fiction. He went back and forth between enjoying his job and despising its dishonesty. Due to his short story successes, he was able to quit his job at G.E. and move his family to Cape Cod in 1950, where he could focus more on writing. In 1951, he published his first novel, Player Piano. Themes centered on the distrust of technology enshrouded the novel and could still be seen in the future when Kurt Vonnegut complained that the Internet was "a particularly habit-forming, hallucinatory, pernicious form of LSD" as he typed on a computer. Player Piano was met with good reception and spurred Kurt to continue to write. However, it wasn't the earth-shattering financial success he needed. Instead, Kurt alternated his time between writing and work odd-end jobs such as ad man, English teacher, and car dealership entrepreneur. Tragedy struck several blows to Kurt in the late 1950s. In 1957, his father died. In 1958, his brother-in-law died in a train crash and then his sister Alice died of cancer. The result was Alice and her husband's four children being orphaned. Kurt and Jane took in the eldest three, adopting them, while the fourth child was sent to live with another family. Kurt's career on the other hand was skyrocketing. He produced novel after novel, most notably being Slaughterhouse-Five which was his first bestseller and a potent poison to the romanticized views of war depicted by Hollywood. In 1970, Kurt separated and divorced his wife. The reasons have been closely kept, but it's believed that part of it stemmed from Jane's desire for a big and involved family, which conflicted with Kurt's desire for a more solitary life. He ended up marrying photographer Jill Krementz and adopting her daughter Lilly. That same year, he began teaching creative writing at Harvard. Caught by surprise in 1971, the University of Chicago granted Kurt Vonnegut his M.A. in anthropology, using The Cat's Cradle as his thesis. Kurt joked that a semi-sarcastic novel somehow trumped his academic papers in anthropological significance. 1972 also brought tragedy as Kurt's son Mark experienced a schziophrenic breakdown. Mark, like his father, turned the mental instability into literary inspiration, writing about it in a memoir and taking the initiative to become a pediatric doctor. During this time, Kurt's career hit it's peak with Breakfast of Champions. His subsequent novels were good, but their critical acclaim lacked and Kurt resorted to retiring from fiction, focusing instead on art (several of his pieces are featured in art museums) and essayist nonfiction. Mental health issues weren't just limited to Kurt Vonnegut's father and son. His depression (and potential PTSD) hit a breaking point when Kurt tried to commit suicide in 1984. Key word here is tried. The alcohol and pills didn't do their job and Kurt Vonnegut was soon rehabilitated. In 2000, his apartment caught on fire when an ash-tray tipped over. Kurt was hospitalized again, this time for smoke inhalation, where he joked that cigarettes which were supposed to be the most proactive death agents available, weren't doing their job right. In his latter years, his novel writing slacked off and was replaced by political essays. He passed away on April 11, 2007 from head injuries sustained by a fall. Although Kurt Vonnegut's opinions were often unsolicited and unusually blunt, his unique writing style and quick wit set him apart from other writers and cemented him in literary history compared to the likes of Mark Twain. Works Player Piano (1952) The Sirens of Titan (1959) Cat's Cradle (1960) Canary in a Cat House (1961) Mother Night (1961) Harrison Bergeron (1961) 2BR02B (1962) God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) Welcome to the Monkey House (1968) Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970) Who Am I This TIme? For Romeos and Juliets (1970) Between Time and TImbuktu (1972) Breakfast of Champions (1973) Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons (1974) Slapstick or Lonesome No More! (1976) Jailbird (1979) Sun, Moon, Star (1980) Palm Sundary (1981) Deadeye Dick (1982) Fate Worse Than Death (1982) Galapogos (1985) Bluebeard (1987) Hocus Pocus (1990) Timequake (1997) Bagombo Snuff Box (1999) God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999) Like Shaking Hands with God (1999) Kurt Vonnegut on Mark Twain, Licoln, Imperialist Wars and the Weather (2004) A Man Without Country (2005) Armageddon in Retrospect (2008) Look at the Birdie (2009) The Big Trip Up Yonder (2009) While Mortals Sleep (2011) Letters (2012) Sucker's Portfolio (2012) We Are What We Pretend to Be (2012) If This Isn't Nice What Is? (2013) Love, Kurt (2020) Themes Pacifism & Violence Mental Illness Social Equality & Individualism Common Decency Dehumanization & Disillusionment Free Will Manipulation from the Government Dangers of Technology Cool Quotes We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. Science is magic that works. True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. References Worth Looking At "Kurt Vonnegut Lecture" (one of Vonnegut's lectures to a college) YouTube.com Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (a full documentary on Kurt Vonnegut) YouTube.com The Kurt Vonnegut Society (a place for some things Vonnegut related) cofc.edu "Kurt Vonnegut" (an extensive compilation of Kurt Vonnegut resources) Indiana Bloomington University And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles J. Shields Onward! Back.

Renaissance Enlightenment & ERA Renaissance is French for rebirth. The Renaissance period was no different. The Renaissance (1330-1650-ish) was a movement of new ideas and creatives who challenged the status quo. This period emerged after the lengthy and monotonous Dark Ages where only royalty mattered much. People rediscovered and rekindled humanity's passion for Greek and Roman arts and sciences. Most notably, high-profile people like William Shakespeare turned around and copied classical Greek plays into some of his most famous works. Other Renaissance authors created new forms of stories such as the novel. ​ Renaissance works typically centered on the theme of humanism. After centuries of bland heroic fairy tales, it was time for tragedy and triumph, real people with real stories to tell. Classics like The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Utopia by Sir Thomas More, and practically any work by Shakespeare were brought to pass. As the Renaissance progressed it began to distort and smear like paint until a canvas until we came to the Age of Enlightenment. Like its predecessor, the Enlightenment era was a revolution of new and fresh ideas centered on philosophy. Political structures were challenged and questioned as authors like John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire dominated the scene. Independent thought was highly lauded, skepticism abounded, and the qualities of human nature were debated in books, articles, and under psdeuonyms. Onward! Back to Main Menu Next Era Please Without further ado (or much ado about nothing, hint hint), here's the alphabetical list of authors from this era! If you just want to take a trip through time, click the button below to go through them chronologically. Dante Aligheiri (1265-1321) Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) Rene Descartes (1596-1650) John Donne (1572-1631) Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) John Locke (1632-1704) Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) ​Jean Meslier (1664-1729) Montesquieu (1689-1755) Thomas More (1478-1535) Isaac Newton (1643-1727) Thomas Paine (1737-1809) Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Adam Smith (1723-1790) Voltaire (1694-1778) Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) Onward! Back to Main Menu Next Era Please

April 28, 1926-February 19, 2016 Parents: Amasa Coleman Lee & Frances Cunningham Finch Age: 89 Nationality: American Genre: Coming of Age, Southern Gothic Literary Era: Contemporary Harper Lee Nelle Harper Lee Bio. Here you talk about them as a kid. And as a teenager. Then as an adult. Then as a successful person. Works To Kill A Mockingbird (1960) Go Set A Watchmen (2015) Cool Quotes References Worth Looking At Info. Themes Prejudice and Racism Family Life Courage and Continuation Heroism and Role Models Home and Belonging Growing up and Disillusionment You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks. Back. Onward!