#oxford worlds classics
Have you ever wanted to know more about your favorite classic authors? Each month, we share various facts about the lives and works of our Author of the Month.
During December, we honored Louisa May Alcott as our Author of the Month to tie in with the latest adaptation of #LittleWomen, released last month in theatres. Alcott was born on November 29th 1832 in Pennsylvania and some of the most interesting things we learned about her this month were…
- Louisa May Alcott was the daughter of transcendentalists, abolitionists, and early feminists. While growing up in poverty, the author worked as a seamstress, servant, governess, and anonymous writer in order to help support the family.
- She was neighbours with the Hawthorne’s, the Emerson’s, and Henry David Thoreau.
- Alcott had her breakthrough after publishing ‘Hospital Sketches’ in 1863, working as a nurse for the Civil War. The collection of letters depicted her experiences as a wartime nurse and later several abolitionist interracial romances and war stories.
- Her most notable novel, ‘Little Women’ remains as a popular piece for women’s lives throughout the centuries. Revolving around female characters that aspire to achieve successful careers and loving families, Alcott’s revolutionary novel shows the complications of trying to maintain professional dreams and societal norms.
- Aside from her literary career, Alcott was one of the founders of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. It was March 6, 1888 when Alcott passed away from a stroke at the early age of 55, just two days after her father’s death.
For the month of January, we are exploring the life and work of Anne Brontë. Be sure to follow the #ClassicsInContext hashtag on TwitterandFacebook to learn more!
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Have you ever wanted to know more about your favorite classic authors? Each month, we share various facts about the lives and works of our Author of the Month.
During November, we honored George Eliot as our Author of the Month. She was born on November 22nd 1819 in Nuneaton and 2019 marks the bicentenary of Eliot’s birth. Some of the most interesting things we learned about her this month were…
- Mary Ann Evans, known more widely by her pen name George Eliot was the third child of Robert Evans, the manager of the large estates of the Newdigate family. The young Mary Ann was strongly religious, in contrast with her only somewhat observant Anglican family.
- While living in London, Eliot fell in love with George Henry Lewes. Lewes was a regular contributor to the magazine Eliot wrote for, the Westminster Review. Lewes had an open marriage but by 1853 Eliot and Lewes were living together as man and wife despite his married status. It was in 1856, encouraged by Lewes, that Eliot began to write fiction.
- Eliot did not achieve fame until the publication of her first novel, Adam Bede. Charles Dickens admired the novel and guessed that its author was a woman; Elizabeth Gaskell was flattered when she was asked if she were the author.
- George Henry Lewes died in November of 1878, sending Eliot into a deep depression. She married a friend, John Walter Cross, whose mother had died at the same time as Lewes in an attempt to get over her grief, however Cross became depressed on the honeymoon and fell, or threw himself, from the balcony of their Venice hotel into the Grand Canal.
- On December 22nd 1880, Eliot died of a kidney disease she had suffered from for several years. She was buried beside Lewes in Highgate Cemetery, and is known to this day as one of the greatest Victorian writers who deftly and unflinchingly captured the social change that occurred in her lifetime.
For the month of December, we are exploring the life and work of Louisa May Alcott. Be sure to follow the#ClassicsInContext hashtag onTwitterandFacebook to learn more!
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Have you ever wanted to know more about your favorite classic authors? Each month, we share various facts about the lives and works of our Author of the Month.
During January, we honored Anne Brontë as our Author of the Month to tie in with the bicentenary of Brontë’s birth. Anne was born on January 17th 1820 in Yorkshire and some of the most interesting things we learned about her this month were…
- Anne is the youngest sibling and was known to be the most delicate of all the Brontë children, and after the death of her eldest sisters she was educated at home rather than at Cowan Bridge with Emily and Charlotte.
- In 1839, Anne Brontë began work as a governess for the Ingham family. This experience influenced Anne to write her first novel, ‘Agnes Grey,’ which described the experience of being a governess as being a miserable one–spending all day with spoiled children she was forbidden to punish.
- In 1845, Charlotte discovered a manuscript of Emily’s poems and made it her mission to publish a collection of the sisters’ poetry. By May 1846, at the sisters’ expense, a collection of the poems of 'Curer, Ellis, and Acton Bell’ was published.
- After Branwell Brontë’s death on 24 September 1848 and Emily’s on 19 December, symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis became evident in Anne’s declining health. Charlotte took her to the sea to recover, and it was there Anne Brontë died on 28 May 1849 at their lodging at 2 St Nicholas Cliff, Scarborough—with almost her last breath saying she was happy, and thanking God that 'death was come, and come so gently.’
For the month of February, we are exploring the life and work of Victor Hugo. Be sure to follow the #ClassicsInContext hashtag on TwitterandFacebook to learn more!
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