Happy birthday, James Branch Cabell

It is the birthday of writer James Branch Cabell (1879), whose books of humorous fantasy captivated readers in the 1920s but fell out of favor by the 1930s. His best-known book was Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice (1919), in which the medieval protagonist seeks chivalrous courtly love but instead seduces women everywhere he goes. It contains parodies of the Arthurian legend as he encounters Queen Guinevere and The Divine Comedy as he dallies with the Devil’s wife. Filled with double entendres, the book attracted the attention of self-appointed censors. After two years, the publisher won an obscenity trial, which had the effect of gaining the book and the author a much wider audience. Cabell published 52 books, including short story collections, poetry, genealogies, and novels.

Happy birthday, humorist Will Rogers

It is the birthday of humorist Will Rogers (1879), whose folksy commentary poked fun at government programs, politicians, and public figures of the 1920s and 1930s. He was beloved because he didn't offend but gently needled all sorts of institutions. "I am not member of an organized political party," he said. "I'm a Democrat." Rogers performed on stage in the Ziegfeld Follies, appeared in 71 movies and wrote more than 4,000 syndicated newspaper columns. He was one of the most well-known celebrities of his era.

Michel Leiris was a French Surrealist

It is the birthday of French writer Michel Leiris (1901), who wrote his Surrealist novel, Aurora, in Paris in 1926-27 but didn't publish it until 1946.  He was heavily influenced by Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró and other Cubist painters as well as by experimental writers like André Breton, who is credited with founding the Surrealist movement in 1924. In Aurora and other works, Leiris was fascinated with the associative power of language, with wordplay and puns. In Aurora, he describes living in an attic and descending the stairs into historical events in the time of Alexander the Great. The poetic prose takes the reader on a bizarre journey that with ephemeral images of stark deserts, massive gray castles, and women caressed by warm rain. Leiris was also an accomplished ethnographer who wrote Phantom Africa (1934), The Sacred in Everyday Life (1938), and Race and Civilization (1951).