Emily Bronte was a one-hit wonder

It is the birthday of English writer Emily Bronte (1818), whose only novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), wasn’t published under her name originally. She used the pen name Ellis Bell. She died at age 30, the year after the book was published. Her sister, Charlotte, published a second edition after Emily’s death.  Although it wasn’t universally well received initially because of its depiction of physical and mental cruelty, and unbridled passion, today it is considered classic English literature.

Happy birthday, Jane Austen

It is the birthday of English writer Jane Austen (1775), who is remembered for Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816), novels set among the landed gentry in late 18th- and early 19th-century England. She is among the most widely read authors in English literature, though during her lifetime she achieved only modest success. Publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen (1869) by her nephew James Edward Austen brought her wider recognition.

Evelyn Waugh wrote Brideshead Revisited

It is the birthday of English writer Evelyn Waugh (1903), who is remembered for the satires Decline and Fall (1928) and A Handful of Dust (1934) and the novel Brideshead Revisited (1945), an examination of the phenomenon of God's grace. He was known as the nastiest-tempered man in England, a label that seems entirely appropriate in this 1953 BBC interview.