'Mrs. Gaskell' wrote Victorian novels

Elizabeth Gaskell

It is the birthday of English novelist Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1910), who examined the plight of the poor in Victorian England in her novels, Mary Barton (1848), Cranford 1853), North and South (1854), and Wives and Daughters (1865).

She was a friend of Charles Dickens, who published her Gothic ghost stories and other works in his journal Household Words, among them Cranford, North and South, and My Lady Ludlow

She wrote the first biography of her friend, Charlotte Brontë, which helped develop Bronte's reputation as a writer. The Life of Charlotte Bronte was published 1857, after Bronte's death. Gaskell used hundreds of letters, supplied by a friend of Bronte's, in writing the volume. Gaskell included a lot of details, but omitted the fact that Bronte was in love with a married man on the grounds that it would cause harm to her friend's family.

Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton, deals with a working class young woman and her family in Manchester in the Victorian era. It was originally published anonymously. Later, her books followed Victorian convention and were signed "by Mrs. Gaskell."

Gaskell was married to a Unitarian minister and the values of the denomination appear in her works, although she tried to keep her beliefs hidden. Gaskell's work is known for its use of local dialect in her characters' speech, including colloquialisms such as "nesh," meaning unusually susceptible to cold weather, and "unked," meaning old, strange, ugly or lonely.

James Campbell: popular poet in late 1880s

James Edwin Campbell

It is the birthday of black poet James Edwin Campbell (1867), whose best remembered poems are in the dialect of his subjects and vernacular of the 1880s and 1890s. He wrote for daily newspapers in Chicago, particularly the Times-Herald, and was widely celebrated at the turn of the century.

His best known work is Echoes from the Cabin and Elsewhere (1895), a collection of his poetry that critics say is one of the finest 19th century collections of dialect poems. Echoes mixes folk wisdom and realism with authentic, rhythmic dialect. Campbell also published Driftings and Gleanings (1887), a collection of standard English poems and essays.

James Weldon Johnson selected Campbell's work to be included in the collection he edited, The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922).

Little is known about Campbell's early life other than the fact that he was born in Pomeroy, Ohio. He died there of pneumonia in 1896, at the age of 28. He was a teacher in Ohio and then served as principal of Langston School in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and as the first president of West Virginia Colored Institute (now West Virginia State University).

Some scholars suggest that Campbell's work might have served as a model for the poems of his contemporary, Paul Laurence Dunbar. Campbell had been publishing his poetry for several years before Dunbar came to public notice.

Campbell's work appeared in Four O'Clock Magazine, a popular monthly periodical devoted to original writing. It was published five years before it merged into The Philharmonic, a magazine devoted to the modern arts.

Happy birthday, Louis Auchincloss

Louis Auchincloss

It is the birthday of writer Louis Auchincloss (1917), who wrote novels and short stories about the WASP society of New York and New England to which he belonged. He was considered a novelist of manners in the vein of Edith Wharton, about whom he wrote and whom he admired.

Auchincloss wrote about 70 books, the best known of which was The Rector of Justin (1964), a tale of the founding headmaster of an exclusive New England prep school. It was a world with which Auchincloss was intimately familiar, as a graduate of the Groton School in Massachusetts. The book has been called a minor masterpiece of 20th century literature.

Auchincloss was born in Long Island to a privileged family and grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He always claimed that there was no Auchincloss fortune. "Each generation of Auchincloss men either made or married its own money," he wrote. He did what was expected of him, studying at Yale and taking a law degree from the University of Virginia, as his father had done, similarly, before him. He loathed law, and was more inclined toward artistic pursuits like his mother.

Auchincloss worked for a Wall Street law firm for 32 years and was successful at it, limiting his writing to weekends. He tried once, in the early 1950s, to write full time, but went back to a law firm because he was feeling disconnected from "the real world." His law career is made evident, through reference, in much of his work.

Auchincloss' career spanned 70 years and his work reflected his privileged background in the northeast establishment. The Embezzler (1966) examines the life of a Wall Street stockbroker who gives in to opportunity to steal during the Great Depression.

He tells the stories of multiple generations of upper crust families in such works as The House of Five Talents (1960), Portrait in Brownstone (1962), and East Side Story (2004). His last book was Last of the Old Guard (2008).

Most prestigious book awards eluded him, but he did receive the National Medal of Arts in 2005. He was elected to American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1965.

Happy birthday, George Gershwin

It is the birthday of composer George Gershwin (1898) who wrote popular melodies for Broadway musicals such as Lady, Be Good (1924), Oh, Kay! (1926), Strike Up the Band (1927), Funny Face (1927), Show Girl (1929), Girl Crazy (1930), Of Thee I Sing (1931); but he is best known for such orchestral classics as Rhapsody in Blue (1924), An American in Paris (1928) and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935). Here is his amazing Rhapsody in Blue. Enjoy!