Marshall, Alan (1902-1987) is an Australian writer.

His works are: Tell us About this Turkey, In My Heart, 1 Can Jump over the Pools. Alan Marshall wrote numerous short stories, mainly set in the bush. He also wrote newspaper columns and magazine articles. He traveled widely in Australia and overseas. He also collected and published Indigenous Australian stories and legends.

 

99. O. Henry (1862-1910) is a pen name of an American story writer, William Sydney Porter. He published about 16 volumes of stories. His best known works are: 171e Voice of the City, Cabbages and Kings, The Four Million, The Trimmed Lamp, Heart of the West, Sixes and Sevens. Most of O. Henry's stories are sentimental. His sympathy for human weakness and the naturalness of his characters make his stories appealing. O. Henry wrote in the language of common people.

100. Shaw, George Bernard (1856­1950) is an Irish born British playwright.

He was awarded a Noble Prize for literature. He wrote over 50 plays. His most popular dramas are: Man and Superman, Pygmalion. Shaw's dramas are filled with wit, challenging ideas and forceful characters. While his plays often treat serious matters, their points are frequently twisted, compromised or emphasized through comedy. Shaw thought that a sense of humour can give balance and depth to seriousness. Shaw was also a political, social and religious thinker. He was a critic of art, music and theatre as well as a socialist, vegetarian and feminist.

 

101. Shakespeare, William (1564­1616) is an English playwright and a poet. He is generally considered the greatest dramatist the world has ever known and the finest poet who has ever written in the English language. His world famous works are: All Well that Ends Well, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Much Ado about Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night and sonnets. He was born in Stratford-on-A von. It is now the second most visited town in Britain. People come to see his plays, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the theatre which is named after him, and to see his tomb.

 

102. Steinbeck, John (1902-1968) is an American writer, won a Noble Prize in literature. His most famous novels are: The Grapes of Wrath, Cup of Gold, The Pastures of Heavens. The last novel tells the story of a poor Oklahoma farming family, who migrate to California in search of a better life during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Steinbeck effectively demonstrated how the struggles of one family mirrored the hardship of the entire nation.

 

103. Swift, Jonathan (1667­1745) is an English author who wrote Gulliver's Travels, a masterpiece of comic literature. Swift is called a great satirist because of his ability to ridicule customs, ideas and actions he considered silly or harmful. His satire is often bitter, but it is also delightfully humorous. Swift was born in Dublin on November 30, 1667. He became a minister in the Anglican Church of Ireland. Swift spent the rest of his life - more than 30 years - as dean of St. Patrick's. At that time he wrote his famous Gulliver's Travels, the book that children read with great delight but which adults find rather serious.

 

104. Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894) was a Scottish and English novelist and poet who became one of the world's most popular writers. His well known works are: Treasure Island, The strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Afr. Hyde, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae. Stevenson's life was as varied and fascinating as his work. He fought illness constantly, writing many of his best books from a sickbed. He traveled widely for his health and to learn about people. He spent his last years on the South Sea island of Samoa.

 

105. Twain, Mark (1835-1910) was the pen name of Samuel Clemens. He is a famous American writer and the greatest humorist in American literature. Twain's varied works include novels, short stories, sketches and essays. His novels are: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. He was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida. His life was very interesting and exciting. He worked as a clerk, blacksmith's helper and bookseller's assistant. Then he was a pilot on the Mississippi River, where he got his pen name.

 

106. Voynich, Ethel Lillian (1864-1960) was an Irish novelist and musician, and a supporter of several revolutionary causes. She is most famous for her novel The Gadfly, first published in 1897 in the United States, about the struggles of an international revolutionary in Italy. This novel was very popular in the Soviet Union and was the top best seller and compulsory reading there.

 

107. Reed, John (1887-1920) is an American writer. He is best known for his book Ten Days that Shook the World. Reed was born in Portland, Oregon. He graduated from Harvard University in 1910. He gained national attention for his reporting of the revolts in Mexico and Russia.

 

108. Reid, Thomas Mayne (1818-1883) was an Irish­ American novelist. Reid wrote many adventure novels. These novels contain action that takes place primarily in untamed settings: the American West, Mexico, South Africa, the Himalayas, and Jamaica. Books such as the Young Voyagers had great popularity, especially with boys. He was also very popular around the world. His tales of the American West captivated children everywhere. Among his books, many of which were popular in translation in Russia, were The Rifle Rangers, Scalp Hunters, Boy Hunters, and Headless Horseman. Many famous people recalled The Headless Horseman as a favourite adventure novel of their childhood years.

 

109. Aesop was a Greek slave, who died about 565 B.C. He was famous because of his collection of fables. Like all fables, each of his tales teaches a moral and offers useful advice. Most of the characters in Aesop's fables are animals that talk and act like humans. They show different features of human nature in a simple and humorous way. Each fable ends with a proverb that sums up the fable's moral and advice. The most famous of these fables are "The Tortoise and the Hare' and "The Ant and the Grasshopper".

110. Wells, G. H. (1866-1946) was a famous English novelist, historian, science writer and author of science-fiction stories. Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent (now a part of London). His training as a scientist is reflected in his imaginative science-fiction stories. Many of them are still popular even now. His best novels are: The Time Machine, The War o/the Worlds, The Invisible Man and others.

 

111. Jerome, K. Jerome (1859­1927) was an English writer and humorist, best known for the humorous travelogue Three Men in a Boat.

Jerome was born in England, and was brought up in poverty in London. He attended St Marylebone Grammar School.

Young Jerome wished to go into politics, but the death of his father at age 13, and his mother at age 15, forced him to quit his studies and find work to support himself. He tried to become a journalist, writing essays, satires and short stories. He was a school teacher, a packer, and a clerk. The book Three Men in a Boat, published in 1889, became an instant success. In its first twenty years alone, the book sold over a million copies worldwide. It has been adapted to movies, TV and radio shows, stage plays, and even a musical.

 

112. Milne, A. Alan (1882-1956) was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the­ Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work. Milne is most famous for his two Pooh books about a boy named Christopher Robin after his son, and various characters inspired by his son's stuffed animals, most notably the bear named Winnie-the­ -Pooh.

Winnie-the-Pooh was published in 1926. A second collection of nursery rhymes, Now We Are Six, was published in 1927. His book The World of Pooh won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.

 

113. Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898). Carroll wrote one of the most famous books in the English literature - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. People throughout the world read this book. It was translated into more than 30 languages, including Arabic and Chinese. Carroll wrote his book to give pleasure to children.

But adults also enjoy the humor, fantastic characters, and adventures in the story.

114. Bronte, Charlotte was a famous English novelist (1816­1855). Her two sisters Emily and Anne were writers too. She went to several boarding schools where she received a better education than was usual for girls at that time, but in a harsh atmosphere. Her famous novel Jane Eyre (1847) is largely autobiographical. This book was enormously successful and very popular among readers.

 

115. Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900) was an author and playwright. He was born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. At 20, he went to study at Oxford University. Soon he became a well-known public figure and a writer. In 1888 he published The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Wilde's only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is a great moral fable. This book seems to show the destructive side of a devotion to pleasure.

Chapter 3. Culture, Traditions & Everyday Life