Mark Rice-Oxley

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was born on 9th November 1818 in Oryol, Russia to parents from the nobility. He and his two brothers were raised by their mother on the family estate. Surrounded by foreign governesses he became fluent in French, German, and...

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, often known as Madame Blavatsky, was born on 12th August 1831 into an aristocratic family in present day Dnipro in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. She was the younger sister of the writer Vera Zhelikhovsky.Much of...

Richard Garnett C.B. was born on the 27th February 1835.Educated in Bloomsbury he then joined the nearby British Museum as an assistant librarian in 1851, shortly after his father’s death.He was continuously promoted to high-ranking positions at the...

Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards was born on 7th June 1831 in Islington, London. She was educated at home by her mother and showed early promise as a writer, publishing her first poem at the age of 7 and her first story at 12. Thereafter several popular...

Mary Gleed Tuttiett was born and brought up in Newport on the Isle of Wight on 11th December 1846.She was largely self-educated but of determined character to achieve something with her life. As a young woman she travelled in England and Switzerland...

Henrietta Dorothy Huskisson was born in January 1851 in Gillingham, Kent.Little reliable information on her life is available and almost nothing on her early life.The first concrete information concerns her marriage at age 18 to the solicitor Isaac...

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE was born in Auckland, New Zealand, on March 13th, 1884.His father was an Anglican clergyman which involved postings abroad. Walpole’s early educated was by a Governess until, in 1893, his parents decided he needed a...

William Hope Hodgson was born in Essex, England on November 15th, 1877.Over his short career he produced a large body of work which explored and covered many genres. From horror, to science fiction, to stories on the sea, where he had spent much of...

Israel Zangwill was born in London on 21st January 1864, to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire.Zangwill was initially educated in Plymouth and Bristol. At age 9 he was enrolled in the Jews' Free School in Spitalfields in east...

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov was born on 28th March 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.Better known as Maxim Gorky he was orphaned at 11 and ran away from home at 12. At 19 he had already attempted suicide and thereafter travelled, by foot, across the...

Human beings are by nature very social animals. Most of us love to connect, to talk and share experiences. It’s a big world with much to do. But curiosity and grief are two situations that make some people attempt to discover more.We are all familiar...

Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née de la Pasture, and more commonly known as E M Delafield, was born in Steyning, Sussex on 9th June 1890.Raised in the fading years of the Victorian era with its Empire and strict moral codes Delafield, not yet...

Margaret Gabrielle Vere Campbell was born on the 1st November 1885 on Hayling Island in Hampshire.Her childhood was fraught with problems, her alcoholic father left early in her life and was later found dead on a London Street. Life thereafter was...

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was born on August 28th, 1814, at 45 Lower Dominick Street, Dublin, into a literary family with Huguenot, Irish and English rootsThe children were tutored but, according to his brother William, the tutor taught them...

Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née de la Pasture, and more commonly known as E M Delafield, was born in Steyning, Sussex on 9th June 1890.Raised in the fading years of the Victorian era with its Empire and strict moral codes Delafield, not yet...

Israel Zangwill was born in London on 21st January 1864, to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire.Zangwill was initially educated in Plymouth and Bristol. At age 9 he was enrolled in the Jews' Free School in Spitalfields in east...

The name L T Meade, a pseudonym for Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith, rarely brings a sign of recognition.Although she wrote mainly for young girls she also wrote across many genres including sensational, religious, historical, adventure and romances....

Love. Perhaps the one word solution for everything. An emotion, a state of mind that we strive for, search for. A wondrous force that binds, inspires, and a force that can spin out of control; unbalanced and fragile. Love reflects, changes and...

Margaret Gabrielle Vere Campbell was born on the 1st November 1885 on Hayling Island in Hampshire.Her childhood was fraught with problems, her alcoholic father left early in her life and was later found dead on a London Street. Life thereafter was...

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov was born on 28th March 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.Better known as Maxim Gorky he was orphaned at 11 and ran away from home at 12. At 19 he had already attempted suicide and thereafter travelled, by foot, across the...

The name L T Meade, a pseudonym for Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith, rarely brings a sign of recognition.Although she wrote mainly for young girls she also wrote across many genres including sensational, religious, historical, adventure and romances....

Lady Eleanor Furneaux Smith was born in Birkenhead, Merseyside in England on the 7th August 1902 into a privileged family steeped in titles and politics.Part of her education was at Miss Douglas's school at Queen's Gate. Here she met and befriended...

Dorothy Edwards, an only child, was born on the 18th August 1902 at Ogmore Vale in Glamorgan.Her father was a headmaster and an early activist in the Independent Labour Party. At age 9 Dorothy, dressed in red, welcomed Keir Hardy on to the stage at...

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire on 27th July 1853.His father died when he was 13 and life was then often struck with bouts of poverty, which resulted in his education being somewhat...