Born today: Ben Franklin, newspaper publisher, statesman, author, Boston, 1706; Charles Brockden Brown, novelist, Philadelphia, 1771; Anne Brontë, novelist, poet, Thornton, Yorkshire, 1820; Ronald Firbank, novelist, London, 1886; Nevil Shute, novelist, Ealing, Middlesex, 1899; William Edgar Stafford, poet, Hutchinson, Kan., 1914; Newton Minow, social critic, Milwaukee, Wis., 1926.
Died: George Bancroft, historian, Washington, D.C., 1891; T(erence) H(anbury) White, novelist, historian, satirist, Piraeus, Greece, 1964; Betty Smith, novelist, poet, Shelton, Conn., 1972; Camilo Jose Cela, novelist, short-story writer, poet, author, Madrid, 2001; Gergory Corso, poet, playwright, Robbinsdale, Minn., 2001.
Quote: Let the trumpet of the day of judgment sound when it will. I shall appear with this book in my hand before the Sovereign Judge, and cry with a loud voice, This is my work, there were my thoughts, and thus was I. I have freely told both the good and the bad, have hid nothing wicked, added nothing good. — Jean-Jacque Rousseau, Confessions, I, 1766
