Row 1: (L-R) Eleanor H. Porter, Jane Austen, Philip K. Dick Row 2: (L-R) Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Conrad

(December 3, 1857 – August 3, 1924)

Józef Teodor Konrad, known as his pen name Joseph Conrad, was a Polish author who wrote in English after settling in England. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English. The Secret Agent (1907) was made into a film in 1996.

Buy the Book

Jane Austen

(December 16, 1775 – July 18, 1817)

Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature.  She achieved success as a published writer with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (1818).

Philip K. Dick     

(December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982)

Dick was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and philosopher whose published work is almost entirely accepted as being in the science fiction genre. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) was made into the very popular 1982 film, Blade Runner.

Eleanor H. Porter            

(December 19, 1868 – May 21, 1920)

Porter was an American novelist who mainly wrote children’s literature, adventure stories and romance fiction. Her most famous novel is Pollyanna (1913). It was made into a film in 1960.

Rudyard Kipling     

(December 30, 1865 – January 18, 1936)

Kipling was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist. In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date. Kipling’s works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), The Second Jungle Book (1895), Stalky & Co. (1899), Kim (1901), Just So Stories (1902), Puck of Pook’s Hill (1906) and Rewards and Fairies (1910).

The theme for this week is Rudyard Kipling, an English author, famous for his works,  Just So Stories and The Jungle Book which earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.

Just So Stories, was a in part a tribute to his late daughter, for whom Kipling had originally crafted the stories as he put her to bed. The book’s name had in fact come from Josephine, who told her father he had to repeat each tale as he always had, or “just so,” as Josephine often said.

Below is a link to Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem “If-” spoken by the famous British actor Sir Michael Caine. It is a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson and is written in the form of paternal advice to the poet’s son. As poetry, “If—” is a literary example of Victorian-era stoicism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWvcwVWCcnY