William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was born in 1770 at Cockermouth, Cumbria, the son of an attorney. His parents died when he was still a child, and the losses are recorded in In 'The Prelude', his intense and haunting epic poem on childhood. Educated at St. John's college, Cambridge, Wordsworth was dissatisfied with the course and took greater pleasure in a walking tour in 1790 of France, the Alps and Italy.

Wordsworth returned to France for a year at the end of 1791, where he fell in love with Annette Vallon, who bore him a daughter. After returning to England, he published his first poem in 1793: An Everning Walk and Descriptive Sketches, which are conventional, picturesque descriptions of the Alps.

Wordsworth's disillusionment with the French Revolution, which he had strongly advocated, is reflected in his verse drama 'The Borderers', composed in 1796-7 and published in 1842. He worked closely with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge and together they produced Lyrical Ballads (1798), which contains much of Wordsworth's best-known poetry. In 1799 he and his sister Dorothy settled in Dove Cottage, Grasmere, and in 1802 he married Mary Hutchinson, whom he had known since childhood. In the same year, he composed 'Revolution and Independence' and began his ode 'Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood', which both appeared in Poems in Two Volumes (1807).

Wordsworth moved to Ambleside in 1813, where he stayed for the rest of his life. At this time his output was prolific, including The Excursion (1814), The white Doe of Rylstone (1814), Peter Bell and The Waggoner, both published in 1819, and many prose works. Wordsworth's popularity gradually increased and in 1843 he succeeded Robert Southey as Poet Laureate. He was deeply venerated by writers such as Matthew Arnold and John Stuart Mill.

Wordsworth spent the majority of his life in the Lake District with his sister Dorothy, who shared his joy in the pastoral world.

Wordsworth's innate grasp of the power of nature is closely linked with a deeper understanding of the feelings and emotions of the common people. Worsworth's concern with the plight of mankind is reflected in his poetry, which reveals a dread of the "Industrial Age" and a presentiment that it will destroy both man's innocence and the individuality of the human spirit.

A great innovator in English Poetry, William Wordsworth died in 1850.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
(September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940)

Was an American writer of novels and short stories, whose works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the twenties. He finished four novels, including The Great Gatsby, with another published posthumously, and wrote dozens of short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age.

Born in Cathedral Hill in St. Paul, Minnesota, to an upper-middle class Irish Catholic household—aggressive mother, retiring father—Fitzgerald was named after his famous relative Francis Scott Key, but was referred to as "Scott." He spent 1898–1901 and 1903–1908 in Buffalo, New York, where he attended Nardin Academy.[2] When his father was fired from Procter & Gamble, the family returned to Minnesota, where Fitzgerald attended St. Paul Academy in St. Paul from 1908–1911. His first literary effort, a detective story, was published in a school newspaper when he was 13. He attended Newman School, a prep school in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 1911–1912, and entered Princeton University in 1913 as a member of the Class of 1917. There he became friends with future critics and writers Edmund Wilson (Class of 1916) and John Peale Bishop (Class of 1917), and wrote for the Princeton Triangle Club. His absorption in the Triangle—a kind of musical-comedy society—led to a submitted novel to Charles Scribner's Sons, the editor praised the writing but ultimately rejected the book. The war ended shortly after Fitzgerald's enlistment.
Fitzgerald's work and legend has inspired writers ever since he was first published. The publication of The Great Gatsby prompted T. S. Eliot to write, in a letter to Fitzgerald, "[I]t seems to me to be the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James...".[5] Don Birnam, the protagonist of Charles Jackson's The Lost Weekend, says to himself, referring to Gatsby, "There's no such thing...as a flawless novel. But if there is, this is it."[6] In letters written in the 1940s, J. D. Salinger expressed admiration of Fitzgerald's work, and his biographer Ian Hamilton wrote that Salinger even saw himself for some time as "Fitzgerald's successor."[7] Richard Yates, a writer often compared to Fitzgerald, called The Great Gatsby "the most nourishing novel [he] read...a miracle of talent...a triumph of technique."[8] It was written in a New York Times editorial after his death that Fitzgerald "was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a 'generation'. [... H]e might have interpreted them and even guided them, as in their middle years they saw a different and nobler freedom threatened with destruction."
Into the 21st century, Fitzgerald's reputation continues to grow. Millions of copies of "The Great Gatsby" and his other works have been sold, and "Gatsby," a constant best-seller, is required reading in many high school and college classes.

Works

This Side of Paradise (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920)
The Beautiful and Damned (New York: Scribner, 1922)
The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner, 1925)
Tender Is the Night (New York: Scribner, 1934)
The Last Tycoon – originally The Love of the Last Tycoon – (New York: Scribners, published posthumously, 1941)
Flappers and Philosophers (Short Story Collection, 1920)
Tales of the Jazz Age (Short Story Collection, 1922)
All the Sad Young Men (Short Story Collection, 1926)
Taps at Reveille (Short Story Collection, 1935)
Babylon Revisited and Other Stories (Short Story Collection, 1960)
The Basil and Josephine Stories (Short Story Collection)
The Pat Hobby Stories (Short Story Collection)
Bernice Bobs Her Hair (Short Story, 1920)
Head and Shoulders (Short Story, 1920)
The Ice Palace (Short Story, 1920)
May Day (Novelette, 1920)
The Offshore Pirate (Short Story, 1920)
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz (Novella, 1922)
Winter Dreams (Short Story, 1922)
Dice, Brassknuckles & Guitar (Short Story, 1923)
The Freshest Boy (Short Story, 1928)
"A New Leaf" (Short Story, 1931)
Babylon Revisited (Novelette, 1931)
Crazy Sunday (Short Story, 1932)
The Fiend (Short Story, 1935)
The Bridal Party (Short Story)
The Baby Party (Short Story)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Short Story)
The Princeton Tiger (Humor Magazine, 1917)
The Vegetable, or From President to Postman (play, 1923)
The Crack-Up (essays, 1945)