Judi’s Reviews > A Reader's Book of Days: True Tales from the Lives and Works of Writers for Every Day of the Year > Status Update
Judi
is on page 348 of 448
November 3
1844 After the success of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens struggled to repeat his holiday hit the next year until he came upon the idea for The Chimes, a similar tale in which a father watches as a ghost as his loved ones are crushed by poverty, only to wake, as if from a dream, to a happy ending. Dickens wrote the story in less than a month and reported that he finished it on this day at 2:30 p.m. ...
— 5 hours, 0 min ago
1844 After the success of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens struggled to repeat his holiday hit the next year until he came upon the idea for The Chimes, a similar tale in which a father watches as a ghost as his loved ones are crushed by poverty, only to wake, as if from a dream, to a happy ending. Dickens wrote the story in less than a month and reported that he finished it on this day at 2:30 p.m. ...
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Judi
is on page 347 of 448
November 2
1938 ... in the shadow of its two nearby volcanoes; and by the end of the next year Jan had left him when he refused to stop drinking,. By then, he had already completed a rough draft of Under the Volcano, which, after many revisions, would begin on the Day of the Dead 1939, as two men in white tennis flannel recall the destruction and death of the mescal-soaked consul, Geoffrey Fermin, on the same ...
— 6 hours, 38 min ago
1938 ... in the shadow of its two nearby volcanoes; and by the end of the next year Jan had left him when he refused to stop drinking,. By then, he had already completed a rough draft of Under the Volcano, which, after many revisions, would begin on the Day of the Dead 1939, as two men in white tennis flannel recall the destruction and death of the mescal-soaked consul, Geoffrey Fermin, on the same ...
Judi
is on page 346 of 448
November 1
1755...and the popular, optimistic theory of God's benevolence, summed up by Leibniz's claim that we live in "the best of all possible worlds," could hardly hold against the arbitrary suffering of thousands—on All Saints' Day, no less. Nor could it withstand the withering assaults of Voltaire, who wrote his skeptical "Poem on the Lisbon Disaster" within a month of the calamity and made the earthquake ...
— Nov 03, 2025 05:21AM
1755...and the popular, optimistic theory of God's benevolence, summed up by Leibniz's claim that we live in "the best of all possible worlds," could hardly hold against the arbitrary suffering of thousands—on All Saints' Day, no less. Nor could it withstand the withering assaults of Voltaire, who wrote his skeptical "Poem on the Lisbon Disaster" within a month of the calamity and made the earthquake ...
Judi
is on page 342 of 448
October 31
1615 ...caused by another Don Quixote," and in the book's preface he completed this revenge: humbly declining to abuse his usurper, he instead told a tale of a madman who, after inflating a dog from behind through a hollow reed, asked, "Do your worships think, now, that it is an easy thing to blow up a dog?" "Does your worship think now," added Cervantes, "that it is an easy thing to write a book?"
— Nov 01, 2025 05:46AM
1615 ...caused by another Don Quixote," and in the book's preface he completed this revenge: humbly declining to abuse his usurper, he instead told a tale of a madman who, after inflating a dog from behind through a hollow reed, asked, "Do your worships think, now, that it is an easy thing to blow up a dog?" "Does your worship think now," added Cervantes, "that it is an easy thing to write a book?"
Judi
is on page 341 of 448
October 30
1772 ...of 'Werther' was formed...just as water in a vessel, which stands upon the point of freezing, its converted into hard ice by the most gentle shake." The Sorrows of Young Werther" became the sensation of the Romantic age, sparking copycat suicides, a fashion for blue coats and yellow breeches, and, once word got out about its author's inspiration, pilgrimages to the grave of Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem.
— Oct 31, 2025 08:03AM
1772 ...of 'Werther' was formed...just as water in a vessel, which stands upon the point of freezing, its converted into hard ice by the most gentle shake." The Sorrows of Young Werther" became the sensation of the Romantic age, sparking copycat suicides, a fashion for blue coats and yellow breeches, and, once word got out about its author's inspiration, pilgrimages to the grave of Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem.
Judi
is on page 340 of 448
October 29
1888 Hoping to capitalize on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll designed the "Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case," including illustrations of Alice holding g pig and the Cheshire Cat, slots for various stamp denominations, and a short essay, "Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing"
— Oct 29, 2025 06:43AM
1888 Hoping to capitalize on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll designed the "Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case," including illustrations of Alice holding g pig and the Cheshire Cat, slots for various stamp denominations, and a short essay, "Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing"
Judi
is on page 339 of 448
October 28
1910 ...Tolstoy wrote to his daughter asking for the books he was reading, including Montaigne's Essays, The Brothers Karamazov,, and Maupassant's A Woman's Life. He soon grew ill, though, and took refuge in the house of the stationmaster in Astopovo, where his presence drew not the peace he had sought but a horde of journalists, photographers, dignitaries, and other onlookers for the final days ...
— Oct 28, 2025 05:59AM
1910 ...Tolstoy wrote to his daughter asking for the books he was reading, including Montaigne's Essays, The Brothers Karamazov,, and Maupassant's A Woman's Life. He soon grew ill, though, and took refuge in the house of the stationmaster in Astopovo, where his presence drew not the peace he had sought but a horde of journalists, photographers, dignitaries, and other onlookers for the final days ...
Judi
is on page 338 of 448
October 27
1917 The marriage of William Butler Yeats at fifty-two to twenty-five-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees—just weeks after a different young woman had declined his proposal—plunged him into a torment of second thoughts until, in their hotel room a week later, Georgie declared an urge to write. The "automatic writing" she produced broke through his gloom with its message—"all is well at heart"—and its invitation...
— Oct 27, 2025 08:22AM
1917 The marriage of William Butler Yeats at fifty-two to twenty-five-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees—just weeks after a different young woman had declined his proposal—plunged him into a torment of second thoughts until, in their hotel room a week later, Georgie declared an urge to write. The "automatic writing" she produced broke through his gloom with its message—"all is well at heart"—and its invitation...
Judi
is on page 337 of 448
October 26
1849 ... After midnight he composed himself enough to write and send her a "thousand kisses," and after he woke, on this day, he wrote again, saying "I keep thinking of your sad face." That evening, Du Camp returned to his Paris apartment to find his friend prostr4ate and sighing on the floor of his study. "Never again will I see my mother or my country! This journey is too long, too distant, it is ...
— Oct 26, 2025 07:30AM
1849 ... After midnight he composed himself enough to write and send her a "thousand kisses," and after he woke, on this day, he wrote again, saying "I keep thinking of your sad face." That evening, Du Camp returned to his Paris apartment to find his friend prostr4ate and sighing on the floor of his study. "Never again will I see my mother or my country! This journey is too long, too distant, it is ...
Judi
is on page 336 of 448
October 25
1946 Did Ludwig Wittgenstein threaten Karl Popper with a poker the only time they met, at a session of the Cambridge Moral Science Club on this afternoon—or did the two philosophers even attack each other, as some rumours soon had it? A more interesting question, as David Edmonds and John Eidinow explain in their enlightening history of the incident, Witthenstein's Poker, was why the meeting exploded ...
— Oct 25, 2025 07:26AM
1946 Did Ludwig Wittgenstein threaten Karl Popper with a poker the only time they met, at a session of the Cambridge Moral Science Club on this afternoon—or did the two philosophers even attack each other, as some rumours soon had it? A more interesting question, as David Edmonds and John Eidinow explain in their enlightening history of the incident, Witthenstein's Poker, was why the meeting exploded ...
Judi
is on page 335 of 448
October 24
1911 ...shot, but then they decided instead to stage a suicide pact as if it were a duel over a girl. Ditzen survived the shots, Necker didn't, and on this day Ditzen was arrested for murder. The charges were dropped, but the scandal was still fresh enough that when he published his first novel after the war, he took a pen nam, Hans Fallada, that he kept though his tormented bu often successful career.
— Oct 24, 2025 03:08PM
1911 ...shot, but then they decided instead to stage a suicide pact as if it were a duel over a girl. Ditzen survived the shots, Necker didn't, and on this day Ditzen was arrested for murder. The charges were dropped, but the scandal was still fresh enough that when he published his first novel after the war, he took a pen nam, Hans Fallada, that he kept though his tormented bu often successful career.
