Notes For September 11th, 2026

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This Day In Literary History

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On September 11th, 1885, the legendary English writer D.H. Lawrence was born. He was born David Herbert Lawrence in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England. His father was a barely literate coal miner, his mother a former schoolmistress.

His working class town, (which he called "the country of my heart") background, and his parents' rocky marriage would be reflected in his writings. As a boy, Lawrence became the first student to win a City Council Scholarship to the nearby Nottingham High School.

In 1901, Lawrence left school to take a job as junior clerk for a surgical appliance factory, but a severe case of pneumonia cut his employment short. After he recovered, from 1902-06, he served as a student teacher at the British School in Eastwood.

From there, he became a full-time student and received a teaching certificate from University College, Nottingham, in 1908. During university, Lawrence began to write poetry and short stories, and started work on the first draft of a novel.

Near the end of 1907, he won a short story contest held by the Nottingham Guardian. It was the first time he received recognition for his writing talent.

In the fall of 1908, D.H. Lawrence moved to London, where he taught at Davidson Road School and continued to write. By 1910, just as his first novel The White Peacock was about to be published, Lawrence's mother died of cancer. He was devastated, as he had always been close to her.

The following year, he met Edward Garnett, a publisher's reader who became his literary mentor. Before Lawrence's second novel The Trespasser was published, Garnett helped him revise the manuscript that would become his third novel, Sons And Lovers (1913).

Considered to be Lawrence's first masterwork, Sons And Lovers, originally titled Paul Morel, is an autobiographical novel about Paul Morel, a young aspiring artist whose mother, to whom he is close, suffers from both mental illness and a miserable marriage.

It would later be adapted for the screen and TV, first as an acclaimed 1960 feature film directed by Jack Cardiff and starring Dean Stockwell and Trevor Howard, then as a British TV serial in 1981 and 2003.

In March of 1912, Lawrence met Frieda Weekley, a married mother of three and relative of future World War I flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron." Though Frieda was six years older than Lawrence, they fell madly in love with each other.

They ran away to Frieda's parent's house in Metz, a town near a disputed border between Germany and France. Lawrence soon found himself arrested and accused of being a British spy. He was released following the intervention of Frieda's father.

This strange and frightening encounter instilled in Lawrence a lifelong hatred of militarism. He and Frieda moved to a small town south of Munich. From there, they walked through the Alps to Italy, a trek that Lawrence would write about in one of his travel books.

In 1913, Lawrence and Frieda went to England for a visit, during which, Lawrence met and befriended critic John Middleton Murry and writer Katherine Mansfield. When they returned to Italy, Lawrence and Frieda stayed at a cottage in Fiascherino on the Gulf of Spezia.

Lawrence began work on a piece of fiction that would become two of his best known novels, The Rainbow (1915) and Women In Love (1920). After Frieda finally obtained her divorce, she and Lawrence returned to England and were married on July 13th, 1914.

World War I had broken out, and because his wife was German and he had openly expressed contempt for militarism, Lawrence's countrymen immediately suspected that he was a traitor.

When Lawrence's classic novel, The Rainbow was published in 1915, it created a furor and resulted in more antagonism of the author by the British government.

The Rainbow, which dealt with the personal and sexual dynamics of the relationships of three generations of the Brangwen family, was considered one of the finest English novels of the 20th century.

The Rainbow was groundbreaking in both its depictions of sex and in its treatment of sex as both a natural part of life and a kind of spiritual life force. After an obscenity trial, the novel was banned by the British government, with all currently available copies seized and burned. The ban would last for eleven years.

In late 1917, after seeing his novel banned and burned, and being constantly harassed by the British military, D.H. Lawrence was forced to leave England under the Defence of the Realm Act.

He and his wife Frieda began traveling around the world, wandering through Italy, the South of France, Sri Lanka, Australia, Mexico, and finally, in 1922, the United States, where Lawrence decided to emigrate.

They settled on a ranch near Taos, New Mexico, which would later be renamed the D.H. Lawrence Ranch. There, Lawrence was visited by legendary writer Aldous Huxley, who would become a lifelong friend.

During the 1920s, Lawrence continued to publish quality novels. Women In Love (1920), a sequel to The Rainbow, also caused a furor with its sexual content, and was equally groundbreaking in its depiction of a homosexual attraction between two male characters.

Kangaroo (1923) and The Boy In The Bush (1924) were both semi autobiographical novels based on Lawrence's experiences living in Australia. The Plumed Serpent (1926) was inspired by Lawrence's visit to Mexico.

In this novel set during the Mexican Revolution, Kate Leslie, a member of a tourist group watching a bullfight, leaves the event in disgust. She then meets Don Cipriano and his intellectual, landowner friend, Don Ramon.

When she discovers that Cipriano and Ramon have revived the old pre-Christian Aztec religious cult of Quetzalcoatl, she finds herself drawn to it. Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec sky god, is depicted as a flying serpent with feathers.

D.H. Lawrence's last full-length novel would prove to be his masterpiece. Lady Chattlerley's Lover, first published in Italy in 1928, was not only brilliant and beautifully written, but also extremely daring, both in content and philosophy.

After Lady Constance Chatterley's husband Sir Clifford's war injuries leave him crippled and impotent, she finds herself driven to the brink of madness by sexual frustration.

In desperation, she has a passionate affair with the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. The affair leads her to realize that in order to truly live, she (and all human beings) needs to be alive not only intellectually and emotionally, but sexually as well.

Because of it sexual philosophy, vivid and erotic depictions of sex, and use of certain words considered obscene, such as fuck and cunt, in 1928, Lady Chatterley's Lover could only be published in Italy.

It would not be published in the UK until 1960, and its publication would result in yet another obscenity trial, as the novel ran afoul of England's Obscene Publications Act of 1959.

During the trial, various academic critics were brought in as witnesses. As a result, on November 2nd, 1960, a jury found that the novel was not legally obscene, a victory that led to far more freedom for publishers in the UK.

The decision also led to bans on the novel being overturned in Australia and the United States. Sadly, Lawrence wouldn't live to see his novel vindicated in court and become a celebrated classic and cultural icon.

In 1965, the great American singer, songwriter, and satirist Tom Lehrer wrote Smut, one of his most popular songs, whose lyrics stated:

Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?
I've got a hobby - rereading Lady Chatterley!

Lady Chatterley's Lover would be adapted as a feature film, first in 1955, directed by Marc Allegret and starring Danielle Darrieux as Lady Chatterley, then in 1981, which was the most famous adaptation.

The 1981 version was directed by Just Jaeckin and starred Sylvia Kristel in the title role. The novel would also inspire numerous softcore and hardcore pornographic adaptations, or should I say, imitations.

D.H. Lawrence died in 1930 of complications from tuberculosis. He was 44 years old. In addition to his novels, his body of work included short story collections, over a dozen poetry collections, several plays, and works of nonfiction. He is rightfully considered one of the greatest English writers of all time.

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Quote Of The Day

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"When genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot."

- D.H. Lawrence

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features complete a reading of D.H. Lawrence's classic novel, Sons and Lovers. Enjoy!

Notes For September 10th, 2026

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This Day In Literary History

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On September 10th, 1856, the legendary American writer, philosopher, and orator Ralph Waldo Emerson gave his famous "On the Affairs in Kansas" speech in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at a Kansas Relief meeting.

The object of the meeting was to alert abolitionists to the plight of their fellow anti-slavery activists in the Kansas-Nebraska territory, and to raise money for the cause - and the work of legendary militant abolitionist John Brown, who would arrive in four months.

Two years earlier, the Kansas-Nebraska Act had been passed. It repealed the banning of slavery in new territories, as outlined in the Missouri Compromise, giving residents the right to decide whether or not to allow slavery in their territories.

Following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, more violence broke out between the pro-slavery and abolitionist factions, with pro-slavery posses shooting and even scalping abolitionists.

In May of 1856, four months before Ralph Waldo Emerson gave his speech, the city of Lawrence, Kansas, was violently sacked by a pro-slavery force of 800 men led by the local sheriff. The small army surrounded the town, then invaded it.

They destroyed the offices of abolitionist newspapers, smashed their printing presses and dumped the types into the river. Private homes and a hotel were also destroyed, and the town was looted by the pro-slavery militants.

The legendary militant abolitionist John Brown, angered by both the violence of pro-slavery militants and the cowardly response of Lawrence's abolitionists, formed a posse of his own near the Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas.

He and his men killed seven pro-slavery militants in what came to be known as the Pottawatomie Massacre. It was one of many violent incidents that would occur in the Kansas-Nebraska territory prior to the Civil War.

Abolitionists across the country formed the Kansas Relief Movement to help their brothers in the Kansas-Nebraska territory, horrified by all the violence being wreaked in that area by pro-slavery militants.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson stated in his famous speech:

The people of Kansas ask for bread, clothes, arms, and men, to save them alive, and enable them to stand against these enemies of the human race.

The Kansas Relief Movement raised money and support for John Brown, who arrived the following January to visit Massachusetts, New York, and other Eastern states.

Emerson was a friend and admirer of Brown, who would become famous for his ill-fated 1859 raid on the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, which historians believe provoked the Southern states to secede from and ultimately wage war with the Union.

Although Brown's raid was initially successful - he and his men had seized the armory - his main plan, to arm slaves with weapons from the armory's arsenal so they could wage a violent revolt, ultimately collapsed.

Within 36 hours, his men were captured or killed by locals and U.S. Marines led by future Confederate General Robert E. Lee. John Brown was captured, tried for treason, convicted, and hung. At his trial, a defiant and passionate Brown proclaimed:

Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments - I submit; so let it be done!

While Brown awaited his sentence, Ralph Waldo Emerson said of him:

[John Brown is] that new saint, than whom none purer or more brave was ever led by love of men into conflict and death - the new saint awaiting his martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer, will make the gallows glorious like the cross.

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Quote Of The Day

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"The South calls slavery an institution. I call it destitution. Emancipation is the demand of civilization."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features a complete reading of Ralph Waldo Emerson's classic speech, On the Affairs in Kansas. Enjoy!

Notes For September 9th, 2026

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This Day In Literary History

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On September 9th, 1828, the legendary Russian writer Leo Tolstoy was born. He was born on his family's estate, Yasnaya Polyana, in Tula, Russia, the fourth of five children. The Tolstoys were a well known aristocratic family of the old Russian nobility.

Leo's parents died when he was young, so he and his siblings were raised by relatives. In 1844, Leo began studying law and oriental languages at Kazan University, but his teachers dismissed him as both unable and unwilling to learn, so he dropped out and returned to Yasnaya Polyana.

He later spent most of his time between Moscow and Saint Petersburg. He became a compulsive gambler. In 1851, after running up large gambling debts, he and his older brother went to the Caucasus and joined the military. Around this time, he began to write.

After taking two trips around Europe, Leo Tolstoy experienced a literary and political transformation. During his first trip in 1857, while in Paris, Leo witnessed a public execution. It would prove to be a traumatic experience, one that would have a lifelong effect on him.

In a letter to his friend V.P. Botkin, Leo wrote of the execution, proclaiming "The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens... henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere."

During his next trip around Europe, which took place between 1860-61, Leo met novelist Victor Hugo. He had read Hugo's recently published masterpiece Les Miserables, and praised the author for his talents. Les Miserables would have a huge influence on Tolstoy's masterpiece, War and Peace.

In March of 1861, Leo met French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who was living in exile under an assumed name in Brussels, Belgium. Proudhon would inspire Leo's political philosophy.

His book, La Guerre et la Paix, also influenced the writing of War and Peace. The title of Proudhon's book translates into English as The War and The Peace, and Leo would borrow it for his own novel. He would also be inspired by the themes of Proudhon's book.

When he returned to Yasnaya Polyana, an enthusiastic and transformed Leo Tolstoy established over a dozen schools for his serfs' children, so that the poor peasant kids could receive an education.

In his 1862 essay, The School at Yasnaya Polyana, Leo discusses his principles in what could be considered the first coherent theory of libertarian education. Unfortunately, Leo's schools would prove to be short-lived, thanks to the harassment of the Tsar's secret police.

On September 23rd, 1862, Leo Tolstoy married his girlfriend, Sophia Andreevna Bers, the daughter of a court physician. At the time of their wedding, Leo was 34 and Sophia was 18. She would bear him thirteen children, five of whom would die in childhood.

The night before their wedding, Leo gave Sophia a collection of his diaries, which contained details of his sexual past, including the illegitimate son he fathered with one of his serfs. Still, their early marriage was happy and gave Leo the freedom to write.

The Tolstoys' marriage would deteriorate as Leo's political beliefs grew more radical and he came to reject his inherited wealth and nobility. He became renowned among the peasantry for his generosity.

He would bring vagrants home to his country estate to give them a place to stay and a helping hand. When he visited the city, he would distribute large sums of money to street beggars. This infuriated his wife.

In 1852, Leo Tolstoy's first novel, Childhood, was published. It was the first in a trilogy of autobiographical novels, followed by Boyhood (1854) and Youth (1856). After writing the novella Family Happiness (1859) and the novel The Cossacks (1863), Leo began work on what would prove to be his masterpiece.

The classic epic novel War and Peace was published in four volumes from 1865-69, and since then as one giant volume. Set during the era of Catherine the Great, it opens in 1805 and ends in 1820. It contains a whopping 580 characters.

Despite its huge cast of characters, War and Peace primarily tells the stories of five aristocratic families - the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs, the Kuragins, and the Drubetskoys.

The families' personal lives entangle with the historical events of 1805-1813, which lead up to, take place around, and follow the French invasion of Russia during the Napoleonic Wars. It is rightfully considered one of the greatest novels ever written.

War and Peace was adapted for the screen, first in 1915, directed by Vladimir Gardin. The best known and most acclaimed film version was made by Soviet director Sergei Bondarchuk.

Originally released in four parts between 1965 and 1967, it would later be edited into one six-hour long film and re-released in 1967. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film that year. In 1956, a Hollywood feature film adaptation of War and Peace was released.

The 208-minute epic was directed by King Vidor and starred Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, and Mel Ferrer, but the screenplay sanitized Tolstoy's novel considerably (as per Production Code requirements) and condensed the story. It pales in comparison to Bondarchuk's cinematic masterpiece.

Leo Tolstoy's next two novels also proved to be masterworks. Anna Karenina, originally published in serial format from 1873-77 in the literary magazine The Russian Messenger, told the story of Anna Karenina, a married aristocrat whose passionate affair with Count Vronsky leads to tragic consequences.

The Death Of Ivan Ilyich (1886), written shortly after Leo had converted to Christianity, is both a meditation on the meaning of life and a shrewd satire. 45-year-old High Court judge Ivan Ilyich Golovin takes a fall while hanging up curtains in his apartment.

Weeks later, he develops a bad taste in his mouth and a pain that won't go away. Numerous expensive doctors are called in, and numerous other people visit Ivan's bedside, but nobody can diagnose or treat his condition. It's obvious, though, that Ivan is dying.

Terrified of death, Ivan can't understand why a man like him - someone who has lived such a good life - should suffer such a fate. But as he begins to examine his life, he realizes that his so-called good life was anything but.

He dedicated most of his life to social climbing. He ignored his miserable family to concentrate on his work. His life was filled with hypocrisy. Only after Ivan begins to understand the true meaning of life does he lose his fear of death.

In addition to his novels, Leo Tolstoy also wrote three plays and works of nonfiction. His most famous work of nonfiction was The Kingdom Of God Is Within You (1894). The book was a mix of Christian spirituality and pacifist anarchist philosophy.

Tolstoy's aim was to separate the true teachings of Jesus Christ from Russian Orthodox Christianity, which had merged with the state and become corrupt. Indeed, all the modern churches were corrupt beyond repair and had little to do with the teachings of Jesus.

Particularly offensive to Tolstoy was the use of religion by the state to justify war and domestic cruelty. Tolstoy also discussed the principles of non-violent resistance as a solution to these woes. Subsequently, the Russian government banned his book.

The Kingdom Of God Is Within You became an influential work throughout the world. One of its readers was a young Indian activist named Mohandas Ghandi.

Ghandi wrote to Tolstoy and the two began a correspondence in 1909 that would last for a year, until Tolstoy's death. He died of pneumonia on November 20th, 1910, at the age of 82. Leo Tolstoy is still considered one of the greatest writers of all time, and rightfully so.

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Quote Of The Day

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"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

- Leo Tolstoy

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features two documentaries on Leo Tolstoy. Enjoy!

Notes For September 8th, 2026

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This Day In Literary History

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On September 8th, 1924, the famous American writer Grace Metalious was born. She was born Marie Grace De Repentigny in Manchester, New Hampshire, which at the time of her birth was a poor mill town.

Grace was born to an impoverished family, the daughter of French Canadian immigrants, but as a child, she had big dreams and longed to be a famous writer. She would go to her aunt's house, sit in the bathtub, and spend hours writing stories. Her parents divorced when she was ten years old.

As a teenager, Grace attended Manchester Central High School, from which she graduated. When she was 18, she married her boyfriend, George Metalious. Her parents opposed the marriage because George was Greek. She would bear him three children, but the marriage was rocky from the start.

With World War II raging, George enlisted in the military, which kept him away from home for a long period of time. When he came back from the war, he was appalled to discover that instead of saving money, Grace had spent most of her salary supporting her sister, mother, and grandmother.

When George became a schoolteacher, Grace, a fierce nonconformist, refused to play the part of faculty wife. At a time when most women wore dresses, girdles, and bullet bras, Grace wore flannel shirts and blue jeans. She wore no makeup and kept her hair in a pony-tail. She was also a terrible housekeeper.

She would later write "I did not like belonging to Friendly Clubs and bridge clubs. I did not like being regarded as a freak because I spent time in front of a typewriter instead of a sink. And George did not like my not liking the things I was supposed to like."

Grace Metalious continued to write stories in her spare time, as she tried to build a writing career. When the family moved to Gilmanton, New Hampshire, where George accepted a job as school principal, Grace struck up a friendship with Laurie Wilkens, a writer for The Laconia Evening News.

Laurie told her about a lurid murder case that was in the headlines: a young woman had murdered her father after being sexually abused by him since she was a child. Grace read all she could about the case and even researched local gossip. It gave her an idea for a novel.

After she completed her novel, Grace tried to get it published. After receiving numerous rejections, Grace Metalious' classic debut novel was published in 1956.

It was called Peyton Place, and it caused a sensation - and an uproar. The novel was set in Peyton Place, a seemingly quiet and respectable small mill town in New England that proves to be neither quiet nor respectable.

The novel rips the lid off this picture-postcard-perfect town and exposes its seedy underbelly. It tells the stories of several different characters. Constance MacKenzie owns a dress shop. When she was young, she had an affair with a married man and became pregnant.

She returned to Peyton Place, claiming to be a widow, and forged her daughter's birth certificate. Constance lives in fear that her daughter Allison, now a young woman herself, will discover that she's illegitimate.

Selena Cross comes from "across the tracks" - the poor and tough area of Peyton Place. Her stepfather, Lucas, has been sexually abusing her since she was 14. After he impregnates her, Selena tries to arrange an illegal abortion. She ends up murdering Lucas and is put on trial.

The wealthy Harrington family owns the town mill, and they have their own skeletons in the closet. Peyton Place became a huge bestseller; by 1960, it had sold over ten million copies, despite the fact that it was so controversial - or maybe because of it.

The reviews were mixed; critics either loved it or hated it. Described as "Tobacco Road with a Yankee accent," the sexually frank novel was denounced by the clergy as wicked and sordid trash. Libraries refused to stock it. Some bookstores refused to sell it.

The Canadian government banned it outright. But readers passed it on to their friends, and teenagers stole their parents' copies. Grace Metalious added to the controversy when she claimed that her husband George lost his job because of her novel.

While Grace had proved herself a capable novelist, she was a poor businesswoman. Her book contract gave her editor control of the final draft. As a result, Lucas Cross was changed from Selena's biological father to her stepfather, as the publisher feared that real incest would be far too shocking a subject for 1950s readers.

When Peyton Place was adapted as an acclaimed feature film in 1957, Grace was shocked and repulsed by the heavily sanitized screenplay, which bore little resemblance to her novel.

Unfortunately, when she sold the movie rights, she had given up creative control of the adaptation, so there was nothing she could do. When the novel was adapted as a popular TV series - a prime time soap opera that ran from 1964-69 - it too was sanitized.

By the time that the feature film was released in 1957, Grace Metalious had become a major celebrity and was booked on a promotional tour. In those days, publishers didn't teach their writers how to deal with the media.

Terrified of all the attention and insecure about her looks, Grace started drinking heavily. Although she and her husband both had affairs during their marriage, it was her alcoholism that broke them up.

Grace continued to write. Her next novel was a sequel, Return To Peyton Place (1959), that got slammed by critics. It sold well, but nowhere near as well as the original.

While she wrote it, Grace was still drinking heavily - so heavily that she had to hire a ghostwriter to help her complete the manuscript. After her divorce, Grace met and married her second husband, T.J. Martin, but the marriage lasted barely a year, as he tried in vain to mold Grace into what a successful writer should be.

Grace later reconciled with her first husband, George, and they bought a motel which they named the Peyton Place Motel. No one wanted to stay there, and it went bust, along with Grace and George's relationship, this time for good - she was drinking a fifth of whiskey a day.

She published two more novels, The Tight White Collar (1960) and No Adam In Eden (1963), neither of which were as successful as Peyton Place.

In late 1963, Grace met a British journalist named John Rees, who had come to interview her. They became lovers, but the relationship ended in early 1964 when, while traveling in Boston, Grace fell ill and was rushed to the hospital.

Three days later, on February 25th, 1964, Grace Metalious died of a hemorrhage that resulted from cirrhosis of the liver - the classic drunkard's death. She was 39 years old.

After her death, it was discovered that she had changed her will, leaving everything to John Rees. Grace's children contested the will. When they found that Rees was actually married with five children, he dropped his claim to the estate. The fact that Grace Metalious had accrued far more debts than assets no doubt influenced his decision.

To this day, Peyton Place remains one of the great cult classic novels. In 2007, the University of Manchester honored Grace Metalious with an in-depth examination of her life and work.

The celebration included readings from her novels and screenings of the Peyton Place movie. It was the first time that the town of Manchester publicly acknowledged its native daughter.

The information in this article was sourced from the biography Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious by Emily Toth. You can find this book at Amazon or at a bookstore near you.

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Quote Of The Day

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"If I'm a lousy writer, then a hell of a lot of people have lousy taste!"

- Grace Metalious

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features an AMC documentary on Grace Metalious' classic novel, Peyton Place. Enjoy!

Notes For September 4th, 2026

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This Day In Literary History

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On September 4th, 1908, the legendary African-American writer Richard Wright was born. The grandson of former slaves, Wright was born on the Rucker plantation in Roxie, Mississippi, after which, his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee.

Unable to find work, Wright's father abandoned the family. Wright's mother, a schoolteacher, supported herself and her children. When she fell ill in 1914, Richard Wright and his brother were sent to a Methodist orphanage.

After Wright's mother recovered, she and her sons moved to Jackson, Mississippi, to live with relatives. First, they lived with Wright's maternal grandmother, Margaret Wilson, then they went to stay with an aunt and uncle in Elaine, Arkansas.

After Wright's uncle was murdered by whites, the family fled to West Helena, Arknsas, where they lived in hiding in rented rooms. After moving back and forth between West Helena and Elaine, Wright's mother had a stroke.

In 1919, Richard Wright reluctantly decided to live with another aunt and uncle, Jody and Clark, in Greenwood, Mississippi, so he could be near his ailing mother. Unfortunately, Aunt Jody and Uncle Clark turned out to be fanatically religious Seventh Day Adventists.

Making his life miserable with their extreme strictness and maniacal devotion to their faith, their fanaticism nearly drove Wright to a nervous breakdown, so he was allowed to move back with his grandmother. Unfortunately, she was also a Seventh Day Adventist.

When she refused to let him work on Saturdays - the Adventist Sabbath - Wright threatened to leave home. This atmosphere of religious fanaticism and family conflict would instill in him a lifelong seething hatred of religion.

As a teenager, Richard Wright attended a public high school and excelled in academics. At the age of fifteen, he wrote his first short story, The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre, which was published in a local black newspaper called The Southern Register.

In 1923, Wright became his high school's sophomore class valedictorian, but he refused to deliver the speech written for him by the assistant principal - a speech specifically designed not to offend the school's white officials in any way.

Willing to make a few compromises, Wright was able to convince the black administrators to allow him to give the speech that he had originally written for the graduation ceremony.

The following year, Wright attended the newly built Lanier High School in Jackson, but dropped out to work to support his family. His childhood in Tennessee and Mississippi exposed him to the horrors of racism and shaped his view of white America, which would later be reflected in his writing.

Although he had to leave school, Wright was determined to educate himself. In 1927, he moved to Chicago, where he took a job as a postal clerk. In his spare time, he became a voracious reader and studied the styles of other writers.

In 1931, Wright lost his job to the Great Depression and was forced to go on relief. A year later, he began attending meetings of the John Reed Club, an organization of left-leaning artists and writers.

Since most of the Club's members also belonged to the Communist Party, in late 1933, Wright joined the party, too. He became a revolutionary poet, and his proletarian poems, such as I Have Seen Black Hands, We of the Streets, and Red Leaves of Red Books, were published in The New Masses and other leftist magazines and newspapers.

In 1935, Richard Wright completed his first novel, Cesspool. This early work would be published posthumously in 1963 as Lawd Today.

When he wasn't publishing short stories, he worked with the National Negro Congress and chaired the Southside Writers' Group. He also served as an editor for Left Front magazine until 1937, when, despite his protests, the magazine was shut down by the Communist Party.

Although Wright enjoyed generally good relations with communists in Chicago, his insistence on giving young communist writers an outlet for their talents and his work with a black nationalist communist led to a falling out with the party and its top black leader, Buddy Nealson.

Wright found himself denounced as a bourgeois intellectual by other black communists, threatened at knifepoint by his communist sympathizer co-workers, denounced as a Trotskyite by strikers, and beaten by his former comrades when he tried to join them in their 1936 May Day march.

In 1937, Richard Wright finally left Chicago and moved to New York City, where he was humiliated when some fellow communists reneged on their offer to help find him an apartment after learning that he was black.

Wright was nonetheless able to forge new ties with the Communist Party after he became an established writer in New York. He worked on the New York Panorama (1938), the WPA Writers' Project's guidebook to the city, which included his essay on Harlem.

From there, Wright became the Harlem editor of the Daily Worker newspaper, for which he wrote over 200 articles. He also served as an editor for a short-lived literary magazine called New Challenge.

1938 proved to be an important year for Wright. He met and became friends with the prominent black writer and scholar Ralph Ellison, and his short story Fire and Cloud won first prize and $500 from Story magazine.

After he received the prize, Wright shelved his early novel Cesspool, fired his literary agent, and hired a new, prominent one. Harper agreed to publish a collection of all of Wright's prize entry stories. This collection was titled Uncle Tom's Children.

It brought Wright national fame and improved his relations with the Communist Party. It sold well, too, which provided him with financial security, and he began work on his classic first published novel, Native Son (1940).

Native Son tells the tragic story of Bigger Thomas, (his first name is a deliberate play on the racial epithet nigger) a black teenager who lives in a rat infested one room apartment with his brother, his sister, and their mother.

Bigger's life is a bleak maze of poverty, pool halls, and petty crime. That is, until he gets a job as chauffeur for the Daltons, a wealthy white family. The job requires him to live in the Dalton home. He loves having his own room.

Still, he's always on edge because he has no idea how to behave around white people and he's terrified of losing his job. The Daltons have a rebellious, left-leaning teenage daughter, Mary, whose boyfriend, Jan, is a communist.

One night, while Bigger is driving Mary around, they pick up Jan. The couple has Bigger take them to a diner where Jan's friends are. Bigger is asked to join the group and told to call everyone by their first names.

Bigger has never called a white person by his first name, which adds to his awkwardness and fear. Later that night, he drives around the park while Jan and Mary fool around in the back seat and drink rum.

After Jan leaves, Bigger drives Mary home. Since she's unable to walk because she's so drunk, Bigger carries her into the house, fearful that someone will see her in his arms. They pass by Mrs. Dalton, who is blind.

Afraid that she'll sense his presence, Bigger covers Mary's face with a pillow to keep her quiet. Mrs. Dalton smells the alcohol on Mary, scolds her, and leaves the room. Unfortunately, Bigger doesn't realize that Mary is suffocating under the pillow.

After her mother leaves the room, Bigger removes the pillow and finds that Mary is dead - he accidentally killed her. Terrified, Bigger panics, realizing that white people will never believe that Mary's death was an accident. He ultimately decides to stuff Mary's body in the furnace.

Later, Bigger visits his girlfriend Bessie. When she mentions a famous kidnapping case, Bigger decides to write a fake ransom note to make it seem that Mary has been kidnapped. The note works.

The Daltons hire a private detective. Later, the police take over the investigation. Reporters arrive at the Dalton house. After one of them finds Mary's bones in the furnace, Bigger flees. He goes to Bessie and confesses, and the two of them go on the lam.

Bessie is so terrified that Bigger has to literally drag her around with him. One night, he rapes Bessie, then realizes that he'll have to kill her to stay free. After bludgeoning her with a brick and throwing her through a window, he takes off.

In the newspapers, Bigger is vilified by both the white and black communities. The whites call him a murderous ape and the blacks hate him for giving the whites an excuse for their racism.

After leading the police on a wild chase over the rooftops of the city, Bigger is caught and arrested. Even though he caused Mary's death, her boyfriend Jan arranges for Bigger to be defended by a lawyer - a fellow communist named Max.

Max delivers a brilliant and eloquent defense wherein he explains how white society oppresses black people from the day they're born. Nevertheless, Bigger is convicted and sentenced to death. While on death row, Bigger finally calls Jan by his first name.

Native Son proved to be a huge critical and commercial success for Richard Wright. Within its first three weeks of publication, it sold 250,000 copies, making Wright the wealthiest black writer of his time.

The novel was one of the earliest attempts to portray the racial divide in America in terms of the socioeconomic conditions imposed on blacks by the dominant white society. Most of Wright's fellow black writers praised it, but some did not.

When in an essay, legendary African-American writer James Baldwin deemed the novel "protest fiction" rather than art, Wright was deeply hurt by the assessment. It would end their close friendship. Baldwin never meant to hurt Wright, but was unable to convince him of that.

In March of 1941, a stage play adaptation of Native Son, co-written by Richard Wright, opened on Broadway. The production was directed by Orson Welles and received mostly good reviews.

As a communist, Wright was blacklisted by Hollywood, but in 1951, a feature film version of Native Son was produced in Argentina. Richard Wright played the teenage Bigger Thomas himself, despite the fact that he was 42 years old at the time.

In 1945, Wright published his second-most-famous book, a classic autobiography called Black Boy. It was more an autobiographical novel than a straight autobiography, which was exactly the author's intention.

The following year, disgusted with America, Richard Wright moved his family to Paris, France, where he met and became friends with writers and philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. This resulted in Wright's classic existential novel, The Outsider (1953).

It told the story of a black man, Cross Damon (whom Wright modeled after himself) whose status as a Negro intellectual alienates him from whites and blacks alike. Damon has a "habit of incessant reflection" wherein he ponders the meaning of life.

Having rejected religion, mainstream society, the communist alternative, and his self-destructive behavior as the product of his own free will, Damon sees love as his last hope. But even that proves futile when his mistress commits suicide.

Throughout the 1950s, Wright continued to produce quality novels and stories, but none of them matched the raw power of Native Son. He returned to poetry when he fell in love with the Japanese haiku and wrote over 4,000 of his own haiku.

In 1957, while on a visit to Africa, Wright contracted amoebic dysentery. Despite receiving various treatments for the disease, his health deteriorated over the next three years. On November 28th, 1960, Richard Wright died of a heart attack in Paris. He was 52 years old.

After his death, as the civil rights movement in America gained momentum, Richard Wright became one of the most influential black writers in the country, his classic novel Native Son becoming essential reading again some twenty years after it was first published.

Many of his unpublished writings were published posthumously. In 1991, the original, uncensored versions of Native Son, Black Boy, and other works by Richard Wright were finally published in the United States.

Today, Native Son is best known as one of TV legend Oprah Winfrey's favorite novels. It remains one of the top selections of her book club. Winfrey co-starred as Bigger Thomas's mother in an acclaimed 1986 TV movie adaptation.

The novel would be adapted again as an HBO movie in April of 2019. It drew sharply mixed reviews due to the great liberties taken with the source material, including an alternate ending.

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Quote Of The Day

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"I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all."

- Richard Wright

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features a complete reading of Richard Wright's autobiography, Black Boy. Enjoy!

Notes For September 3rd, 2026

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This Day In Literary History

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On September 3rd, 1802, the legendary English poet William Wordsworth wrote his classic sonnet, Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802.

Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy were riding in a coach on their way to Calais, France, to meet with his French girlfriend, Annette Vallon, and Caroline, the illegitimate daughter he fathered with her. Wordsworth hadn't seen Annette since 1791.

He wanted to marry her then, but because France and England were teetering on war, he was forced to return to Britain. In 1802, the Treaty of Amiens allowed British subjects to travel to France, so Wordsworth and his sister went to see Annette and Caroline.

The idea was to reach an agreeable settlement of Wordsworth's financial obligations to them, so that he could marry his childhood sweetheart Mary Hutchinson with a clear conscience.

While on its way to France, Wordsworth and Dorothy's coach stopped for a moment on Westminster Bridge, giving the poet and his sister a surprising view of London, which at the time was a dirty place that had grown considerably since the Industrial Revolution.

London had grown exponentially in both wealth and population, but country folk were starving and dying in poverty, as they were afraid to move to an ominously large, dirty, and dangerous city that they barely knew.

Despite the dirtiness of the city, the surprisingly beautiful view of London in the early morning sunlight that Wordsworth saw inspired him to write the following sonnet:

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This city now doth, like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did the sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

This sonnet is a Petrarchan sonnet, (with an ABBAABBA CDCDCD rhyme scheme) and makes use of paradoxical metaphors such as "touching in its majesty" and "that mighty heart is lying still."

While Petrarchan sonnets employ iambic pentameter, the lines in this poem aren't exactly that. But they do have a kind of iambic rhythm. In his depiction of the scenery, Wordsworth shows us his skill as a Romantic poet. His sister, Dorothy, would describe the same view of London in her journal:

It was a beautiful morning. The city, St. Paul's, with the river, and a multitude of little boats, made a most beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge. The houses were not overhung by their cloud of smoke, and they were spread out endlessly, yet the sun shone so brightly, with such a fierce light; that there was something like the purity of one of nature's own grand spectacles.

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Quote Of The Day

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"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."

- William Wordsworth

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features a reading of William Wordsworth's classic poem Daffodils, performed by Sir Jeremy Irons.

Notes For September 2nd, 2026

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This Day In Literary History

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On September 2nd, 1946, The Iceman Cometh, the classic play by legendary American playwright Eugene O'Neill, opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theater.

Directed by Eddie Dowling, the play ran for 136 performances before it closed. It would be revived in 1999 and nominated for a Tony Award for Best Revival.

The Iceman Cometh, considered to be O'Neill's finest work, contained all the distinctive elements of an O'Neill play: dingy, run-down sets, experimental use of light and sound, and the dialogue of the common man, peppered with slang.

Often compared to Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, The Iceman Cometh tells the story of a tavern full of skid row bums who cling to illusion in order to cope with the reality of their despair.

It's 1912, the place is a grubby saloon and rooming house in Greenwich Village, and the people are the patrons of the establishment. All of them are men, except for three women who are prostitutes. All are skid row alcoholics who seek solace in each other's company - when they're not trying to mooch free drinks from the bartenders.

They await the arrival of their friend Theodore "Hickey" Hickman, a traveling salesman who always stops by the bar to buy drinks for everyone after returning from his sales route. He regales the bums with stories and jokes.

This time, the bums are also expecting Hickey to plan a surprise birthday party for Harry Hope, owner of the bar and main bartender. (Harry Hope - isn't that a great name for a bartender?) Also in the first act, we meet Don Parrit and Larry Slade.

Don's mother is involved with an anarchist group, and she used to date Larry. Joe Mott is the only black member of the group. He used to own a black casino, which he plans to re-open.

Cecil "The Captain" Lewis is a former British Army infantryman who fought against Piet "The General" Wetjoen during the Boer War, but now the two men are good friends who both insult and defend each other. They insist that they'll go back to their countries soon.

Willie Oban is a graduate of Harvard who claims that he'll soon have a job at the D.A.'s office. Pat McGloin is an ex-cop and convicted criminal who hopes to appeal his case when the time is right.

Rocky Pioggi, the night bartender, hates being called a pimp, even though he makes most of his living from the earnings of hookers Pearl and Margie, in exchange for letting them live and work at the bar.

Hugo Kalmar is an ex-anarchist who often quotes from the Old Testament - when he's not passed out drunk, which is most of the time. James Cameron, a former newspaper correspondent, always says that he'll get a job tomorrow, hence his nickname, Jimmy Tomorrow.

Chuck Morello is the day bartender and the boyfriend of hooker Cora. He keeps telling her that he'll marry her tomorrow. Meanwhile, Harry Hope hasn't left the bar since his wife died twenty years ago.

Harry says that he'll go for a walk on his birthday; his brother-in-law, Ed Mosher, is a former circus box office ticket seller and con man with an uncanny talent for short-changing people.

All of these characters cling to their illusions, especially Hickey, who insists that in his new found sobriety, he finally sees life clearly. He chides his former drinking buddies for clinging to their pipe dreams, but Hickey's own illusions lead to tragedy.

A compulsive adulterer, Hickey has grown tired of his wife always forgiving him for cheating on her. So, because he really loves her, he puts her out of her misery and is arrested for her murder. His illusions shattered, he doesn't want to live anymore.

Don Parrit is driven to suicide by guilt after he turns in his mother for her anarchist activities. Though he tries to convince himself otherwise, Don finally admits that he turned in his mother because he hated her.

When he was a boy, she cared more about her anarchist group than him, and either ignored him or was domineering. Informing on her was an act of revenge for his unhappy childhood.

Eugene O'Neill's brilliant, gut wrenching, heartbreaking play would be the last one produced on Broadway before his death. It was adapted as an acclaimed film in 1973.

Directed by John Frankenheimer, the film featured a stellar cast including Lee Marvin, Fredric March, Robert Ryan, Jeff Bridges, Bradford Dillman, Sorrell Booke, and Moses Gunn.

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Quote Of The Day

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"To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It's irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober."

- Eugene O'Neill

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Vanguard Video

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Today's video features a rare, complete 1960 live TV performance of The Iceman Cometh, directed by Sidney Lumet. Enjoy!