CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY

William Shakespeare - The Most Interesting Man In The World

In honor of Shakespeare’s 449th birthday week, we thought it would be fun to compile a list of little known facts about one of the most important playwrights in the history of mankind. 

1. Born and died on April 23rd.
2. Introduced almost 3,000 words to the English language, including ‘Puking,’ ‘Swagger,’ and ‘Eyeball.’
3. His wife was named Anne Hathaway.
4. Shakespeare performed in many of his own plays.
5. Abraham Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth was a famous Shakespearean actor.
6. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Shakespeare wrote about one-tenth of the most quotable quotations ever written or spoken in English.
7. The Shakespeare blood line ended in 1670 with the death of his granddaughter, Elizabeth.
8. Shakespeare’s parents, along with his children were almost certainly illiterate. 
9. Shakespeare’s father, John was appointed the official ‘Ale Taster’ of Stratford-upon-Avon meaning he was responsible for testing and tasting bread and malt liquors.
10. He married his wife, Anne Hathaway when she was three months pregnant.

Chile Prepares To Exhume Pablo Neruda’s Remains

via NPR:

The body of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is scheduled to be exhumed Monday morning. He died days after the 1973 coup that killed his friend President Salvador Allende and ushered Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power. Neruda’s driver alleges the poet was murdered by the Pinochet regime.

In February, a court ordered his remains to be exhumed and examined for signs of poisoning, and preparations began Sunday at Neruda’s tomb on the Chilean coast.

January 29th, 1845 - The Raven Is Published 

Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem “The Raven,” beginning “Once upon a midnight dreary,” is published on this day in the New York Evening Mirror.

Second Image Of Emily Dickinson Found

Taken from The Guardian:

A photograph believed to be an extremely rare image of Emily Dickinson has surfaced in her home town of Amherst, Massachusetts, showing a young woman in old-fashioned clothes, a tiny smile on her lips and a hand extended solicitously towards her friend.

There is, currently, only one authenticated photograph of Dickinson in existence – the well-known image of the poet as a teenager in 1847. But Amherst College believes an 1859 daguerreotype may well also be an image of the reclusive, beloved poet, by now in her mid-20s and sitting with her recently widowed friend, Kate Scott Turner. If so, it will shed new light on the poet who, by the late 1850s, was withdrawing further and further from the world.

Click here to check out the list of Emily Dickinson works available at the Chicago Public Library. 

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity”

Happy brithday, Dorothy Parker: August 22nd, 1893 - June 7th, 1967

The Chicago Public Library has a large selection of Dorothy Parker works. Click here to look at the list.