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 Joel
Barlow first
achieved national fame when his
nine-volume epic poem, The Vision of
Columbus, was published in 1787. It
is said that in this work Barlow was the
first writer in English to use the words
"civil," "civic" and
"civilization," with their
modern meanings. In addition to his work
as an author, he also did some diplomatic
work for the United States. |
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 Katharine
Lee Bates is best known as
the author of "America the
Beautiful," a poem inspired by her
travels across the country. The poem was
first published in 1895, revised in 1904
and 1913, and set to music in the 1920's. |
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 Zane Grey
wrote almost 90 books. Although best
known for westerns, he also wrote books
with fishing themes, many stories, a
biography of George Washington as a young
man, and several stories for children. |
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 William
Seward Burroughs is probably
best known for his novel The Naked
Lunch, which used unconventional
writing techniques to depict an
underground world fighting a
technological society that was
self-destructing. The fact that many
countries banned publication of the book
outright and that Massachusetts actually
prosecuted it as obscene made the book
extremely popular within the
counterculture of the 1960's, as a result
of which Burroughs became known as the
"Godfather of the Beat
Generation." |
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 Robertson
William Davies was
the first Canadian to become an Honorary
Member of the American Academy and
Institute of Arts and Letters. In
addition to his writing career, he also
taught literature at the University of
Toronto for 21 years. |
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