 |
 Laura Ingalls
Wilder spent most of her childhood
traveling the Great Plains from one homestead to
another. She turned the story of her life into a
series of eight books known as the "Little
House" series, which in turn inspired a
television series. |
 Edgar Lee Masters
published over 25 books of poetry but only
enjoyed success with Spoon
River Anthology (1915), a collection of over
200 monologues from the dead in an Illinois
graveyard |
 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. |
 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. |
 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. |
 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." |
 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. |
