 |
 Noah
Webster spent twenty years gathering
words and definitions for An American
Dictionary of the English Language.
Published in two volumes in 1828, the work
included 12,000 words and 40,000 definitions that
had never before appeared in a dictionary. He was
also the author of A Grammatical Institute of
the English Language, the first American
work in the field. |
 Vladimir
Nabokov's novels are
noted for their complicated plots and the complex
attitudes they express toward their subjects. He
is probably best known for Lolita, which
deals with the unnatural desires of Humbert
Humbert, a middle-aged pedophile. |
 Vivian
Vance was enjoying a successful
stage career when she was asked to play Ethel
Mertz in I Love Lucy. Initially
reluctant to take the part, she went on to
co-star in the series throughout its run, and to
become the first person to win an Emmy for Best
Series Supporting Actress. |
 Charles
Perrault took a collection of
traditional children's stories and put them into
a readable format in one volume, called Stories
of Tales from Times Past, with Morals.
Subtitled Tales of Mother Goose, the
work included such well-known stories as Little
Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, and Cinderella. |
 Robert
Louis Stevenson spent much of his
life traveling around Europe and the South Seas,
and those travels became the basis for many of
his stories. He is best known today for the
novels Treasure Island and The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. |
 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. |
 Hans
Christian Andersen is best known for
his many collections of original fairy tales, but
was also an author of travelogues, novels, and
plays. |
