Literary Chronology

1802: Alexandre Dumas is born on July 24 in Villers-Cotterts in France.

1840: Thomas Hardy is born on June 2 in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England.

1843: Henry James is born on April 15 in New York City, U.S.A.

1844–1845: Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo is published.

1870: Alexandre Dumas dies of a stroke on December 5 at Puys, near Dieppe, in France.

1873: Willa Cather is born on December 7 in Back Creek Valley, Virginia, U.S.A.

1874: Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd is published.

1876: Jack London is born on January 12 in San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

1881: Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady is published.

1885: Sinclair Lewis is born on February 7, 1885 in the prairie town of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, U.S.A.

1890: Jean Rhys is born on August 24 in Roseau, Dominica.

1896: Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (F. Scott Fitzgerald) is born on September 24 in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.

1902: John Steinbeck is born on February 27 in Salinas, California, U.S.A.

1905: Arthur Koestler is born on September 5 in Budapest, Hungary.

1906: Jack London's White Fang is published.

1916: Henry James dies on February 28 in London, England.

1916: Jack London dies of an overdose of morphine on November 22 in Glen Ellen, U.S.A.

1922: Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt is published.

1923: Willa Cather is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for One of Ours.

1926: Sinclair Lewis is the first writer ever to turn down a Pulitzer Prize.

1927: Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop is published.

1928: Thomas Hardy dies on January 11.

1930: Sinclair Lewis is awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.

1934: F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night is published.

1939: Margaret Atwood is born on November 18 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

1940: John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

1940: Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon is published.

1940: F. Scott Fitzgerald dies of a sudden heart attack on December 21.

1947: Willa Cather dies from a cerebral hemorrhage on April 24.

1951: Sinclair Lewis dies of heart troubles on January 10.

1952: John Steinbeck's East of Eden is published.

1957: Arthur Golden is born in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

1962: John Steinbeck receives the Nobel Prize in literature.

1966: Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea is published.

1968: John Steinbeck dies of a sudden heart attack on December 20 in New York City.

1979: Jean Rhys dies on May 14 in Exeter.

1983: Arthur Koestler dies in a joint suicide pact with his wife on March 3 in London, England.

1992: Lilian Lee's Farewell My Concubine is published.

1996: Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace is published.

1997: Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha is published.