Arthur Henry Hallam, b. 1811, the subject, upon his death in 1833 at the age of 22, of Tennyson’s famous poem In Memoriam. Hallam was engaged to Tennyson’s sister, Emilia, and he was Tennyson’s close friend. He died suddenly while travelling in Vienna of a brain hemorrhage. The poem wasn’t actually published until 1850; I guess it took Tennyson that long to work through his grief in poetic form over Hallam’s untimely death.

Charles Nordhoff, b. 1887, was the co-author, along with his friend James Norman Hall, of one of my favorite books, Mutiny on the Bounty, the fictionalized story of Captain Bligh, Fletcher Christian, and the mutiny that took place on HMAV Bounty (His Majesty’s Armed Vessel) in 1789. It is Nordhoff’s and Hall’s book that is the basis for most of the movie versions of the mutiny story.

Langston Hughes, American poet, b. 1902.

The Dream Keeper

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.”

Jerry Spinelli, b. 1941, won the Newbery Award for his book, Maniac Magee.