George Lillo, b. 1693, British playwright. He wrote what he called “domestic tragedies” about common people instead of heroes and kings.

Josiah Quincy, b. 1772, Congressman, judge of the Massachusetts municipal court, state representative, mayor of Boston and president of Harvard College.

Mark Hopkins, b. 1802, American educator and Christian apologist. He wrote a very popular nineteenth century text on apologetics called Evidences of Christianity.

William Harrison Ainsworth, b. 1805, English historical novelist. Several of his novels are available at Project Gutenberg.

Sheila Kaye-Smith, b. 1887. English novelist. She wrote many novels, mostly set in the English countryside of Sussex. Her novel, Joanna Godden, is available from Virago Press.

MacKinlay Kantor, b. 1904, American novelist and screenwriter who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1956 for his novel Andersonville. It was a “grimly realistic” novel about the Confederate prisoner of war camp, Andersonville. Has anyone read it?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, b. 1906, German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and member of the resistance movement against Hitler and the Nazis during World War II. Here’s a very interesting poem by W.H. Auden, dedicated to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, entitled Friday’s Child. I’m not sure I understand it, but it’s worth reading anyway.