Reading - Bram Stoker & Margaret Mitchell

What do these two authors have in common?

Bram Stoker was an Irish threatre critic who also wrote several novels, the most famous of which was Dracula, which was published in 1897. With this book, Stoker took an obscure bit of Eastern European folklore and turned into a cultural phenomenon. Without Dracula, there would have been no Interview with the Vampire, and no Twilight.

Margaret Mitchell was an American journalist who spent ten years writing one novel, Gone With the Wind, which was published in 1936. This book tells the story of a spoiled southern belle during the American Civil War, who loses everything, but finds herself. Without Gone with the Wind, there would have been no Steel Magnolias, and no Cold Mountain.

Although Stoker was born in 1847, and Mitchell was born in 1900, they share a birthday on November 8, and their works have heavily influenced modern literary and film culture.

Both Dracula and Gone with the Wind have been made into award-winning films.

Reading - Stephen Crane

On this date, November 1, 1891, American author Stephen Crane was born in Newark, NJ. Crane's best-known work is The Red Badge of Courage, a novel about an 18-year-old young man who goes off to fight for the Union Army in the Civil War. The main character, Henry Fleming, has a romanticised idea of war when he leaves home, but he as the story progresses and he is forced to confront the realities of war, and becomes a man as he faces his fears.

The Red Badge of Courage is an example of American naturalist literature. Naturalism portrays the subject as it is, rather than how we think it might be. For example, like the Fleming character dreams of becoming a war hero at the beginning of the book, but when he gets there, he actually sees the grit and violence of war, and Stephen Crane portrays this very much as if he had seen it himself, in stark detail. It is interesting to note, however, that Stephen Crane had never seen battle at the time he wrote the book. Crane chose to write the book in this manner, because he had read accounts of soldiers who had fought in the Civil War, and he found them dissatisfying because the soldiers told about what they did, but not about what they felt. Crane felt it was important to include emotion in his story so that the reader could empathize with the characters, rather than just read dry accounts about what they did.

Stephen Crane died in 1900, of tuberulosis, at the age of 28.

Reading, Social Studies and Today in History All in One Post!

On this date, September 20, 1878, Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, MD. Sinclair was was a muckraker, which means he was an investigative journalist who dug beneath the surface to find the story beneath. It wasn't always pretty.

In 1904, Sinclair spent several weeks working undercover in Chicago's meatpacking industry. The result was his novel, The Jungle, which was published in 1906. It exposed the horrendous conditions, not only for the workers, but also of the food that was being produced for the American public. The novel cause such a public outcry that, with a few months of publication, the government passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act.

If you have never read The Jungle, pick it up sometime. It will make you appreciate your food and your working conditions!

Sinclair went on to write many other novels. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1943 for Dragon's Teeth. Another of his books, Oil!, was the basis for the 2007 film, There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

Upton Sinclair died in 1968, at the age of 90.