1729 – Clara Reeve, English writer, translator, and novelist best known for the Gothic novel The Old English Baron and an innovative history of prose fiction The Progress of Romance; her first work was a translation from Latin, then an unusual language for a woman to learn.
1783 – Stendahl (pen name for Marie-Henri Beyle), 19th-century French writer who is highly regarded for analysis of his characters’ psychology and considered one of the early and foremost practitioners of realism.
1813 – Camilla Collett (born Jacobine Camilla Collett), Norwegian writer and critic who is often referred to as the first Norwegian feminist; she was one of the first contributors to realism in Norwegian literature.
1859 – Katharine Tynan, Irish writer, known mainly for her novels and poetry; she usually wrote under the name Katharine Tynan Hinkson.
1904 – Anya Seton (born Ann Seton), American author of historical romances,
1909 – Tat’yana Avenirovna Proskuriakova, Russian-American Mayanist scholar and archaeologist who contributed significantly to the deciphering of Maya hieroglyphs, the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica.
1923 – Walter M., Jr. Miller, American science-fiction author known primarily for his only novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz.
1924 – Suriani Abdullah née Eng Ming Ching, Malaysian author, memoirist, historian, and Central Committee member of the Communist Party of Malaya; she wrote the official historical account of the 10th Regiment of the Malayan People’s National Liberation Army, and worked to mobilize and organize women workers.
1930 – Tatyana Nikolayevna Savicheva, Russian student and diarist who endured the Siege of Leningrad during World War II, during which she recorded in her diary the deaths of each member of her family; she died at the age of 14, but her diary became a symbol of the human cost of the Siege of Leningrad, and was used during the Nuremberg Trials as the evidence of the Nazis’ crimes.
1935 – Tom Reamy, Campbell Award- and Nebula Award-winning American science-fiction and fantasy author, known especially for his dark fantasy; he died before publication of his first novel.
1935 – Derek Walcott, Nobel Prize-winning Saint Lucian poet and playwright; the Nobel committee praised his “poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment.”
1962 – Elvira Lindo, Spanish journalist, screenwriter, and author of novels for children and adults.
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