1797 – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English novelist best known for her horror novel, one of the most famous English-language books ever written, Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus, which she wrote when she was in her teens; her parents were progressive intellectuals, authors, philosophers, and reformers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin; her husband was the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
1811 – Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier, French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic.
1901 – John Gunther, American journalist and author, best known for the memoir, Death Be Not Proud, an account of his son’s death to brain cancer.
1909 – Virginia Lee Burton, Caldecott Medal-winning American author and illustrator of children’s books, most notably Mike Mulligan & His Steam Shovel; she also wrote under the name Virginia Demetrios.
1925 – Laurent de Brunhoff, French author and illustrator who continued the popular series of children’s books about Babar the Elephant, which was created by his father, Jean de Brunhoff.
1938 – Donald Crews, two-time Caldecott Honor-winning American author and illustrator of children’s books.
1943 – Robert Crumb, American author, cartoonist, editor, and “father of the underground comics movement”; his work is known for being controversial, satirical, surrealistic, and oversexualized.
1944 – Mary Tyler “Molly” Ivins, American newspaper columnist, bestselling author, liberal political commentator, and humorist.
1955 – Judith Tarr, World Fantasy Award-nominated American writer of historical novels, historical fantasy novels, and short stories; she also breeds Lipizzan horses.
1973 – Lisa Ling, American writer, journalist, war correspondent, and television host.
1974 – Jean Edith Camilla Läckberg Eriksson, bestselling crime writer who was once voted Swedish Writer of the Year; she writes as Camilla Lackberg.
