Joanna Baillie was a Scottish poet and playwright at a time when women were not generally known for writing plays and having them performed on stage. Miss Baillie was determined that her plays should be brought to the attention of live audiences rather than just being creations to be read in the same way that her poetry was. In fact she had ...
Ivan Vazov was one of Bulgaria’s famous sons whose name lives on with a theatre in the capital, Sofia, being named after him, along with the national library. He lived through a highly volatile period in his country’s history where Bulgaria struggled constantly to be released from the yoke of Ottoman tyranny. He could probably be accurately described as a revolutionary poet ...
The famous 19th century American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe was best known for her anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin which was published in 1852. This gripping story about the terrible conditions that African-Americans were subjected to at that time was a great motivator for other abolitionists like her, especially in the northern states of America. Those in the southern states often took ...
Bulgarian poet and writer, Hristo Smirnenski was born in the small town of Kukush in Macedonia, then a region of the Ottoman Empire before later becoming part of Greece. His poor upbringing in an area that was often prone to militancy led to the growth of his socialist ideals and would color his poetry through his teens and early years. Despite ...
Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli was born at a commune in the province of Forli-Cesena in 1855. He was brought up in a large but wealthy family and his father helped to administer an estate of farm land for the Princes Torlonia. Tragedy struck while Pascoli was just twelve years old when his father was shot and killed by an unknown assassin. The ...
