Classics Calendar for October 16

The Picture of Dorian Gray
from a 1945 film based
on Oscar Wilde's novel

Here are today's milestones:

---

Born on this day:

Noah Webster (1758; died May 28, 1843) American educator and author famous for An American Dictionary of the English Language

---

Oscar Wilde (1854; died November 30, 1900) Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Salome; The Importance of Being Earnest; The Ballad of Reading Gaol; "The Happy Prince"; "The Nightingale and the Rose"; "The Selfish Giant"

---

J. B. Bury (1861; died June 1, 1927) Irish historian who wrote mainly histories of the Classical period

---

Eugene O'Neill (1888; died November 27, 1953) American playwright; The Emperor Jones; Desire Under the Elms; Mourning Becomes Electra; The Iceman Cometh; Long Day's Journey into Night; A Moon for the Misbegotten; Nobel Prize in Literature (1936); Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1920, 1922, 1928, 1957)

---

Günter Grass (1927; died April 13, 2015) German novelist, poet, playwright, and artist who wrote The Tin Drum; Cat and Mouse; Dog Years; Crabwalk; What Must Be Said; Nobel Prize in Literature (1999)

---

Died on this day:

James Michener (1997; born February 3, 1907) American author who wrote Tales of the South Pacific; Hawaii; The Drifters; Centennial; The Source; The Fires of Spring; Chesapeake; Caribbean; Caravans; Alaska; Texas; Poland; Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1948)

---

Bonus Classic:

Haoqiu Zhuan (c. 1683) one example of a "scholar/beauty" novel, a popular genre in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, attributed to Mingjiao Zhongren (a pseudonym)

---