On this day...

English author Eric Blair, better known by pseudonym George Orwell, died in 1950, at the age of 46. Born in India, where his father work in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service, he moved to England with his mother when he was one year old. There, inspired by his childhood friend Jacintha Buddicom, he began to write poetry, telling her that he would write a book similiar in style to that of H.G.Wells' 'A Modern Utopia'. Orwell obtained a scholarship to Eton and thrived on his studies there, yet without the sufficient funds for university, he was forced to choose a new career path; the Indian Imperial Police. After a posting in Burma, Orwell decided to become a full time writer and returned home. So started of period of his life during which he explored both England and abroad, using his experiences of poverty to influence his works, much like one of his literary heroes, Jack London. Serving as part of the Home Guard during World War Two, Orwell's works became of an increasingly political and socialist nature. The latter perhaps epitomised by his description of Dickens as, 'a nineteenth-century liberal...a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls'. Orwell's best known works include 'Animal Farm' and the influential 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'.

On this day...

British author A.A. Milne, was born in 1882. With the full name of Alan Alexander, Milne was privileged enough to enjoy an excellent education, being able to count none other than H.G. Wells among his teachers. After finishing a mathematics degree, Milne began a literary career in earnest, starting with contributions to satircal magazine 'Punch', of which he was later assisstant editor. The First World War brought an enforced break in his writing, as Milne joined the British army, serving as both an officer and later in electronic warfare. Upon resuming, Milne turned his hand to plays, of which he wrote 18, and novels, yet his best and most famous works ocuured after  1920, for it was then that his son, Christopher Robin, was born. His son's birth was followed four years later by Milne's poetry collection 'When We Were Very Young'  and then by the vastly popular 'Winnie the Pooh' series. Based on his son and his collection of stuffed animals, Winnie the Pooh and his friends have become some of the most enduring and loveable characters in children's literature. Milne died in 1956 at the age of 74, supposedly annoyed at the success of the books.

Stars in their eyes...

It's a genre which has quite literally taken us on a journey through the stars. From the Victorian books, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, to the modern day films of both 'Star Wars' and 'Star Trek', science fiction has occupied a special place in many people's hearts, and is looking as strong as ever. But what lies ahead for 2010? Is science fiction being slowly eroded by the popularity of other genres? All these questions and more are dicussed by Claire Armitstead and her panel in a Guardian podcast which can be found here

On this day...

The Fabian society, a British socialist movement, was founded in 1884. A pre-cursor of the Labour party, the Fabians promoted the rise of social democracy, yet by reformist, as opposed to revolutionary means. Although interesting in itself as a political movement, the Fabian Society is perhaps more  worthy of note for a number of its past members, many with literary connections. One of the co-founders was children's author E. Nesbit, who was closely followed by Irish playwright George Bernanrd Shaw, and later science fiction writer H.G. Wells, a second Irish playwright in Oscar Wilde, and modernist Virginia Woolf. Shaw in particular was an ardent member, giving lectures on other contemporary socialist writers, of which there were many, notably Swedish playwright Henrik Ibsen. Along with three fellows Fabians, Shaw founded the London School of Economics in 1895; a library in LSE is named in his honour.