January 11: Thomas Hardy, one of England’s greatest novelists, dies on this day at age 82 in 1928 after contracting pleurisy a month earlier. A dispute arose over where to bury his remains and a compromise was reached with his ashes laid to rest here at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey and his heart buried with first wife in Stinsford.

January 12: Walter Mosley, creator of private-eye “Easy” Rawlins, is born on this day in 1952. His first novel Devil in a Blue Dress was published in 1990, a crime thriller set in post-Second World War Los Angeles.

January 13: Emile Zola publishes his controversial letter “J’Accuse” in a French newspaper on this day in 1898, in defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus

January 14: Anaïs Nin, whose story Birth is published in the collection Under a Glass Bell, died on this day in 1977.

January 15: Jean-Baptiste Poquelin born on this day in 1622. Who dat? He became better known by his stage name Molière.