Oct. 5: On this day in 1829, the Comédie-Française accepts Hermani, Victor Hugo’s play about royal intrigue in the Spanish court, for publication.
Oct. 6: It’s an instant success for Currer Bell’s Jane Eyre. Only later is the author’s real identity–Charlotte Brontë–revealed.
Oct. 7: Edgar Allan Poe dies in Baltimore at the age of 40 on this day in 1849. His epitath: Quoth the Raven nevermore. Read Literary Places post about Poe’s death and the errors that dogged his demise because of a vengeful biographer this weekend.
Oct. 8: Virginia Woolf finishes Mrs. Dalloway on this day in 1924.
Oct. 9: Producer Nunnally Johnson in a letter to Groucho Marx dated on this day wrote: “Some drunk dame told [James Thurber] at a party that she would like to have a baby by him. Jim said, “Surely you don’t by unartificial insemination!”
Oct. 10: Playwright Harold Pinter born in London on this day in 1930.
Oct. 11: Elmore Leonard, short story writer and novelist, is born on this day in New Orleans in 1925.