What’s New?
- Biographies: Dava Sobel, Toni Morrison, Clifford Ashley, and Sylvia Earle
- Audio: Harriet Beecher Stowe's The Pearl of Orr’s Island
- Video: Derek Walcott reads "Sea Grapes"
- Featured Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Category Archives: A
Ackerman, Diane
Interested in contributing Diane Ackerman’s biography? Click here for more information.
Posted in A
Leave a comment
Adams, Bertram Martin
ADAMS, BERTRAM MARTIN [BILL ADAMS] ( 1879-1953 ). Bill Adams was born in England to American parents. He left college to go to sea at age seventeen in a career that lasted four or five years and logged seven passages Continue reading text links
Posted in A
Comments Off on Adams, Bertram Martin
Adams, William Taylor (“Oliver Optic”)
Posted in A
Comments Off on Adams, William Taylor (“Oliver Optic”)
Aiken, Conrad
[AIKEN, CONRAD POTTER], “SAMUEL JEAKE JR.” (1889-1973). A friend and contemporary of T. S. Eliot, Conrad Aiken divided his time between England and the United States before settling in Massachusetts in 1947. He used the pen name “Samuel Jeake Jr.” Continue reading text links
Posted in A
Comments Off on Aiken, Conrad
Albee, Edward
ALBEE, EDWARD (1928-2016). A leading contemporary playwright, Edward Albee made his early reputation writing spare, psychological dramas, of which his most acclaimed and widely known remains Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (first perf. 1962; pub. 1962). An early one-act, The Continue reading text links
Posted in A
Comments Off on Albee, Edward
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey
ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY (1836-1907). Thomas Bailey Aldrich, known chiefly as the author of The Story of a Bad Boy (1869), edited Every Saturday (1866-1874) and The Atlantic Monthly (1881-1890) and also wrote poems, short stories, and five novels. Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Aldrich lived for Continue reading text links
Posted in A
Comments Off on Aldrich, Thomas Bailey
Allen, Hervey
Anthony Adverse (1946) Continue reading text links
Posted in A
Comments Off on Allen, Hervey
Ames, Nathaniel
AMES, NATHANIEL (1805-1835). Son of the Federalist statesman Fisher Ames and grandson of a famous colonial almanac publisher, Nathaniel Ames was a blueblood who went to sea and later wrote about it. In this way he served as a literary Continue reading text links
Posted in A
Comments Off on Ames, Nathaniel
Argento, Dominick
ARGENTO, DOMINICK (1927- 2019). Son of Sicilian immigrant parents, Dominick Argento won a Pulitzer Prize in music in 1975 for his mezzosoprano song cycle From the Diary of Virginia Woolf. Argento has lived near water, and his works are inspired Continue reading text links
Posted in A
Comments Off on Argento, Dominick
Ashley, Clifford
CLIFFORD WARREN ASHLEY (1881-1947). Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1881, Ashley enjoyed a successful career as a maritime artist and historian of the American whaling industry. His work romanticized New England’s whaling past as the region rapidly industrialized in Continue reading text links
Posted in A
Leave a comment
Audubon, John James
AUDUBON, JOHN JAMES (1785-1851). Born in Haiti and raised in France, John James Audubon became the world’s premier bird artist with the publication of The Birds of America (1827-1838). Audubon accompanied his life-size drawings with five volumes of text, the Ornithological Biography (1831-1839). In Continue reading text links
Averill, Charles
AVERILL, CHARLES (1825?-1868). Charles Averill wrote around a dozen adventure and romance novels between 1847 and 1850, about half of which take place wholly or mostly at sea. The Pirates of Cape Ann (1848) is representative. Here, “Paul Perril, the Pirate,” scourge Continue reading text links
Posted in A
Comments Off on Averill, Charles