1674 The English poet John Milton, whose epic Paradise Lost has gone in and out of critical favor for three and a half centuries (currently in, we think), died in Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire, at age 65.

1818 Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev, author of Fathers and Sons, was born in Oryol (on October 28 by the old calendar).

1832 The French novelist Emile Gavoriau, best known as the father of the roman policier ("detective novel"), was born, possibly in 1832.

1847 Evangeline, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's narrative poem of two lovers who are separated by when British soldiers expel the Acadians from Nova Scotia, was published in Boston.

1862 Prolific British novelist Eden Phillpotts, whose works include Children of the Mist, Sons of the Morning, and Widecombe Fair, was born in Rajasthan, India.

1879 American poet Vachel Lindsay, best known for "General William Booth Enters into Heaven" and "The Congo," was born in Springfield, IL.

1893 John P. Marquand, whose novels ranged from the popular Mr. Moto espionage series (filmed with Peter Lorre) to the Pulitzer Prize-winning look at crumbling New England gentility, The Late George Appley, was born in Wilmington, DE.

1894 British biographer Lord Charnwood, author of important works on both Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, was born in Alresford, Hampshire. He also wrote mysteries, notably Tracks in the Snow, under the name Godfrey Benson.

1895 Poet and journalist Eugene Field, author of "Little Boy Blue," "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" and other children's verse, died in Chicago at age 45.

1896 British biographer, political writer, gourmet, and mystery author Raymond Postgate, best known for Verdict of Twelve was born in Cambridge.

1900 Margaret Mitchell, whose first and only novel was the blockbuster Gone With the Wind, was born in Atlanta, GA.

1900 Theodore Dreiser's first novel, Sister Carrie, was published. The publisher, Frank Doubleday had been out of the country when his firm accepted the manuscript on the strong recommendation of author and editor Frank Norris. Upon reading the novel Doubleday considered this classic of American naturalism "immoral" and wanted to renege on his firm's verbal agreement with Dresier, but was advised by his lawyers not to (legend has it that it was really Mrs. Doubleday who wanted to put the kibosh on the novel). Just over 1000 copies were published, as quietly as possible. Not quite half sold and the rest were either remaindered or destroyed.

1901 Successful British mystery author and screenwriter Philip MacDonald, the grandson of 19th Century author George MacDonald, was born (some sources state in London, others that he was born in Scotland). His books include Patrol and Forbidden Planet, and among his screenplays was Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca.

1901 Acclaimed 19th Century children's book author and illustrator Kate Greenaway died in London of breast cancer at age 55.

1913 French novelist, essayist, playwright, and Nobel laureate Albert Camus, author of The Stranger and The Plague, was born in Mondovi (now Drean), Algeria.

1914 The first issue of The New Republic was published.

1921 American novelist James Jones, best known for his National Book Award-winning first work, From Here to Eternity, and its sequel, The Thin Red Line, was born in Robinson, IL.

1926 Britsh art critic, novelist and screenwriter John Berger, best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel G and the non-fiction work Ways of Seeing, was born in London.

1928 Confessional poet Anne Sexton, whose third collection poetry collection, Live or Die, won the Pulitzer Prize, was born in Newton, MA.

1929 Hungarian concentration camp survivor and Nobel laureate Imre Kertesz, author of Fatelessness, was born in Budapest.

1949 Knight's Gambit, by William Faulkner, was published.

1952 Michael Cunningham, whose novel The Hours won both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize, was born in Cincinnati, OH.

1953 Poet and novelist Ivan Bunin, the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, died in Paris of heart failure at age 83. His works included The Gentleman from San Francisco and The Well of Days.

1954 Kazuo Ishiguro, author of A Pale View of Hills and the Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day, was born in Nagasaki, Japan. His family moved to England when he was six, and he later studied creative writing with novelist Angela Carter.

1971 American novelist Walter van Tilburg Clark, best known for his excellent psychological Western classic The Ox-Bow Incident,, died of cancer in Reno, NV at age 62. Our public service message of the day: he gets shelved under "C."

1978 American writer Janet Flanner, best known for her conributions to The New Yorker from Paris under the pseudonym "Genet," died in New York City at 86.

1990 English writer Lawrence Durrell, best known for his Alexandria Quartet (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, and Clea), died of a stroke in Sommieres, France at age 78.

1991 A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, was published.

1999 Mystery author Jean Potts, whose 1954 novel Go, Lovely Rose won an Edgar Award, died a week before her 89th birthday.

2005 English novelist John Fowles, author of The Collector and The French Lieutenant's Woman, died in Lyme Regis, Dorset, at age 79.