1719 The first serialized novel, a pirated installment of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe appeared in London.

1838 John Hay, who wrote Jim Bludso, a Johnson Highspot of American Literature,was born in Salem, IN. He was primarily known as a polititican, with a long career which ranged from being an assistant to Abraham Lincoln to eventually serving as Secretary of State to Theodore Roosevelt.

1847 Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre was published pseudonymously under the name Currer Bell.

1849 Poet and short story-master Edgar Allan Poe, known for his many classic tales of horror and mystery, died in Baltimore, MD at age 40. The circumstances of his death are appropriately mysterious. He was found delirious in the street, wearing someone else's clothing, and died shortly afterwards, never regaining sufficient coherence to explain what had happened to him. His last words were reportedly "Lord help my poor soul."

1870 Poet and novelist Ivan Bunin, the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in Voronezh. His works included The Gentleman from San Francisco and The Well of Days.

1884 Damon Runyon, best remembered for his stories in exaggerated slang which were collected in Guys and Dolls, was born in Manhattan, KS.

1885 French Nobel laureate Francois Mauriac, whose novel Vipers' Tangle is often considered his masterpiece, was born in Bordeaux.

1889 Historian and anthropologist H.F. Heard, commonly known as Gerald Heard, was born London. In addition to his acclaimed essays, such as Ascent of Humanity, he also wrote two noted mysteries A Taste for Honey and Reply Paid.

1892 Serbo-Croatian novelist and Nobel laureate Ivo Andric, author of Ex Ponto and The Days of the Consuls, was born near Travnik, Bosnia.

1892 The British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, famed for such works as "The Charge of the Light Brigade," "Enoch Arden," and Idylls of the King, died in Aldworth, Surrey at age 83.

1894 Physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., remembered for such works as the poem "Old Ironsides" and The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, died in Cambridge, MA at age 85.

1896 English novelist Daphne du Maurier, best known for her novel Rebecca, died in Par, Cornwall at age 81. Her grandfather, the illustrator and author George du Maurier had invented the character of Svengali for his novel Trilby, and her cousins were the inspiration for J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.

1896 English illustrator and novelist George du Maurier, who introduced the character Svengali in his novel Trilby, died in London at age 62. He never lived to see that his granddaughter would become the novelist Daphne du Maurier, author of Rebecca, and his grandsons would be the inspiration for J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.

1911 Irish novelist, playwright, and journalist Flann O'Brien, author of At Swim-Two Birds, was born in Strabane, County Tyrone.

1913 French novelist and Nobel laureate Claude Simon, author of The Flanders Road, was born in Tananarive, Madagascar.

1916 Mystery writer Stanley Ellin, whose novel The Eighth Circle won the first of his three Edgar Awards, was born in Brooklyn.

1919 Danish poet and Nobel laureate Karl A. Gjellerup, author of The Teuton's Apprentice, died in Klotzsche, Germany at age 62.

1920 Science-fiction writer Frank Herbert, author of the popular Dune series, was born in Tacoma, WA.

1922 Karel Capek's R.U.R., the play that introduced the word "robot" to the world, premiered in New York. The term had been coined by his brother Josef.

1925 In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway's third book and first to be published in the United States, was released. It was a revised and much-enlarged version of in our time (note the lower case title), a Parisian publication from the previous year.

1925 Popular and prolific genre writer Elmore Leonard was born in New Orleans. He began his career with westerns, such as The Bounty Hunters, but for the last several decades has written primarily mysteries such as Unknown Man No. 89 and Get Shorty.

1929 William Faulkner's masterpiece, The Sound and the Fury, was published.

1930 William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying, which follows the Bundren family as they try to bury Addie Bundren in her home town, was published.

1930 Playwright, screenwriter, and Nobel laureate Harold Pinter was born in London. Among his best known plays are The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, and The Homecoming.

1932 William Faulkner's novel Light in August, the story of the doomed mulatto Joe Christmas, was published.

1932 Save Me the Waltz, the only novel by Zelda Fitzgerald, the trouble wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, was published.

1935 Australian novelist Thomas Keneally, author of The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Schindler's Ark, was born in Sydney.

1945 Austrian novelist and journalist Felix Salten, author of Bambi, died in Zurich, Switzerland, where he had settled after the Nazis took control of Vienna.

1965 Cyril Henry Coles, one half of the mystery writing team known as Manning Coles, died.

1977 Novelist MacKinlay Kantor died in Sarasota, FL at age 73. His works included the Pulitzer Prize-winning Andersonville and Glory for Me, which became the acclaimed film The Best Years of Our Lives.

1986 Peter Taylor's Pulitzer Prize-winner novel A Summons to Memphis was published.

1996 Mystery author Mignon G. Eberhart, who specialized in stories that combined romance and suspense, died in Greenwich, CT at age 97.

1998 Jerome Weidman died in New York City at age 85. His 1962 musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale was based on his 1937 first novel. He wrote several more novels to middling reviews before his first play, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Fiorello!, co-written with George Abbott, and based on the life of New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

1999 Mystery author Suzanne Blanc, author of The Green Stone, died. She was approximately 84 years old.