Jean de La Bruyère

He was born in Paris, not, as was once thought, at Dourdan (in today's Essonne département) in 1645. His family was middle class, and his reference to a certain Geoffroy de La Bruyère, a crusader, is only a satirical illustration of a method of self-ennoblement common in France as in some other countries. Indeed he himself always signed the name Delabruyère in one word, as evidence of this. He could trace his family back at least as far as his great-grandfather, who had been a strong Leaguer. La Bruyère's own father was controller general of finance to the Hôtel de Ville. The son was educated by the Oratorians and at the University of Orléans; he was called to the bar, and in 1673 bought a post in the revenue department at Caen, which gave him status and an income. His predecessor in the post was a relation of Jacques Benigne Bossuet, and it is thought that the transaction was the cause of La Bruyère's introduction to the great orator Bossuet, who from the date of his own...

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Joseph Louis Vance

Louis Joseph Vance was born on September 19, 1879 in New York, New York (although some sources say Washington, DC). He was an American fiction writer of short stories, novels and screenplays. Vance was the son of Wilson and Lillie Beall Vance. Originally, Vance wanted to become an artist and illustrator and attended the Art Students League and Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. Vance married Nance Elizabeth Hodges in 1898. They had one son, Wilson Beall Vance who was born the following year. Vance was 26 years old when his first book,Terence O\'Rourke,Gentlema Adventurer was published in 1905. Vance was a \"hack\" writer for many years producing hundreds of short stories and some adventure novels until he published a group of three mystery novels which promoted him to best-selling author status. The novels were: The Brass Bowl (1907) about a beautiful young girl, who in order to help her grieving father,becomes a burglar and meets a professional burglar who resembles the identical twin...

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Edward Lear

Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised. Lear was born into a middle-class family in the village of Holloway, the 21st child of Ann and Jeremiah Lear. He was raised by his eldest sister, also named Ann, 21 years his senior. Ann doted on Lear and continued to mother him until her death, when Lear was almost 50 years of age. Due to the family's failing financial fortune, at age four he and his sister had to leave the family home and set up house together. Largely educated by himself, Lear has been described as idiosyncratic yet brilliantly talented[citation needed]. Lear also suffered from health issues. From the age of six he suffered frequent grand mal epileptic seizures, and bronchitis, asthma, and in later life, partial blindness. Lear experienced his first seizure at a fair near Highgate with his...

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Du;an Vukailovici

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