|
The Write Stuff
''The Write Stuff'', "Radio 4's game of literary correctness", was a lighthearted quiz about literature on BBC Radio 4, taking a humorous look at famous literary figures, which ran from 1998 to 2014. It was chaired and written by James Walton. The two teams were captained by novelist Sebastian Faulks and journalist John Walsh, with Beth Chalmers reading literary extracts. Format John Walsh and Sebastian Faulks have been team captains since the programme began. They are each joined by another journalist or novelist; frequent guests in later years included John O'Farrell, Mark Billingham and Lynn Truss. Truss stepped in as captain to replace Faulks for series 13 (2010). Each week, the programme has an "Author of the Week"; W. B. Yeats, E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence, Robert Burns, and J. K. Rowling all featured in the programme. The programme has, on occasion, featured a group of writers, rather than a single author, as its key study - for example, poets of the Beat Generation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria Coren Mitchell
Victoria Elizabeth Coren Mitchell (' Coren; born ) is a British writer, TV presenter and professional poker player. Coren Mitchell writes weekly columns for ''The Telegraph'' and has hosted the BBC television quiz show '' Only Connect'' since 2008. Early life Victoria Elizabeth Coren was born in Hammersmith, West London, the only daughter of the humourist and journalist Alan Coren and Anne Kasriel. Her father had been brought up in an Orthodox Jewish household. She grew up in Cricklewood, North London, with her elder brother, journalist Giles Coren. She is related to Canadian journalist Michael Coren. She attended independent girls' schools between the ages of five and eighteen, including St Paul's Girls' School, and read English at St John's College, Oxford. Writing At the age of 14, Coren had a short story published under a pseudonym in '' Just Seventeen'' magazine and then won a competition in ''The Daily Telegraph'' to write a column about teenage life for their "Wee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. Joyce's novel ''Ulysses'' (1922) is a landmark in which the episodes of Homer's ''Odyssey'' are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, particularly stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story collection ''Dubliners'' (1914), and the novels ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' (1916) and ''Finnegans Wake'' (1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, letters, and occasional journalism. Joyce was born in Dublin into a middle-class family. He attended the Jesuit Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare, then, briefly, the Christian Brothers-run O'Connell School. Despite the chaotic family life imposed by his father's unpredictable finances, he excelled at the Jesuit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Ritchie
Harry Ritchie (born 1958) is a Scottish writer and journalist. He is the author of six books, and numerous newspaper articles and book reviews. Biography Ritchie was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife. He attended Kirkcaldy High School and the University of Edinburgh, then studied for a D.Phil. at Lincoln College, Oxford. His doctoral thesis on the literary scene of the 1950s was published by Faber as the book ''Success Stories'' in 1988. His subsequent works are the comic travel books ''Here We Go'' and ''The Last Pink Bits'', the novels ''Friday Night Club'' and ''The Third Party,'' and a book about English grammar, ''English for the Natives'' (John Murray). Ritchie edited the anthology ''New Scottish Writing'', and contributed an essay to Nick Hornby's anthology of football writing, ''My Favourite Year'', about his lifelong passion for Raith Rovers, his hometown football club. Ritchie lives in London with the journalist and broadcaster Tracey MacLeod Tracey MacLeod (born 30 O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Delaney
Frank Delaney (24 October 1942 – 21 February 2017) was an Irish novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He was the author of ''The New York Times'' best-seller ''Ireland'', Op-Ed Contributor: Holy Rollers and Papal Perfectas">The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Holy Rollers and Papal Perfectas/ref> the non-fiction book ''Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea'', and many other works of fiction, non-fiction and collections. He was born in Tipperary, Ireland. Broadcasting career Delaney began working as a newsreader for the Irish state radio and television network RTÉ in 1970. In the early 1970s he became a news reporter for the BBC in Dublin, and covered an intense period of violence known as the Troubles. After five years of reporting on the violence, he moved to London to work in arts broadcasting. In 1978 he created the weekly ''Bookshelf'' programme for BBC Radio 4, which covered books, writers and the business of publishing. Over the next five-and-a- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brontë Family
The Brontës () were a nineteenth-century literary family, born in the village of Thornton and later associated with the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte (1816–1855), Emily (1818–1848), and Anne (1820–1849), are well-known poets and novelists. Like many contemporary female writers, they published their poems and novels under male pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, originally. Their stories attracted attention for their passion and originality immediately following their publication. Charlotte's ''Jane Eyre'' was the first to know success, while Emily's ''Wuthering Heights'', Anne's ''The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'' and other works were accepted as masterpieces of literature later. The three sisters and their brother, Branwell (1817–1848), were very close. As children, they developed their imaginations first through oral storytelling and play, set in an intricate imaginary world, and then through the collabora ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philippa Gregory
Philippa Gregory (born 9 January 1954) is an English historical novelist who has been publishing since 1987. The best known of her works is ''The Other Boleyn Girl'' (2001), which in 2002 won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award from the Romantic Novelists' Association and has been adapted into two films. '' AudioFile'' magazine has called Gregory "the queen of British historical fiction". Early life and education Philippa Gregory was born on 9 January 1954 in Nairobi, at that time serving as capital city of the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya (modern-day Republic of Kenya), the second daughter of Elaine (Wedd) and Arthur Percy Gregory, a radio operator and navigator for East African Airways. When she was two years old, her family moved to Bristol, England.Philippa Gregory walk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction. Doyle was a prolific writer; other than Holmes stories, his works include fantasy and science fiction stories about Professor Challenger and humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels. One of Doyle's early short stories, " J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (1884), helped to popularise the mystery of the ''Mary Celeste''. Name Doyle is often referred to as "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" or "Conan Doyle", implying that "Conan" is part of a compound surname rather than a middle name. His baptism entry in the register of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, gives "Arth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lynne Truss
Lynne Truss (born 31 May 1955) is an English author, journalist, novelist, and radio broadcaster and dramatist. She is arguably best known for her championing of correctness and aesthetics in the English language, which is the subject of her popular and widely discussed 2003 book, '' Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation''. The book was inspired by a BBC Radio 4 show about punctuation, ''Cutting a Dash'', which she presented. Besides her promotion of linguistic prescription and commentary on English grammar, Truss has written many radio plays, both comedic and dramatic. She has also written grammar guides for children and novels. Early life Truss was born on 31 May 1955 in Kingston upon Thames. She was educated at the Tiffin Girls' School; and University College London, where she was awarded a first-class degree in English Language and Literature. Career Truss began her media career as a literary editor. She then spent six years as a television cri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Myerson
Jonathan Myerson (born 12 January 1960 in Cardiff, Wales) is a British dramatist and novelist, writing principally for television and radio. His partner is novelist Julie Myerson. Myerson's first play ''Making a Difference'' was commissioned by the Oxford Playhouse Company. A subsequent work, ''Diary of a Nobody'' was written for the National Theatre. His work includes '' Number 10'', a five-part series for BBC Radio 4 about a fictional Prime Minister and his staff in Downing Street, including an episode in which Saint Helena is invaded by Angola. His animated film of '' The Canterbury Tales'' was nominated for an Oscar (as animated short film) in 1999 and won the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film in addition to four Emmys. He has also written scripts for several British television drama series including ''The Bill'', '' Holby City'', '' EastEnders'', ''Jupiter Moon'' and '' The Legend of William Tell'' as well as being involved in animation. He has written scripts for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
