April 4

Born:

1818 - Thomas Mayne Reid
Scots-Irish American adventure novelist.

1886 - Frank Luther Mott
American historian and journalist; winner of a 1939 Pulitzer in History for A History of American Magazines.

1896 - Robert E. Sherwood
American Pulitzer-winning playwright, who also won a Pulitzer for Biography for a book on FDR.

1908 - Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
American author whose upbringing in a house of 12 children provided the material for the memoir Cheaper by the Dozen.

1914 - Marguerite Duras
Saigon-born French author and screenwriter whose childhood in Asia informs her fiction setting.

1928 - Maya Angelou
American author and poet, best known for her series of autobiographical works.

1932 - Johanna Reiss
Dutch-born American writer, Caldecott Medal winner for An Upstairs Room.

1942 - Elizabeth Levy
American author of children's books, known for the Something Queer is Going On
series.

1942 - Kitty Kelley
American author of unauthorized biographies of the famous and powerful.

1948 - Dan Simmons 
American author of science fiction, most notably the Hyperion Cantos.





Died:
1991  Max Frisch