July 11

Born:

1754 - Thomas Bowdler
English physician best known for publishing expurgated editions of contemporary works, including Shakespeare and Gibbon. The term bowdlerize has come to be associated with censorship of literature.

1899 - E.B.White
Elwyn Brooks White is the American author who co-wrote The Elements of Style with William Strunck, Jr., and also wrote the children's classics Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.

1913 - Cordwainer Smith
Pen name of American author Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, known for his science fiction novels. Also wrote fiction and poetry under other pseudonyms. 

1926 - Frederick Buechner
American writer and theologian who wrote in many genres. His semi-fictionalized biography of the medieval Saint Godric of Finchale, Godric, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1981.

1930 - Harold Bloom
American literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale.

1938 - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
American women's historian; originator of the phrase "well-behaved women seldom make history."

1944 - Patricia Polacco
American author and illustrator of children's books. Many of her books reflect her Russian and Ukranian heritage.

1952 - Robert McCammon
American novelist primarily writing in the horror genre.

1967 - Jhumpa Lahiri
Indian American author whose debut short story collection Interpreter of Maladies won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

1980 - Kevin Powers
American author whose novel The Yellow Birds drew on his experiences in the Iraq War.




Died:
1974 - Pär Lagerkvist
1983 - Ross McDonald
2012 - Marion Cunningham
2012 - Donald J. Sobol