Melvil Dewey was born on December 10th in 1851. You know — Dewey, as in Dewey decimal system.
Read Dewey’s obituary in 1931 from The New York Times.
Elsewhere, Kenneth Branagh is 50.
And Susan Dey of “The Partridge Family” is 58.
Emily Dickinson was born on December 10th in 1830.
This from a lengthy piece about Dickinson at The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor:
Emily Dickinson is one of the most-speculated-about writers in history — in popular myth, she was a virginal recluse who dressed all in white and then wrote passionate poems that were so unlike anything being written at the time. Relatively little is known about her life, and biographers often try to use clues in her poems to guess about her habits, personality, and sexuality.
I taste a liquor never brewed
by Emily Dickinson
I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Frankfort Berries
Yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew –
Reeling – thro’ endless summer days –
From inns of molten Blue –
When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove’s door –
When Butterflies – renounce their “drams” –
I shall but drink the more!
Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats –
And Saints – to windows run –
To see the Tippler
Leaning against the – Sun!