POET’S NOTES

Notes written by Paradise Lost poet John Milton have been discovered in the margins of a book in the University of Texas Library. After a curator at the Texas Library noticed the annotations, Professor Scott-Warren at Cambridge University then matched the handwriting to the two last manuscripts by Milton.

According to Professor Scott-Warren, the annotations show that contrary to popular belief, Milton was ‘not immune to prudishness’.

CURIOUS WORDS

VERKLEMPT

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word Verklempt is an adjective to describe when someone is overcome with sadness or choked up. The word originates from the Yiddish ‘farklemt’ which describes grief.

SEPTEMBER DATES

1 September 1952

Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea was published in Life magazine. Within two days, five million copies of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel had been sold.

9 September 1828

Leo Tolstoy, Russian author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, is born.

13 September 1916

Roald Dahl is born. There is now an annual national Roald Dahl Day to celebrate his impact on children’s literature on the 13 of September.

20 September 1948

Bestselling author of ‘A Game of Thrones’, George R R Martin, is born in Bayonne, New Jersey.

21 September 1947

Stephen King is born in Portland, Maine. The ‘King of Horror’ has written over 60 novels and 200 short stories, including many bestsellers and movie adaptations.