T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month, but that’s only because he isn’t one of the literary giants who celebrated his birthday beneath April showers!
We start off with Henry James, one of the greatest American writers, who was born April 15, 1843. Several of his works—The New York Stories of Henry James; The Ivory Tower; The Other House; and The Outcry—are published in the NYRB Classics series.
April 16, 1922, was the day Kingsley Amis was born, and we’re celebrating by announcing that we’ll be publishing several of his works over the next few years, starting with Lucky Jim and The Old Devils, both scheduled to publish in September 2012.
And finally, April 23 marks the 448th birthday of William Shakespeare. Mark Van Doren (1894-1972), beloved Columbia University professor and esteemed poet, penned a series of remarkably witty, perceptive essays about each of Shakespeare’s plays and many of his poems, which were compiled in Shakespeare.