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BRADBURY
Ray (1920-
Ray
Douglas Bradbury wrote
over 500 published literary
works.
He was born in Waukegan,
Illinois, on August 22nd,
1920. He moved with his
family to Tucson, Arizona,
when he was six, but returned
to Waukegan the following
year. In 1932, Bradbury¼s
father lost his job and
the family again moved
to Tucson, only to return
to Waukegan the next year.
In 1934, when Bradbury
was 14, the family moved
permanently to Los Angeles,
California. Mr. Bradbury
still resides in Los Angeles,
but regards Waukegan as
his hometown and has used
it as the setting (1)
of two of his novels
under the pseudonym of
Green Town.
In his youth, Bradbury
developed a love of magic
and had aspirations of
becoming a magician. Encouraged
in his creativity by his
family, Bradbury turned
to writing at a young
age. In 1937, at the age
of 17, Bradbury became
a member of the Los Angeles
Science Fiction League,
in which he published
his first work. Bradbury¼s
first short story (2)
was published
in Weird Tales
when the author was 20.
This was the first of
many professional publications
of Bradbury¼s work, which
includes Dark Carnival
(1947), Martian Chronicles
(1950), The Illustrated
Man (1951), The
Golden Apples of the Sun
(1953), Dandelion
Wine (1957), Something
Wicked This Way Comes
(1962), Death is a
Lonely Business (1985),
The April Witch (1987),
Death Has Lost Its
Charm (1987), The
Toynbee Collector
(1988), Graveyard for
Lunatics (1990), Folon¼s
Folon¼s (1990) in
addition to Fahrenheit
451 (1953).
Ray Bradbury is most widely
regarded as a science
fiction writer, but he
has not limited himself
to that genre. He has
produced both works of
drama and psychological
realism in addition to
his science fiction works.
Mr. Bradbury, the father
or four, currently (3)
resides in Los
Angeles, where he continues
to write and speak and
enjoys painting and collects
Mexican artwork.
(1) setting
: décor
(2) short story :
nouvelle (genre littéraire)
(3) currently :
actuellement
Fahrenheit 451
TOP
of the page
COOPER
Fenimore
(1789 - 1851)
American
author, famous for his stories
of frontier life and pioneer
adventure. His most popular
work is The Last of the
Mohicans (1832).
He was the son of a wealthy
(1), landowning
Judge William Cooper, born
in Burlington, New Jersey.
The year after his birth,
the family moved to Cooperstown,
New York, a frontier settlement
founded by Judge Cooper near
Otsego Lake.
Sent to Yale at thirteen,
Cooper was expelled (2)
in his third year
and was sent to sea. In 1811,
he married Susan DeLancey
and settled down as a gentleman
farmer.
The first of Cooper's fifty
books, Precaution (1820),
was not a success, but his
second, The Spy (1821),
was a patriotic story of the
American Revolution and was
an immediate success. He and
his wife lived abroad (3)
from 1826 to 1833,
and during this time he vigorously
defended American democracy
in his writings.
But when he came back to the
United States he was so disgusted
by (4) what
he saw (tyranny of the majority),
that he acquired conservative
and aristocratic views which
made him unpopular. In 1823,
Cooper published The Pioneers
: his fascination with frontier
adventure started. In Natty
Bumpo, the hero of his
"Leatherstocking" novels,
Cooper created the archetype
of the rugged (5) frontier
woodman (6).
Other worksby Cooper : The
Deerslayer (1840) and
The Pathfinder (1841).
Cooper died on September 14th,
1851 and was buried in the
cemetery of Cooperstown.
(1)
wealthy
: riche,
aisé
(2) expelled :
renvoyé
(3) abroad : à
l'étranger
(4) disgusted by : dégôuté
par
(5) rugged : rude
(6) woodman : forestier
(7) spare : dépouillé,
sobre
(8) understatement :
litote (affirmation
en-dessous de la vérité)
FAULKNER
William (1897-1962)
William
Faulkner came from an old
southern family and he grew
up in Oxford, Mississippi.
He joined the Canadian, and
later the British, Royal Air
Force during the First World
War, studied at the University
of Mississippi, and temporarily
worked for a New York bookstore
and a New Orleans newspaper.
Except for some trips to Europe
and Asia, and a few short
stays in Hollywood as a scriptwriter
(1) , he worked
on his novels and short stories
on a farm in Oxford.
He wanted to create a saga,
so he invented a series of
characters typical of the
historical growth (2)
and decadence of the
South. The world he created
was called the imaginary Yoknapatawpha
County and its inhabitants.
Their theme is the decay (3)
of the old South,
as represented by the Sartoris
and Compson families, and
the emergence of ruthless
(4) newcomers
(5), the Snopeses.
Faulkner used the inner (6)
monologue, for example
in The Sound and the Fury
(1929). The novel Sanctuary
(1931) is about the degeneration
of Temple Drake, a young girl
from a distinguished southern
family. Its sequel (7),
Requiem For A Nun (1951),
written partly as a drama
(8), centered
on the courtroom trial of
a Negro woman who was a party
to Temple Drake's debauchery.
The theme of racial prejudice
is in Light in August
(1932) and again in Absalom,
Absalom! (1936), in which
a young man is rejected by
his father and brother because
of his mixed blood. And also
in Intruder In the Dust
(1948). In 1940, Faulkner
published the first volume
of the Snopes trilogy, The
Hamlet, to be followed
by two volumes, The Town
(1957) and The Mansion
(1959).
The Reivers, his last
and most humorous work, with
great many similarities to
Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn,
appeared in 1962, the year
of Faulkner's death.
(1) scriptwriter
: scénariste
(2) growth : croissance
(3) decay : déclin,
décadence
(4) ruthless : impitoyable
(5) newcomers : nouveaux
venus
(6) inner : intérieur
(7) sequel : suite
(8) drama : pièce
de théâtre
FITZGERALD
Scott (1896-1940)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
is famous for his novels and
short stories which deal with
(1) the excesses
of America's "Jazz Age"
during the 1920s.
Born into a fairly (2)
rich family in St
Paul, Minnesota in 1896 Fitzgerald
attended (3),
but never graduated (4)
from Princeton University.
In 1917 he was drafted into
(5) the army,
but he never saw active service
abroad (6).
Instead (7),
he spent much of his time
writing and re-writing his
first novel This Side of
Paradise (1920) which
became an instant success.
In the same year he married
the beautiful Zelda Sayre
and together they embarked
on a rich life of endless
parties (8).
Dividing their time between
America and fashionable resorts
(9) in Europe,
the Fitzgeralds became as
famous for their lifestyle
as for the novels he wrote.
Fitzgerald once said 'Sometimes
I don't know whether Zelda
and I are real or whether
we are characters in one of
my novels'. He followed his
first success with The
Beautiful and the Damned
(1922), and The Great Gatsby
(1925) which Fitzgerald considered
his masterpiece. It was also
at this time that Fitzgerald
wrote many of his short stories
which helped to pay for his
extravagant lifestyle. The
bubble burst in the 1930s
when Zelda became increasingly
troubled by mental illness.
Tender is the Night
(1934), the story of Dick
Diver and his schizophrenic
wife Nicole, shows the pain
that Fitzgerald felt. The
book was not well received
in America and he turned to
script-writing (10)
in Hollywood for the
final three years of his life.
It was at this time he wrote
the autobiographical essays
collected posthumously in
The Crack-Up and his
unfinished novel, The Last
Tycoon. He died in 1940.
(1)
deal with
: traiter
de
(2) fairly : assez
(3) attended : a suivi
les cours
(4) never graduated : n'a
jamais obtenu de diplôme
(5) was drafted into :
fut appelé sous
les drapeaux, fut incorporé
(6) abroad : à
l'étranger
(7) instead : au contraire
(instead of : à la
place de)
(8) endless parties : fêtes
incessantes
(9) fashionable resorts
: lieux de vacances à
la mode
(10) script-writing : écriture
de scénario
HEMINGWAY
Ernest (1899-1961)
Born
in Oak Park, Illinois, he
started his career as a writer
in a newspaper office in Kansas
City at the age of seventeen.
After the United States entered
the First World War, he joined
a volunteer ambulance unit
in the Italian army. Serving
at the front, he was wounded
(1), was decorated
by the Italian Government,
and spent considerable time
in hospitals. After his return
to the United States, he became
a reporter for Canadian and
American newspapers and was
soon sent back to Europe to
cover such events as the Greek
Revolution.
During the 1920s, Hemingway
became a member of the group
of expatriate Americans in
Paris, which he described
in his first important work,
The Sun Also Rises
(1926). A Farewell to Arms
(1929) was very successful
too. It is about an American
ambulance officer's disillusionment
in the war and his role as
a deserter. Hemingway used
his experiences as a reporter
during the civil war in Spain
as the background for his
most ambitious novel, For
Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).
Among his later works, the
most famous is the short novel,
The Old Man and the Sea
(1952), the story of an old
fisherman's journey, his long
and lonely (2) struggle
(3) with a fish
and the sea, and his victory
in defeat. Hemingway - himself
a great sportsman - liked
to portray soldiers, hunters
whose courage and honesty
are set against the brutal
ways of modern society, and
who in this confrontation
lose hope (4)
and faith (5).
His straightforward (6)
prose, his spare (7)
dialogue, and his
predilection for understatement
(8) are particularly
effective in his short stories,
some of which are collected
in Men Without Women
(1927) and The Fifth Column
and the First Forty-Nine
Stories (1938).
Hemingway died in Idaho in
1961.
(1)
wounded
: blessé
(2) lonely : solitaire
(3) struggle : combat
(4) hope : l'espoir
(5) faith : la foi
(6) straightforward :
direct, simple
(7) spare : dépouillé,
sobre
(8) understatement :
litote (affirmation
en-dessous de la vérité)
LEWIS
Sinclair
(1885-1951)
Sinclair
Lewis, the first American
to win the Nobel Prize for
Literature, was born in Sauk
Centre, Minnesota, in 1885.
Although he was proud (1)
of his Midwestern
roots (2), he
travelled widely and was interested
in many different aspects
of American society, from
business and medicine to religion
and small town life. His concern
with issues (3) involving
women, race, and the powerless
in society make his work still
vital and pertinent today.
As Sheldon Norman Grebstein
wrote in his work Sinclair
Lewis, Lewis "was the
conscience of his generation
and he could well serve as
the conscience of our own.
His analysis of the America
of the 1920s holds true (4)
for the America of
today. His prophecies have
become our truths and his
fears (5) our
most crucial problems."
Sinclair Lewis was nominated
for the Pulitzer Prize for
Main Street and Babbitt,
and won the award for Arrowsmith
(although he didn't accept
it). He was a member of the
National Institute of Arts
and Letters and the American
Academy of Arts and Letters.
He died in Rome in 1951.
(1) proud
: fier
(2) roots : racines,
origines
(3) issues : thèmes
de société,
problèmes
(4) true : vrai
(5) fears : peurs,
craintes
LONDON
Jack (1876-1916)
Prolific
American novelist and short
story writer.
Jack London was born on January
12th, 1876, in San Francisco.
He was deserted by his father,
William Henry Chaney, , and
raised in Oakland by his mother
Flora Wellman, a music teacher
and spiritulist, and stepfather
John London, whose surname
he took. London's youth (1)
was marked by poverty.
At the age of ten he became
an avid reader, and borrowed
(2) books from
the Oakland Public Library
(3). After leaving
school at the age of 14, London
worked as a seaman, rode in
freight trains as a hobo (4)
and adopted socialistic
views as a member of protest
armies of the unemployed.
In 1894 he was arrested in
Niagara Falls and jailed for
vagrancy (5).
Without much education, London
educated himself in public
libraries, and at the age
of 19 gained admittance to
the University of California
at Berkeley. He had already
started to write. London again
tried to earn his living by
(6) writing.
His early stories appeared
in the Overland Monthly and
the Atlantic Monthly.
In 1900 he married Elisabeth
Maddern, but left her and
their two daughters three
years afterwards, and married
Charmian Kittredge. In 1901
London ran unsuccessfully
on the Socialist party ticket
for mayor of Oakland.
He started to produce novels,
nonfiction and short stories,
becoming in his lifetime one
of the most popular authors.
London's first novel, The
Son Of The Wolf, appeared
in 1900. His Alaska stories,
The Call Of The Wild
(L'appel de la forêt)(1903),
in which a giant pet dog Buck
finds his survival instincts
in Yukon, White Fang
(Croc Blanc) (1906) and Burning
Daylight (1910) gained
a large reading public. Among
his other works are The
Sea-Wolf (1904) and The
Road, a collection of
short stories.
In 1902 London went to England,
where he studied the living
conditions in East End and
working class areas of the
capital city. His report about
the economic degradation of
the poor, The People Of
The Abyss (Le peuple de
l'abime)(1903), was a surprise
success in the U.S. but criticized
in England. In 1906, he published
his first collection of non-fiction
pieces, The War Of The
Classes, which included
his lectures (7) on
socialism. London also published
a semi-autobiographical novel
Martin Eden (1909)
and a travel book The Cruise
of the Snark (1911). London
had purchased in 1910 a large
tract of land near Glen Ellen
in Sonoma County, and devoted
his energy and money improving
and enlarging his Beauty Ranch.
In 1913 London's Beauty Ranch
burnt to the ground, and his
doctor told him that his kidneys
(8) were failing (9).
A few months before his death,
London resigned (10)
from the Socialist
Party. Debts, alcoholism,
illness, and fear of losing
his creativity darkened the
author's last years.
He died on November 22nd,
1916, officially of gastro-intestinal
uremia. However, there have
also been speculations that
London committed suicide with
morphine.
(1) youth : jeunesse
(2) borrowed : empruntait
(3) library : bibliothèque
(4) hobo : saisonnier
(5) jailed for vagrancy
: emprisonné
pour vagabondage
(6) tried
to earn his living by
: essaya de gagner sa vie
en
(7) lectures : conférences
(8) kidneys : reins
(9) failing : avaient
une défaillance
(10) resigned : démissionna
MELVILLE
Herman (1819-1891)
American
author, best known for his
novels of the sea and especially
for his masterpiece Moby
Dick (1851), a whaling
adventure dedicated to Nathaniel
Hawthorne. The work was only
recognized as a masterpiece
years after Melville's death.
The fictionalized travel narrative
Typee (1846) was Melville's
most popular book during his
lifetime.
Herman Melville was born on
August 1st, 1819 in New York
City into a merchant family.
His father became bankrupt
(1) and insane
(2), dying when
Melville was 12. A bout of
scarlet fever in 1826 left
Melville with permanently
weakened eyesight (3).
He attended Albany (N.Y.)
Classical School in 1835.
From the age of 12, he worked
as a clerk, teacher, and farmhand.
In search of adventures, he
shipped out in 1839 as a cabin
boy on the whaler (4)
Achushnet. He later
joined the US Navy, and started
long voyages on ships, sailing
both the Atlantic and the
South Seas. Typee,
an account of his stay with
cannibals, was first published
in Britain, like most of his
works. Its sequel, Omoo
(1847), was based on his experiences
in the Polynesian Islands,
andwas as successful as the
first one.
Throughout (5) his
career Melville enjoyed a
rather higher estimation in
Britain than in America. His
third book, Mardi And A
Voyage Thither was published
in 1849. In 1847 Melville
married Elisabeth Shaw, daughter
of the chief justice of Massachusetts.
After three yeas in New York,
he bought a farm, "Arrowhead",
near Nathaniel Hawthorne's
home at Pittsfield, Massachusetts,
and became friends with him
for some time.
Inspired by the suggestions
of Hawthorne, Melville wrote
his masterpiece, Moby Dick.
When the novel was published,
it did not bring him the fame
(6) he had acquired
in the 1840s. Only some critics
and very few readers noted
its brilliance. Through the
narrator of Moby Dick,
Ishmael, the author meditated
questions about faith and
the workings of God (7)'s
intelligence. He returned
to these meditations in his
last great work, Billy
Budd, a story left unfinished
at his death and posthumously
published in 1924.
Melville died of heart failure
on September 28th, 1891.
(1) became bankrupt : fit
faillite
(2) insane : fou
(3) weakened eyesight :
vue affaiblie
(4) whaler : baleinier
(bateau)
(5) throughout : tout
au long de
(6) fame : célébrité
(7) God : Dieu
POE
Edgar Allan
(1809-1849)
American
poet, a master of the horror
tale, credited with practically
inventing the detective
story.
Edgar Allan Poe was born
on January 19th, 1809 in
Boston, Massachusetts, to
parents who were itinerant
actors. His father David
Poe Jr. died probably in
1810 and his mother Elizabeth
Hopkins Poe in 1811. Edgar
was taken into the home
of a Richmond merchant John
Allan and was brought up
(1) partly
in England (1815-20), where
he attended Manor School
at Stoke Newington. Never
legally adopted, Poe took
Allan's name for his middle
name. Poe attended the University
of Virginia (1826), but
was expelled for not paying
his gambling debts (2).
This led to a quarrel with
Allan, who later disowned
(3) him.
In 1827 Poe joined the U.S.
Army as a common soldier
under assumed name and age.
In 1830 Poe entered West
Point and was dishonorably
discharged the next year,
for intentional neglect
of his duties (4).
Little is known about his
life in this time, but in
1833 he lived in Baltimore
with his father's sister.
After winning a prize of
$50 for the short story
MS Found in a Bottle,
he started a career as a
staff member of various
magazines. During these
years he wrote some of his
best-known stories. In 1836
Poe married his 13-year-old
cousin Virginia Clemm. She
burst a blood vessel in
1842, and remained an invalid
until her death from tuberculosis
five years later.
After the death of his wife,
Poe began to lose his struggle
with drinking and drugs.
He addressed the famous
poem Annabel Lee
(1849) to her. Poe's first
collection, Tales of
the Grotesque and Arabesque,
appeared in 1840. It contained
one of his most famous works
: The Fall of the House
of Usher. During the
early 1840s Poe's best-selling
work was The Conchologist's
First Book (1839). The
dark poem of lost love,
The Raven, brought
Poe national fame, when
it appeared in 1845. The
Murders in the Rue Morgue
(1841) and The Purloined
Letter are among Poe's
most famous detective stories.
Poe was also one of the
most prolific literary journalists
in American history. Poe
suffered from bouts (5)
of depression and
madness, and he attempted
suicide in 1848. In September
the following year he disappeared
for three days after a drink
at a birthday party and
on his way to visit his
new fiancÈe in Richmond.
He turned up in a delirious
condition in Baltimore gutter
and died on October 7th,
1849.
(1) was brought up :
fut élevé
(2) gambling debts :
dettes de jeu
(3) disowned
:
renia
(4) duties : obligations,
devoirs
(5) bouts : accès,
attaques
The
Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Purloined Letter
TOP
of the page
STEINBECK
John (1802-1868)
John
Steinbeck was born in Salinas,
California. He came from
a family of moderate means
(1). He studied
at Stanford University but
never graduated (2).
In 1925 he went to New York,
where he tried for a few
years to establish himself
as a free-lance (3)
writer, but he
failed (4) and
returned to California.
After publishing some novels
and short stories, Steinbeck
first became widely known
with Tortilla Flat (1935),
a series of humorous stories
about Monterey paisanos.
Steinbeck's novels can all
be classified as social
novels dealing with the
economic problems of rural
labour, but there is also
some worship (5) of
the soil (6)
in his books. After the
humour of Tortilla Flat,
he moved on to more serious
fiction, often aggressive
in its social criticism,
to In Dubious Battle
(1936), which deals with
the strikes (7) of
the migratory fruit pickers
on California plantations.
This was followed by Of
Mice and Men (Des souris
et des hommes)(1937), the
story of the imbecile giant
Lennie, and a series of
admirable short stories
collected in the volume
The Long Valley (1938).
In 1939 he published what
is considered his best work,
The Grapes of Wrath
(Les raisins de la colère),
the story of Oklahoma tenant
farmers (8) who,
unable to earn a living
from the land, moved to
California where they became
migratory workers. Among
his later worksare East
of Eden (1952), The
Winter of Our Discontent
(1961), and Travels
with Charley (1962),
a travelogue (9) in
which Steinbeck wrote about
his impressions during a
three-month tour in a truck
(10) that
led him through forty American
states.
He died in New York City
in 1968.
(1) of moderate means :
modeste
(2) never graduated :
n'obtint jamais son
diplôme
(3) free-lance : indépendant
(4) failed : échoua
(5) worship : culte,
vénération
(6) soil : la terre
(7) strikes : grèves
(8) tenant farmers :
métayers (personnes
qui louent un domaine rural)
(9) travelogue : récit
de voyage
(10) truck : camion
(British English : lorry)
The Grapes of Wrath
Of
Mice and Men
The
Pearl
TOP
of the page
TWAIN
Mark (1835-1910)
Mark
Twain, pseudonym of Samuel
Langhorne Clemens, was an
American writer, journalist
and humorist, who won a
worldwide (1) audience
for his stories of the youthful
(2) adventures
of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry
Finn.
Clemens was born on November
30th, 1835 in Florida, Missouri.
He was brought up (3)
in Hannibal, Missouri.
After his father's death
in 1847, he was apprenticed
to a printer (4) and
wrote for his brother's
newspaper. He later worked
as a licensed Mississippi
river-boat pilot. The Civil
War (5) put
an end to the steamboat
traffic and Clemens moved
to Virginia City, where
he edited the Territorial
Enterprise.
On February 3rd, 1863, 'Mark
Twain' was born when Clemens
signed a humorous travel
account with that pseudonym.
In 1864 Twain left for California,
and worked in San Francisco
as a reporter. He visited
Hawaii as a correspondent
for The Sacramento Union,
publishing letters on his
trip and giving lectures.
He set out on a world tour,
travelling in France and
Italy. His experiences were
recorded in 1869 in The
Innocents Abroad, which
gained him wide popularity,
and poked fun at (6)
both American and
European prejudices and
manners. The success as
a writer gave Twain enough
financial security to marry
Olivia Langdon in 1870.
They moved the next year
to Hartford. Twain continued
to lecture (7) in
the United States and England.
Between 1876 and 1884 he
published several masterpieces,
Tom Sawyer (1881)
and The Prince And The
Pauper (1881). Life
on the Mississippi appeared
in 1883 and Huckleberry
Finn in 1884. In the
1890s Twain lost most of
his earnings (8) in
financial speculations and
in the failure of his own
publishing firm. To recover
from the bankruptcy, he
started a world lecture
tour, during which one of
his daughters died. Twain
toured New Zealand, Australia,
India, and South Africa.
He wrote such books as The
Tragedy Of Pudd'head Wilson
(1884), Personal Recollections
Of Joan Of Arc (1885),
A Connecticut Yankee
in King Arthur's Court
(1889) and the travel book
Following The Equator
(1897). During his long
writing career, Twain also
produced a considerable
number of essays. The death
of his wife and his second
daughter darkened the author's
later years, which is seen
in his posthumously published
autobiography (1924).
Twain died on April 21st,
1910.
(1)
worldwide : mondial
(2) youthful :
de jeunesse
(3) brought up :
élevé
(4) printer : imprimeur
(5) the Civil War : La
Guerre de Sécession
(1861-1865)
(6) poked fun at : se
moquait de
(7) to lecture :
faire des conférences
(8) earnings : gains,
bénéfices
Huckleberry
Finn
The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
|
