Ok, so I’m one of those odd people who sometimes likes to see what happened on any certain date in history (I think it’s called procrastinating!), and I was a little disturbed to find that July 16th certainly hasn’t been a good day for writers in the grand scheme of things.
Since 1594 (not sure if this is when records began or just a random date the list plucked from thin air), over 20 writers, poets, novelists etc have died on the 16th July, starting with the playwright Thomas Kyd (1594) and continuing with poets Andreas Gryphius (1664), Elijiah Fenton (1730), and Thomas Yalden (1736), all the way down to Carol Shields, the novelist, in 2003.
On a more positive note, 16th July in history also saw the publication of The Catcher in the Rye (1951), along with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), which sold 9 million copies in its first 24 hours of release – maybe I should get back to work and stop fiddling with Google!
