5 Literary Birthdays & a Major Anniversary

I baked them a vegan chocolate cake and you can, too

I have a lot of friends and family members with January birthdays; there must be something very fertile about April. In today’s Literary Ladies Lite Sunday edition, we’ll be celebrating five classic authors’ birthdays happening right around this weekend. And the major anniversary is none other than the publication of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

It’s important to find things to celebrate in the cold and still quite dark days of January, even if it’s the birthdays of those long gone but whose words continue to feed our souls. Do any of you have a January birthday that you’re celebrating this month?

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I’ve also cross-pollinated this post with the other part of my endeavors as The Vegan Atlas; you’ll find an easy vegan chocolate cake recipe that has been our family’s favorite for many years. Make it to celebrate these authors, your own occasions and anniversaries, or simply because you love chocolate. You’ll find it in full at the end of this post.

First, here are today’s birthday girls …

January 24, 1862: Edith Wharton (NYC, NY)

Edith Wharton (January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937), was born Edith Newbold Jones in New York City. Most of us have heard the expression “Keeping up with the Joneses.” There's a theory that this doesn’t refer to a hypothetical family, but Edith Wharton’s parents, George and Lucretia Jones. If this is true or not, I can't definitively say, but it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.

As a fledgling writer, she received out-and-out disapproval from those closest to her, including her mother and society friends, who thought that literary pursuits were beneath a person of her class.

Insecurity about her talent and abilities plagued her for years, and she admitted to suffering from terrible shyness and lack of self-confidence. Later, as she gained confidence, she shared frank recollections on her writing life — both the joys and the challenges. She led a prolific writing life and is best known for The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, and Ethan Frome.

January 25, 1882: Virginia Woolf (Hyde Park Gate, London)

Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941), born Adeline Virginia Stephen, produced a body of work considered among the most groundbreaking in twentieth-century literature. Her mother’s sudden death when she was thirteen may have been the catalyst for the first of her recurrent breakdowns.

After seven and a half years of toil, her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915. She created a new form of literature that was more internal, a savoring of experience, and a departure from traditional storytelling.

Yet she was never confident, constantly second-guessed herself. Her diary filled with lines like this one from a 1919 entry: "Is the time coming when I can endure to read my own writing in print without blushing— shivering and wishing to take cover?" And yet she went on to create many iconic works before struggles with depression led to her ending her life at the age of fifty-nine.

Virginia was fortunate to have a husband who was so devoted to her. You may enjoy Becoming Virginia Woolf: How Leonard Woolf Wooed Virginia Stephen. I’ve only been able to get through Mrs. Dalloway and A Room of Her Own. I have great respect for Virginia Woolf, though I find her hard to read. How about you?