Celebrity Graveland

May 20, 1799 – August 18, 1850

A noted pioneer of the Realist movement in European literature, Honoré de Balzac was a highly influential novelist and playwright. Balzac’s work was known for its flawed characters and minute detail that outlined life in his native France (specifically, Paris) in the time after Napoleon. The energy that drove his characters and stories wasn’t just creation. The man, himself, lived life at a torrid pace. Many of his finished novels and plays are the result of meticulous – borderline obsessive – revision and gallons upon gallons of coffee. Continue reading →

October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900

Ever hear the term “The Gay Nineties”? Well, the British counterpart to the American decade of decadence at the end of the 19th century was deemed the “Naughty Nineties.”

Enter Oscar Wilde.

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish-born (you don’t say?) writer who was known for his wit and flamboyant personality. His literary masterworks include his lone novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray and his most famous play, The Importance of Being Earnest. But enough of the boring stuff…Wilde spent the first half of the so-called “Naughty Nineties” in London embroiled in an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas. A fact the Douglas family was none too thrilled about. Wilde was publicly outed – practicing homosexuality was illegal at the time – and sentenced to 2 years of hard labor in prison. Prison life vastly disagreed with Wilde’s sense of aesthetics and art and all things opulent and his health rapidly declined. Continue reading →