A BOOK OF DAYS FOR THE LITERARY YEAR

This handsome small hardcover book was published by Thames & Hudson in 1984 and has been on and around my desk in many locations ever since then. Pic shows title page and frontispeice.

Of course one is meant to look at a book of days each day, depending on its theme, for interest or consolation or inspiration but rarely do I remember to do this.

However today, 2 June, I have remembered and here is today's entry:

1740 Comte Donatien-Alphonse-Francois de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade, is born in Paris. In 1763, by order of the king and at his mother-in-law's request, the 23 year old bridegroom will be committed to Vincennes fortress, in theory for excesses committed in a brothel he has been frequenting for a month, but probably because he is spending his wife's money too fast. The Revolution temporarily frees him in 1790.

1840 Thomas Hardy (right) is born in a thatched cottage in the hamlet of Higher Bockhampton, near Dorchester, the center of a region he will call Wessex in his books.