Olivia Shakespear (1863–1938) was a British novelist, playwright, and patron of the arts. She wrote six books that are described as "marriage problem" novels. Her works sold poorly, sometimes only a few hundred copies. Her last novel, Uncle Hilary, is considered her best. She wrote two plays in collaboration with Florence Farr. In 1894 her literary interests led to a friendship with William Butler Yeats that became physically intimate in 1896. Following their consummation he declared that they "had many days of happiness" to come, but the affair ended in 1897. They nevertheless remained lifelong friends and corresponded frequently. Yeats went on to marry Georgie Hyde-Lees, Olivia's step- niece and her daughter Dorothy's best friend. Olivia began hosting a weekly salon frequented by Ezra Pound and other modernist writers and artists in 1909, and became influential in London literary society. Dorothy Shakespear married Pound in 1914, despite the less-than- enthusiastic blessing of her parents. After their marriage, Pound would use funds received from Olivia to support T. S. Eliot and James Joyce. When Dorothy gave birth to a son, Omar Pound, in France in 1926, Olivia assumed guardianship of the boy. He lived with Olivia until her death on 3 October 1938.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Shakespear
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1613:
The original Globe Theatre in London burned to the ground after a cannon employed for special effects misfired during a performance of William Shakespeare's Henry VIII and ignited the theatre's roof. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globe_Theatre
1659:
Russo-Polish War: The hetman of Ukraine Ivan Vyhovsky and his allies defeated the armies of Russian Tsardom led by Aleksey Trubetskoy at the Battle of Konotop in the present-day Sumy Oblast of Ukraine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Konotop
1864:
Canada's worst railway accident took place when a passenger train fell through an open swing bridge into the Richelieu River near present-day Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St-Hilaire_train_disaster
1974:
Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union while on tour with the Bolshoi Ballet in Toronto. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Baryshnikov
2002:
North and South Korean patrol boats clashed along a disputed maritime boundary near Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Yeonpyeong
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
enterolith: A mineral concretion in the intestinal tract. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enterolith
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
It is another of the miraculous things about mankind that there is no pain nor passion that does not radiate to the ends of the earth. Let a man in a garret but burn with enough intensity and he will set fire to the world. --Antoine de Saint Exupéry https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint_Exup%C3%A9ry