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>
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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>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
enterolith:
A mineral concretion in the intestinal tract.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enterolith>
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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>
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