TNPSC English Exam - Prose Author Information

 

Prose Author Details

 

Liam O'Flaherty

 

       Liam O'Flaherty(1896–1984) was an Irish novelist and short story writer and a major figure in the Irish literary renaissance. He was a founding member of the Communist Party of Ireland. A native Irish-speaker from the Gaeltacht, O'Flaherty wrote almost exclusively in English, except for a small number of short stories in the Irish language. He spent most of his time in travelling and lived comfortably and quietly outside the spotlight.

 

William Shakespeare

 

           William Shakespeare(1564–1616) was born in Stratfordupon-Avon, England. He was an English poet, playwright and actor. Widely regarded as both the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. His surviving body of work includes 37 plays, 154 sonnets and two narrative poems, the majority of which he penned between 1589 and 1613.

 

Alphonse Daudet

 

       Alphonse Daudet(1840-1897) was a French novelist and short-story writer. The Last Lesson is set in the days of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) in which France was defeated by Prussia led by Bismarck. Prussia then consisted of what now are the nations of Germany, Poland and parts of Austria. In this story the French districts of Alsace and Lorraine have passed into Prussian hands.    

 

 

Mary Mapes Dodge

 

    Mary Mapes Dodge (1831–1905) was an American children's

author and editor, best known for her novel Hans Brinker. She was

the recognized leader in juvenile literature for almost a third of the

nineteenth century. Dodge conducted St. Nicholas for more than

thirty years, and it became one of the most successful magazines for

children. She was able to persuade many of the great writers of the

world to contribute to her children's magazine – Mark Twain, Louisa

May Alcott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Tennyson etc.

 

Joseph Bell

 

         Joseph Bell (1837-1911).He was a lecturer in medicine whose detective approach to diagnosis inspired Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline. Joseph Bell was born in Edinburgh.

 

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

 

         Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a British writer best known for his detective fiction featuring the character of Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. Doyle wrote forty-six short stories featuring the famous detective. The story is narrated by the character, Dr.Watson. Originally a physician, in 1887 he published A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels about Holmes and Dr. Watson. In addition, Doyle wrote over fifty short stories featuring the famous detective. The Sherlock Holmes stories are generally considered milestones in the field of fiction. His notable works include Stories of Sherlock Holmes and The Lost World.

 

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar

                  Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar was born on 24th April 1973 in Mumbai, Maharastra. He was a former Indian cricketer and captain widely regarded as one of the greatest cricketers of all time. He made an impact in cricket from a very early age, displaying a prodigious talent. The world famous cricketer has set many records in his career and is considered as one of the greatest Batsman of all times. He is the only player to have scored one hundred international centuries, the first to score double century in a One Day International , and the only player to complete more than 30,000 runs in international cricket. He played 664 international cricket matches in total, scoring 34,357 runs. In 2012, Tendulkar was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. He retired from cricket on 16th November 2013. ‘Learning the Game’ is an extract from his autobiography Playing it My Way

Samuel Langhorne Clemens

       Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humourist, entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer. Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for his novels. His famous works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman

           Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (7 November 1888 – 21 November 1970) was an Indian physicist born in Tiruchirappalli. He carried out ground-breaking work in the field of light scattering, which earned him the 1930 Nobel Prize for Physics. He discovered that when light traverses a transparent material, some of the deflected light changes wavelength. This phenomenon, subsequently known as Raman scattering, results from the Raman effect and to commemorate it, February-28 is celebrated as National Science Day. In 1954, India honoured him with its highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

 

Jawaharlal Nehru

 

          Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was the first Prime Minister of India and a central figure in Indian politics before and after independence. He emerged as an eminent leader of the Indian independence movement under the tutelage of Mahatma Gandhi and served India as Prime Minister from its establishment as an independent nation in 1947 until his death in 1964. He is considered to be the architect of the modern Indian nation-state: a sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic. He was also known as ‘Pandit Nehru’ while many Indian children knew him as ‘Uncle Nehru’.

 

 

 

William Temple Hornaday

        William Temple Hornaday, Sc.D. (December 1, 1854 - March 6, 1937) was an American zoologist , conservationist, taxidermist, and author. He was a pioneer in the early wild life conversation movement in the United States. During his life time he published many books and articles on the need for conservation of wild llife

Nathaniel Hawthorne

         Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist, dark romantic, and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. The biography of Sir Isaac Newton was published in Nathaniel Hawthorne's, True Stories from History and Biography (1851).

Rabindranath Tagore

     Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Nobel prize-winning Bengali poet, author, philosopher, artist, and educator wrote “Gitanjali” (1912). "My Reminiscences" was written and published in his fiftieth year, shortly before he started on a trip to Europe and America for his failing health in 1912. It was in the course of this trip that he wrote for the first time in the English language for publication.

Ruskin Bond

       Ruskin Bond is a short story writer, novelist and poet, the favourite writer of Indian children. His first novel, Room on the Roof, was published when he was still in his teens. This novel won him the John Rhys Memorial Award in 1957. He also writes about children and the simple hill folk of Uttarakhand. Simplicity and fluency of language and an insight into human nature are hallmarks of his style. His major writings include An Island of Trees, A Bond with the Mountains and The India I Love. He has also been honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Award for his contribution to Indian literature.

 

 

Rajagopalachari

        Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1878-1972) informally called Rajaji, was an Indian politician, independence activist, lawyer, writer, historian and statesman. Rajagopalachari was born in the village of Thorapalli in the Krishnagiri district. Rajagopalachari was the last Governor-General of India, as India soon became a Republic in 1950. Furthermore, he was the first Indian-born governor-general, since before him the posts were held by British nationals. He also served as leader of the Indian National Congress, Premier of the Madras Presidency, Governor of West Bengal, Minister for Home Affairs of the Indian Union and Chief Minister of Madras state. He was one of the first recipients of India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

The Little Hero of Holland - Mary Mapes Dodge

 

The Little Hero of Holland By Mary Mapes Dodge (Source TN Textbook)

 

        Holland is a country where much of the land lies below sea level. Only great walls called dikes keep the North Sea from rushing in and flooding the land. For centuries the people of Holland have worked to keep the walls strong so that their country will be safe and dry. Even the little children know the dikes must be watched every moment, and that a hole no longer than your finger can be a very dangerous thing.

 

      Many years ago there lived in Holland a boy named Peter. Peter’s father was one of the men who tended the gates in the dikes, called sluices. He opened and

closed the sluices so that ships could pass out of Holland’s canals into the great sea.

 

     One afternoon in the early fall, when Peter was eight years old, his mother called him from his play. “Come, Peter,” she said. “I want you to go across the dike and take these cakes to your friend, the blind man. If you go quickly, and do not stop to play, you will be home again before dark.”

 

     The little boy was glad to go on such an errand, and started off with a light heart. He stayed with the poor blind man a little while to tell him about his walk along the dike and about the sun and the flowers and the ships far out at sea. Then he remembered his mother’s wish that he should return before dark and, bidding his friend goodbye, he set out for home.

 

     As he walked beside the canal, he noticed how the rains had swollen the waters, and how they beat against the side of the dike, and he thought of his father’s gates.

 

     “I am glad they are so strong,” he said to himself. “If they gave way what would become of us? These pretty fields would be covered with water. Father always calls them the `angry waters.´ I suppose he thinks they are angry at him for keeping them out so long.”

 

      As he walked along he sometimes stopped to pick the pretty blue flowers that grew beside the road, or to listen to the rabbits´soft tread as they rustled through the grass. But oftener he smiled  as he thought of his visit to the poor blind man who had so few pleasures and was always so glad to see him.

 

    Suddenly he noticed that the sun was setting, and that it was growing dark. “Mother will be watching for me,”  he thought, and he began to run toward home.

 

      Just then he heard a noise. It was the sound of trickling water! He stopped and looked down. There was a small hole in the dike, through which a tiny stream was flowing,

 

      Any child in Holland is frightened at the thought of a leak in the dike.

 

       Peter understood the danger at once. If the water ran through a little hole it would soon make a larger one, and the whole country would be flooded. In a moment he saw what he must do. Throwing away his flowers, he climbed down the side of the dike and thrust his finger into the tiny hole.

 

      The flowing of the water was stopped!

 

     “Oho!” he said to himself. “The angry waters must stay back now. I can keep them back with my finger. Holland shall not be drowned while I am here.”

  

        This was all very well at first, but soon it grew dark and cold. The little fellow shouted and screamed. “Come here; come here,” he called. But no one heard him; no one came to help him.

 

          It grew still colder, and his arm ached, and began to grow stiff and numb. He shouted again. “Will no one come? Mother! Mother!”

 

     But his mother had looked anxiously along the dike road many times since sunset for her little boy, and now she had closed and locked the cottage door, thinking that Peter was spending the night with his blind friend, and that she would scold him in the morning for staying away from home without permission. Peter tried to whistle, but his teeth chattered with the cold. He thought of his brother and sister in their warm beds, and of his dear father and mother. “I must not let them be drowned,” he thought. “I must stay here until someone comes, if I have to stay all night.”

 

      The moon and stars looked down on the child crouching on a stone on the side of the dike. His head was bent, and his eyes were closed, but he was not asleep, for every now and then he rubbed the hand that was holding back the angry sea.

 

     “I’ll stand it somehow,” he thought. So he stayed there all night keeping the sea out.

 

      Early the next morning a man going to work thought he heard a groan as he walked along the top of the dike. Looking over the edge, he saw a child clinging to the side of the great wall.

 

    “What’s the matter?” he called. “Are you hurt?”

 

    “I’m keeping the water back!” Peter yelled. “Tell them to come quickly!”

 

     The alarm was spread. People came running with shovels and the hole was soon mended.

 

    They carried Peter home to his parents, and before long the whole town knew how he had saved their lives that night. To this day, they have never forgotten the brave little hero of Holland.