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.

Sir Issac Newton - The Ingenious Scientist - Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

Sir Issac Newton - The Ingenious Scientist By Nathaniel Hawthorne (Source TN Textbook)

 

On Christmas-day, in the year 1642, Isaac Newton was born at the small village of Woolsthorpe in England. Little did his mother think, when she beheld her new-born babe, that he was destined to explain many matters which had been a mystery ever since the creation of the world.

 

Isaac's father being dead, Mrs. Newton was married again to a clergyman, and went to reside at North Witham. Isaac was left to the care of his good old grandmother, who was very kind to him, and sent him to school. In his early years, Isaac was chiefly remarkable for his ingenuity in all mechanical occupations. He had a set of little tools, and saws of various sizes, manufactured by himself. With the aid of these, Isaac contrived to make many curious articles, at which he worked with so much skill, that he seemed to have been born with a saw or chisel in his hand.

 

The neighbors looked with vast admiration at the things which Isaac manufactured. And his old grandmother, I suppose, was never weary of talking about him.

 

"He'll make a capital workman, one of these days," she would probably say. "No fear but what Isaac will do well in the world, and be a rich man before he dies."

 

Some of his friends, no doubt, advised Isaac's grandmother to apprentice him to a clockmaker; for, besides his mechanical skill, the boy seemed to have a taste for mathematics, which would be very useful to him in that profession. And then, in due time, Isaac would set up for himself, and would manufacture curious clocks, like those that contain sets of dancing figures, which issue from the dial-plate when the hour is struck; or like those, where a ship sails across the face of the clock, and is seen tossing up and down on the waves, as often as the pendulum vibrates.

 

      Indeed, there was some ground for supposing that Isaac would devote himself to the manufacture of clocks; since he had already made one, of a kind which nobody had ever heard of before. It was set a-going, not by wheels and weights, like other clocks, but by the dropping of water. This was an object of great wonderment to all the people in the neighborhood; and it must be confessed that there are few boys, or men either, who could contrive to tell what o'clock it is, by means of a bowl of water.

 

Besides the water-clock, Isaac made a sun-dial. Thus his grandmother was never at a loss to know the hour; for the water-clock would tell it in the shade, and the dial in the sunshine. The sun-dial is said to be still in existence at Woolsthorpe, on the corner of the house where Isaac dwelt.

 

Isaac possessed a wonderful faculty of acquiring knowledge by the simplest means. For instance, what method do you suppose he took, to find out the strength of the wind?. He jumped against the wind; and by the length of his jump, he could calculate the force of a gentle breeze, a brisk gale, or a tempest. Thus, even in his boyish sports, he was continually searching out the secrets of philosophy.

 

Not far from his grandmother's residence there was a windmill, which operated on a new plan. Isaac was in the habit of going thither frequently, and would spend whole hours in examining its various parts. While the mill was at rest, he pried into its internal machinery. When its broad sails were set in motion by the wind, he watched the process by which the mill-stones were made to revolve, and crush the grain that was put into the hopper. After gaining a thorough knowledge of its construction, he was observed to be unusually busy with his tools.

 

       It was not long before his grandmother, and all the neighborhood, knew what Isaac had been about. He had constructed a model of the windmill. Though not so large, I suppose as one of the box-traps which boys set to catch squirrels, yet every part of the mill and its machinery was complete. Its little sails were neatly made of linen, and whirled round very swiftly when the mill was placed in a draught of air. Even a puff of wind from Isaac's mouth, or from a pair of bellows, was sufficient to set the sails in motion. And what was most curious if a handful of grains of wheat were put into the little hopper, they would soon be converted into snow-white flour.