Herman Melville (1819) It was on this date, August 1, 1819, that the American novelist Herman Melville was born in New York, into a family of the Dutch Reformed church, the third of eight children. At age 7, scarlet fever left Melville somewhat visually impaired, and although his father died when he was 12, he […]

E. Haldeman-Julius (1889) It was on this date, July 30, 1889, that Emanuel Julius was born in a Philadelphia tenement – later to become known as the book publisher E. Haldeman-Julius. Emanuel left school at age 13 to seek his fortune as a writer in New York and got a job on a Socialist newspaper, […]

Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (1804) On this date, July 28, 1804, the German philosopher Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach was born in Landshut in Bavaria. As a young student of Hegel at Heidelberg, Feuerbach wrote to a friend, "Theology I can bring myself to study no more. I long to take nature to my heart, that […]

Sir Karl Popper (1902) It was on this date, July 28, 1902, that British philosopher Sir Karl Popper was born in Austria. He studied and taught in Vienna until the rise of the Nazis forced this son of Jewish parents to emigrate. He was sympathetic to the Vienna School of philosophy, though he was never […]

Alexandre Dumas fils (1834) It was on this date, July 27, 1834, that French novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas fils, illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas père – of Three Musketeers and Count of Monte Cristo fame – was born in Paris. He studied at the Collège Bourbon and accompanied his father on many of his […]

Ernest Hemingway (1899) It was on this date, July 21, 1899, that the American novelist Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, one of six children. His father was a fervent member of the First Congregational church and his mother sang in the church choir. Despite being reared in a […]

Like John Ruskin and Tennyson, he was a Rationalist, but he did not go out of his way to criticize religion.

Henry David Thoreau (1817) It was on this date, July 12, 1817, the writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts. He graduated Harvard in 1837 and discovered a talent for writing about nature. Thoreau embraced the Transcendentalist belief in personal insight and experience, but he was neither a critical nor a […]

“The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has dreamed up is that the Lord God … wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures…. Yet this absurd fantasy … pays all the expenses of the … least productive industry in all history.”

Hawthorne never bothered to attend church as an adult and one biographer observes that, "His own family did not know what his opinions were."