Richard Hughes was born on April 19, 1900, in England. He graduated from Oxford in 1922, and, as a young man, he enjoyed the Bohemian lifestyle. For a period of time, he lived as a beggar and street performer in Europe. Ever the nomad, he traveled throughout Canada, the West Indies, Europe, and the United States, frequently using his experiences as the basis for his writings. Hughes's writings include novels, plays, poetry, and short stories. He drew acclaim in 1929 with his first novel, A High Wind in Jamaica, also published under the title The Innocent Voyage. Set in the 19th century, a group of children traveling from Jamaica to England are captured by pirates. The children soon wreck… havoc with the pirates, bringing about their downfall. The irrational and carefree world of children is realistically depicted in this entertaining novel. Hughes's other writings are marked by fresh ideas and characterizations. His Human Predicament Series includes the novels The Fox in the Attic and The Wooden Shepherdess. These books are part of a historical series depicting the events between the two world wars. Hughes died of leukemia on April 28, 1976, before completing the third, and final, volume of the work.
Francine Prose was born on April 1, 1947. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968. She received the PEN Translation Prize in 1988 and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991. Francine Prose novel The Glorious Ones, has been adapted into a musical with the same title by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. It ran at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City in the fall of 2007. Prose has served as president of PEN American Center, a New York City based literary society of writers, editors, and translators that works to advance literature in 2007 and 2008. Prose novel, Blue Angel, a satire about sexual harassment on college campuses, was a finalist for the National… Book Award. One of her novels, Household Saints, was adapted for a movie by Nancy Savoca. In 2014 her title Lovers at the Chameleon Club - Paris 1932, made The New York Times Best Seller List.