Some of the world's most beloved and influential authors were born in August! Click their names to find their work in our collection or via OhioLINK.
Herman Melville (August 1, 1819), fiction writer and poet. Notable works: Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, "Bartleby, the Scrivener," Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative).
James Baldwin (August 2, 1924), writer and activist. Notable works: Go Tell It on the Mountain, "Sonny's Blues," Notes of a Native Son.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792), poet, novelist, playwright, and husband of Mary Shelley. Notable works: "Ozymandias," "A Defense of Poetry," The Cenci.
Guy de Maupassant (August 5, 1850), author of the Naturalist school. Notable works: "The Necklace," "The Horla," Pierre and Jean.
Wendell Berry (August 5, 1934), farmer, environmental activist, writer, and winner of the National Humanities Medal. Notable works: The Unsettling of America, Citizenship Papers, "The Vacation."
Walter Dean Myers (August 12, 1937), author of children's and young adult literature. Notable works: Hoops, Monster, Fallen Angels.
William Maxwell (August 16, 1908), writer and long-time fiction editor at The New Yorker. Notable works: So Long, See You Tomorrow, The Heavenly Tenants.
Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920), influential author of innumerable science-fiction short stories and novels, many adapted into other media. Notable works: Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, "The Veldt."
Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893), poet, fiction writer, and satirist; member of the Algonquin Round Table. Notable works: Enough Rope, Death and Taxes, Laments for the Living.
Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899), author and translator. Notable works: The Aleph and Other Stories, The Book of Imaginary Beings, "The Library of Babel."
Theodore Dreiser (August 27, 1871), journalist and author of Naturalist fiction. Notable works: Sister Carrie, An American Tragedy.
Mary Shelley (August 30, 1797), novelist and early author of science fiction. Notable works: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Mathilda.
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