William Randolph Hearst is one of those people we all know was very, very famous but are never quite sure why, or what we are to think of him.
At a quarter to 3 in the afternoon on March 14, 1883, one of the world's brainiest men, Karl Marx, ceased to think. He passed away peacefully in his favorite armchair.
What makes an American writer? In today's narrow, backlashed literary market the chain of command is quite clear. The "greats" are Updike, Pynchon, Mailer, Bellow and Roth.