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“The Raven” is a narrative poem by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845. It is noted for its musicality, stylized language and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven’s mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man’s slow descent into madness.

Poe claimed to have written the poem very logically and methodically. His intention was to create a poem that would appeal to both critical and popular tastes. The poem was inspired in part by a talking raven in the novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty by Charles Dickens. Poe borrows the complex rhythm and meter of Elizabeth Barrett’s poem “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.”

The first publication of “The Raven” on January 29, 1845, in the New York Evening Mirror made Poe widely popular in his lifetime and was soon reprinted, parodied, and illustrated. However, it did not bring him significant financial success. “The Raven” has influenced many modern works, including Vladimir Nabakov’s Lolita in 1955, Bernard Malamud’s “The Jewbird” in 1963, and Ray Bradbury’s “The Parrot Who Knew Papa” in 1976. The poem is additionally referenced throughout popular culture in films, television, music and more.

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Pride and Prejudice, first published on January 28, 1813, is one of Jane Austen’s novels, and is her second published novel. Its manuscript was initially written between 1796 and 1797 in Steventon, Hampshire, where she lived in the rectory. Called First Impressions, it was never published under that title, and in following revisions it was retitled Pride and Prejudice.

Austen’s father wrote to London bookseller Thomas Cadell offering it for publication, but it was rejected unseen by return of post. Buoyed by the release of her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, Austen revised the manuscript for First Impressions, probably between 1811 and 1812. She renamed the story Pride and Prejudice, an “apparent cliché” of the times.

In the years between the completion of First Impressions and its revision into Pride and Prejudice, two other works had been published under that name. Austen sold the copyright for the novel to Thomas Edgerton in exchange for 110 pounds. Austen had published Sense and Sensibility on a commission basis, whereby she indemnified the publisher against any losses and received any profits. Unaware that the book would sell out its edition, she passed the copying to Edgerton for a one-off payment for Pride and Prejudice. He made a substantial profit.

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Popeye the Sailor is a fictional hero famous for appearing in comic strips and animated films as well as numerous television shows. He was created by Elzie Crisler Segar and first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929.

Although, Segar’s Thimble Theatre strip, first published on December 19, 1919 was in it tenth year when Popeye made his debut, the sailor quickly became the main focus of the strip and Thimble Theatre became one of King Features’ most popular strips during the 1930s. Thimble Theatre was carried on after Segar’s death in 1938 by several writers and artists, including his assistant Bud Sagendorf. The strip, now titled Popeye, continues to appear in first-run installments in Sunday papers, written and drawn by Hy Eisman.

In 1933, Max and Dave Fleischer’s Fleischer Studios adapted the Thimble Theatre characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. These cartoons proved to be among the most popular of the 1930s and the Fleischers continued production through 1957. Since then, Popeye has appeared in comic books, TV cartoons, arcade and video games, and a 1980 live-action film directed by Robert Altman and starring comedian Robin Williams as Popeye.

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Isaac Asimov was a Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry, a highly successful writer, best known for his works of science fiction, and for his popular science books. Most of Asimov’s popularized science books explain scientific concepts in a historical way, going as far back as possible to a time when the science in question was at it simplest stage.

Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 9,000 letters and postcards. He is widely considered a master of the science fiction genre and, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, was considered one of the “Big Three” science fiction writers during his lifetime. Asimov’s most famous work is the Foundation series; his other major series are the Galactic Empire and the Robot series, both of which he later tied into the same fictional universe as the Foundation series to create a unified “future history” for his stories.

He penned numerous short stories, among them “Nightfall,” which in 1964 was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America as the best science fiction short story of all time, a title many still honor. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov’s Science Fiction, a Brooklyn, New York elementary school, and two different Isaac Asimov awards are named in his honor.

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Nostradamus was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Porpheties, the first edition of which appeared in 1555.

Since the publication of this book, which has rarely been out of print since his death, Nostradamus has attracted an enthusiastic following, who, along with the popular press, credits him with predicting many major world events. In contrast, most academic sources maintain that the associations made between world events and Nostradamus’ quatrains are largely the result of misinterpretations or mistranslations or else are so tenuous as to render them useless as evidence of any genuine predictive power.

None of the sources listed offers any evidence that anyone has ever interpreted any of Nostradamus’ quatrains specifically enough to allow a clear identification of any event in advance. Interest in the work of this prominent figure of the French Renaissance is still considerable, especially in the media and in popular culture and the prophecies has, in some cases, been assimilated to the results of applying the alleged Bible Code, as well as to other purported prophetic works.

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Dan DeCarlo was an American cartoonist best known as the artist who developed the look of Archie Comics in the late 1950s and early 1960s, modernizing the characters to their contemporary appearance an establishing the publisher’s house style. He is also generally recognized as the creator of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and Josie and the Pussycats.

Previous to Archie, DeCarlo had a remarkable 10-year run on the humor title Millie the Model for Atlas Comics, writing and drawing the slapsticky adventures of Millie Collins and her red-headed friendly nemesis Chili Storm. He was born in New Rochelle, New York and attended New Rochelle High School, followed by Manhattan’s Art Student League from 1938 to 1941, when he was drafted into the United States Army.

Stationed in Great Britain, DeCarlo worked in the motor pool and as a draftsman. He also painted company mascots on the noses of airplanes. In addition to his comic book work, he drew freelance pieces for the magazines The Saturday Evening Post and Argosy. DeCarlo was nominated for the Shazam Award for Best Penciller in 1974. He won the National Cartoonists Society Award for Best Comic Book in 200 for Betty and Veronica.

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David Mamet is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue, and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for his exploration of masculinity.

Mamet was born in Chicago, the son of a teacher and an attorney. He is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company and gained early acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway plays in 1976: The Duck Variation, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for Glengarry Glen Ross, which received its first Broadway revival in 2005. Mamet’s first produced screenplay was the 1981 production of The Postman Always Rings Twice. He received an Academy Award nomination for The Verdict a year later.

In 1987, Mamet made his film directing debut with House of Games, starring his then-wife, Lindsay Crouse, and a host of longtime stage associates. He has remained a prolific writer and director, assembling an informal repertory company for his films, including William H. Macy, Joe Mantegna, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Ricky Jay. Like independent filmmaker John Sayles, Mamet funds his own films with the pay he gets from credited and uncredited rewrites of typically big-budget Hollywood films like Wag the Dog and Ronin.

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The second incarnation of Life magazine was created by Henry Luce with strong emphasis on photojournalism. It appeared as a weekly until 1972 and as a monthly from 1978 to 2000. It was the first all-photography United States news magazine and dominated the market for more than 40 years. The magazine sold more than 13.5 million copies a week at one point.

Life was so popular that President Harry S. Truman, Sir Winston Churchill, and General Douglas MacArthur all serialized their memoirs in its pages. Perhaps one of the best-known pictures printed in the magazine was the photograph of a nurse in a sailor’s arms, snapped on August 27, 1945, as they celebrated VJ Day in New York City. Luce gave as much space and importance to pictures as to words. This format was an instant classic: the text was condensed into captions for 50 pages of pictures.

The magazine was printed on heavily coated paper that cost readers only a dime. The circulation skyrocketed beyond the company’s predictions, going from 380,000 copies of the first issue to more than one million a week four months later. Life spawned many imitators, such as Look, which folded in 1971. Each week, during World War II, Life brought the war home to Americans and had photographers in all theaters of war, from the Pacific to Europe.

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Born in Portchester, Hampshire, England, Neil Gaiman is an author of science fiction and fantasy short stories and novels, graphic novels, comic books, and films. His notable works include The Sandman comic series, Stardust, and American Gods.

As a child and a teenager, Gaiman grew up reading the works of authors like C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. Le Guin and others. He later became a fan of science fiction, reading the works of authors as diverse as Samuel R. Delany, Harlan Ellison, H.P. Lovecraft and others. After forming a friendship with comic book writer Alan Moore, Gaiman started writing comics, picking up Miracleman after Moore finished his run on the series.

Gaiman wrote three graphic novels with his favorite collaborator and long-time friend Dave McKean, Violent Cases, Signal to Noise, and The Tragical Comedy or Comic Tragedy of Mr. Punch. In between, Gaiman landed a job with D.C. Comics, his first work being the limited series Black Orchid. His award-winning series The Sandman tells the tale of Morpheus, the anthropomorphic personificiation of Dream. The series began in 1989 concluded in 1996: 75 issues of the regular series and a special containing seven short stories have been collected into 11 volumes that remain in print to this day.

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Frances Ann “Fran” Lebowitz is an American author born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey. She is best known for her sardonic social commentary on American life through her New York sensibilities. Some reviewers have called her a modern day Dorothy Parker.

After being expelled from high school and receiving a GED, Lebowitz worked many odd jobs before being hired by Andy Warhol as a columnist for Interview magazine. This was followed by a stint at Mademoiselle. Her first book was a collection of essays titled Metropolitan Life, released in 1978, and followed by Social Studies in 1981. Both books are collected, with a new introductory essay, in The Fran Lebowitz Reader. For more than 20 years she has been famous in part not writing Exterior Signs of Wealth, a long-overdue novel purportedly about rich people who want to be artists, and artists who want to be rich.

Lebowitz also made several appearances on Late Night with David Letterman during the early part of its run. Recently, she has made recurring appearances as Judge Jane Goldberg on the television drama Law and Order. She is also the author or a children’s book, Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas, which has been listed on the Publisher’s Weeks juvenile bestseller list.

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