11 th September

1783 Benjamin Franklin wrote about the Treaty of Paris.

1862 O - Henry was born.

1885 D. H. Lawrence was born.

William Sydney Porter was born on this day in 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Under his pen name—O. Henry—this American writer narrated unforgettable stories and was a master manipulator of trick endings and surprising twists. He wrote equally unforgettable short stories about cowboys and about Latin America. But his most famous setting was the city that he called “Baghdad on the subway”—New York City.

Benjamin Franklin was seventy-seven years old when—with John Adams and John Jay—he negotiated a peace settlement with Great Britain in Paris, France. On this date in 1783, shortly after the Treaty of Paris was signed, Franklin wrote to a friend that, “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” He didn’t waste words. After all, as Franklin observed, time is money.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover—for those of you who might be unfamiliar with the title—is a classic romantic tale that was banned for decades due to its graphic content. Today is its author’s birthday. D. H. Lawrence, who also wrote Women in Love, was born on this day in 1885. Concentrating his energies on the conflicts between male and female perceptions of love and sex, Lawrence went against the grain of social acceptability. Yet a century after his birth, his work is considered to be classic, not pornographic.