Anniversaries, 14 March
Algernon Blackwood
The British author Algernon Henry Blackwood grew up in a strictly religious home in Kent. He soon abandoned his Christian faith for Buddhism, thereby laying the foundation for a life-long interest in Eastern mysticism, the occult and Theosophy. He spent a year between 1885 and 1886 with the Moravian Brethren in Germany, and after a failed business attempt he became a dairy farmer in Canada in 1890. Two years later he travelled to New York where he worked as a reporter for the New York Sun,...
Photo: Murray/Fairfax Media via Getty Images (1960)
Sample of authors
Marsh, Ngaio
The New Zealand author Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh was born in Merivale, Christchurch. Her father was an immigrant English bank manager and her mother was born in New Zealand, although her family too originally came from England. Ngaio is the Maori word for "reflection on water". A somewhat eccentric and confused man, Marsh's father did not report his daughter's birth to the authorities until 1900,...