In 1937, the prototype for a million shitty fantasy stories was first published. You will probably never be this good — if you are, good luck trying to differentiate yourself in a saturated marketplace.

Apologies to my Australian readers. It was September 21 when I started writing this.

In 1899, poet Hart Crane began his lifelong struggle with being the second-most famous writer born on July 21, 1899. He eventually committed suicide in characteristically cryptic fashion, and still his nemesis found a way to overshadow him.

In 1899, friend of the bottle and enemy of the bull Ernest Hemingway was born. His parents put him in a dress for his first baby pictures, and he spent the rest of his life slaughtering wild animals, punching drunks, volunteering for foreign wars and eliminating faggy adjectives from his prose to make up for it. He later won the Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize for Literature for a short story (which he padded out to over a hundred pages) about a guy who caught a fish — but back then they were practically giving them away. He put the final full stop through his brain in 1961.

In 1933, novelist and literary critic John Gardner was born. As well as writing the best damn story about Grendel for more than a thousand years, he is most famous for his book On Moral Fiction, in which he argued that all fiction should strive to explore universal human values. (Bet you’re glad he’s not in charge of the pens and paper.)

In 1969, the Golden Age of science fiction reached its zenith when Edwin ‘Buzzkill’ Aldrin stepped onto the surface of the Moon and declared it “magnificent desolation”, moments after Neil Armstrong flubbed his famous “One small step for (a) man” line. The genre began a rapid decline when people realised that the long promised little green men were just as fictional as the “magnificent”.

In 2007, the much ballyhooed “Fantasy Boom” ended with a whimper as children (and adults with the critical faculties of children) rushed out to purchase the seventh and final Harry Potter novel at a ridiculous discount from chain bookstores trying to compete with supermarkets, skipped to the ending, wondered for a moment what they were going to read now, then went back to watching television.

In 1811, author William Makepeace Thackeray began his sacred mission to satirise the upper-class twits of English Society. The upper-class twits responded with their long-proven tactic to silence critics, blunting his satire with large quantities of cash.

In 1817, novelist Jane Austen stopped writing, in the most disagreeable fashion.

In 1899, novelist Horatio Alger Jr. finally gave up writing for dimes.

In 1925, the world’s biggest party pooper Adolf Hitler publishes the first volume of his whiny me-me-me moanfest Mein Kampf. Dictated while Hitler was in prison, the original manuscript contained several chapters which explained how he came to loathe large, hairy gypsies, and love men in leather uniforms.

In 1937, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson began the long, exhausting process of drinking, smoking and injecting himself to death.

In 1938, renowned biblical scholar Paul Verhoeven was born. His blockbuster movies Robocop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct and Showgirls have built an elegant literary foundation for his forthcoming book Jesus The Man, a project he’s apparently been working on for a decade. (I wish I was kidding.)

In 2001, Bush critic and James Bond fanfic author James Hatfield quit pretending that he wasn’t a convicted felon. (His life story is like an abridged version of A Confederacy of Dunces.)

In 1859, Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities was published. You will never be this good.

In 1899, style guru E. B. White was born. He was the White in Strunk & White. If you had to click on that link to find out what Strunk & White means, stop writing.

In 1930, literary critic Harold Bloom was born, and immediately published a scathing review of the obstetrician’s cold hands.

In 1955, (according to Wikipedia), the phrase In God We Trust was added to US currency, replacing the Latin motto E Pluribus Unum (“out of many, one”), which was subsequently adopted as a motto by slush readers.

In 1960, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was published. You will never be this good (and even Harper Lee knew it).

In 1971, Astounding Science Fiction editor John W. Campbell finally succumbed to the slushpile. Campbell was hailed as a leading proponent of the genre, and an intolerable crackpot, often by the same people.

In 1983, crime writer Ross McDonald stopped writing, the hard-boiled way.

1860: The first dime novel was published to a public sick to death of paying retail for hardcovers. Most of the early dime novels were reprints of stories serialised in newspapers, so the authors wouldn’t have even seen a dime from them.

1870: Charles Dickens was crushed to death by the weight of his immense popularity, and the great expectations.

Born on this day:

• Charles Webb, author of The Graduate, who didn’t even get a kiss before he got fscked over the film rights. There are rumours that a sequel will be published this month, but if the lack of news is any indication …
• Joe Haldeman, statue-collecting SF writer, one of the first to get paid for writing Star Trek fan fiction.
• Patricia Cornwell, uber-successful crime fiction author and the current holder of the Worst Jack The Ripper Theory award. (Seriously, Portrait of a Killer is so bad it almost works as a parody of Ripper theories. It makes Alan Moore’s From Hell seem plausible.)
• Aaron Sorkin, playwright and screenwriter, who for the first few years of this century allowed us to entertain the fantasy of an intelligent, moral President. Like Brian de Palma, his best work is on cocaine.

1970: E.M. Forster gave his publisher the go-ahead to release his posthumous novel, Maurice. Forster was a closet homosexual, but people really should have figured it out after the publication of Howard’s End and A Passage to India.

1980: Henry Miller finally gave up waiting for American culture to catch up with him. When several of his novels were banned in the US for decades, Miller pioneered the ’smuggling’ distribution model. George Orwell said of him: “he is a completely negative, unconstructive, amoral writer”. Coming from George, that’s a compliment.