The son of Henry V and Catherine of Valois, Henry was born Dec. 6, 1421, and came to the throne of England and then of France on his father's death, Sept. 1, 1422. John, duke of Bedford, was appointed protector on Dec. 5. Henry was crowned Nov.
Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois, July 21, 1899, the son of a doctor. He became a reporter in Kansas City after leaving school and volunteered on ambulance duty in Italy in World War I, where he was wounded and won the Croce de Guerra. He became a reporter in Toronto for The Star after the war and in 1921 moved to Paris among literary Americans such as Ezra Pound.
Nothing is known about the life of Anne Hecht, except that she appears well educated and not to have married, perhaps for reasons she may allude to in her verse advice, particularly in its breath-taking last line, which speaks to women's daily life in 18th-century North America.
Thomas Hardy, born in 1840 near Dorchester, took up architectural work, both with a local firm and in London, before turning to writing and publishing novels, beginning with Desperate Remedies in 1871 and ending in Jude the Obscure in 1895.