Sunday Stamps - January 26, 2025
Sunday Stamps this week asks us for stamps with Authors, Poets, Composers. My stamps are all from the US, however they feature men (sorry to the women) from Poland and Italy as well as the US.
USA 1960
Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941) was a Polish pianist, composer, and statesman. His popularity on stage gave him access to the media and politicians worldwide. This gave him an edge as a spokesman for Polish independence.
USA 1984
Carter G. Woodson, the son of former slaves, was a journalist and author. His bio is worth a read. A publication he started in 1916 not only survived the Depression and two world wars, it's still being published! It it weren't this stamp I would never have know about him.
USA 1965
Dante Alighieri (c1265-1321), Italian poet, writer, and philosopher, is best known for The Divine Comedy, a three part narrative poem completed in 1321. I have an 1880s copy of the first part, Inferno, illustrated by Gustav Doré. Quite the illustrations!
I love the Alighieri's stamp!!! And how awesome your grandmother went to school with Steinbeck!
ReplyDeleteThe personal connections are amazing. Great stamps and stories today.
ReplyDeleteI like the Dante stamp too!
ReplyDeleteA interesting piece of family history, what a great connection. I've avoided Steinbeck thinking that there might be unrelenting gloom.
ReplyDeleteI'm envious of you Dante book, I have a book of Doré Bible illustrations but he would be in his element drawing the Inferno. In his series of London illustrations he manged to make it look like the apocalypse.
How cool to have that connection to Steinbeck. Like you, I never could get into his writing. Ignacy Jan Paderewski has such an interesting face.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't surprise me that you didn't have any stamps of famous women. I liked the family link with John Steinbeck. I, too, had never heard of Carter Woodson. I think the closest my family got to famous people is that one of my father's sisters went to high school with a comedian Sam Levenson. It's probably a forgotten name today but back in the day, he had his own shows on TV, appeared a number of times on the Tonight Show when Johnny Carson hosted it (again dating myself) and also wrote a number of humor books.
ReplyDeleteThey still teach Of Mice and Men. I have been there when it's taught, so I've read the whole thing now. Just not in order and at the same time.
ReplyDelete