William Cuthbert Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, the first of four sons of Murry Cuthbert Faulkner (1870–1932) and Maud Butler (1871–1960).  His family was upper middle-class, but "not quite of the old feudal cotton aristocracy".  After Maud rejected Murry's plan to become a rancher in Texas, the family moved to Oxford, Mississippi in 1902, where Faulkner's father established a livery stable and hardware store before becoming the University of Mississippi's business manager.  Except for short periods elsewhere, Faulkner lived in Oxford for the rest of his life.  When he was 17, Faulkner met Phil Stone, who became an important early influence on his writing. Stone was four years his senior and came from one of Oxford's older families; he was passionate about literature and had bachelor's degrees from Yale and the University of Mississippi.  Stone mentored the young Faulkner, introducing him to the works of writers like James Joyce, who influenced Faulkner's own writing.  In his early 20s, Faulkner gave poems and short stories he had written to Stone in hopes of their being published.  Stone sent these to publishers, but they were uniformly rejected.  In 1918, Faulkner's surname changed from "Falkner" to "Faulkner".  According to one story, a careless typesetter made an error.  When the misprint appeared on the title page of his first book, Faulkner was asked whether he wanted the change.  He supposedly replied, "Either way suits me."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Faulkner   

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) is one of the most compelling poets of the 19th century.  Baudelaire is distinctive in French literature also in that his skills as a prose writer virtually equal his ability as a poet.  His body of work includes a novella, influential translations of the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, highly perceptive criticism of contemporary art, provocative journal entries, and critical essays on a variety of subjects.  Baudelaire’s work has had a tremendous influence on modernism, and his relatively slim production of poetry in particular has had a significant impact on later poets.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-baudelaire   

16 Traditional Foods of New Zealand's Māori People by ADRIENNE KATZ KENNEDY/JAN. 7, 2023  Today, those who identify as Māori make up around 17% of New Zealand's population, notes BBC Travel.  Māori kai, or food, primarily consists of plants, fish, and birds indigenous to the island, alongside some traditions and seeds brought with them from Eastern Polynesia.  Māori cuisine, known as kai, distinguishes itself with its fundamental pillars, including kai whanau, food from the land, and kai moana, meaning food from the sea.  It is this acknowledgment of the environment as a resource that must be protected is built into the very language of the Māori people.  Find recipes and pictures at https://www.tastingtable.com/1159980/traditional-foods-of-new-zealands-maori-people   Thank you, Muse reader!   

On January 21, 1789, Boston publisher Isaiah Thomas and Company published what is generally considered to be the first American novel:  24-year-old William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy:  or, The Triumph of Nature, which sold (albeit badly) for the price of 9 shillings.  It is the classic story of boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy and girl find out they’re siblings on their wedding day, girl promptly dies of consumption, boy eventually shoots himself while clutching a copy of The Sorrows of Young Werther to his breast.  You know the tale.  “The Power of Sympathy is not, as might be expected, a feeble echo or slavish imitation of a single British novel; it reflects a number of literary influences,” wrote William S. Kable in a 1969 introduction to the text.  Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, with which it shares its epistolary form, is the most obvious influence, but Kable also detects the impact of Laurence Sterne and Goethe, along with “allusions to La Rochefoucault and St. Evremond; to Swift, Addison, Gay, Shakespeare, and Lord Chesterfield; to Noah Webster, Joel Barlow, and Timothy Dwight.”  Literary Hub, January 15, 2023   

Martin Luther King Jr. Day (officially Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., and sometimes referred to as MLK Day) is a federal holiday in the United States marking the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.  It is observed on the third Monday of January each year.  Born in 1929, King's actual birthday is January 15 (which in 1929 fell on a Tuesday).  The holiday is similar to holidays set under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act.  The earliest Monday for this holiday is January 15 and the latest is January 21.  King was the chief spokesperson for nonviolent activism in the Civil Rights Movement, which protested racial discrimination in federal and state law.  The campaign for a federal holiday in King's honor began soon after his assassination in 1968.  President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983, and it was first observed three years later on January 20, 1986.  At first, some states resisted observing the holiday as such, giving it alternative names or combining it with other holidays.  It was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time in 2000.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr._Day   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2621  January 16, 2023