Authors, Poets & Novelists Posters & Prints, “Th...-”
for literature, language arts and social studies classrooms and home schoolers.

William Makepeace Thackeray
b. 7-18-1811; Calcutta, India
d. 12-24-1863; London

William Makepeace Thackeray was a popular 19th century author who satirized English society, most remembered for his work “Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero”. (see book cover print)

William Makepeace Thackeray quotes ~
• “Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.”
• “Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society.”
• “Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.”

• Becky Sharp and Lord Steyne, illustration by Howard Pyle

Celia Leighton Thaxter
b. 6-29-1835; Portsmouth, NH
d. 8-25-1894; Appledore Is.

Celia Thaxter, poet and author of short stories, grew up on the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine, where her father was a lighthouse keeper.

Celia Thaxter quotes ~
• “The sunrise never failed us yet.”
• “No sadder sound salutes you than the clear, wild laughter of the loon.”
• “There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.”
• “One golden day redeems a weary year.”

• Sandpiper: The Life and Letters of Celia Thaxter

Theocritus
fl. 3rd century BC

Theocritus, the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, may have drawn on the familiar folk traditions of shepherds. Later poets like Virgil, Edmund Spenser, Katherine Philips (AKA “Orinda”), and William Wordsworth also employed pastoral settings.

FYI - The word ‘bucolic’ is from the Greek boukolikos and refers to bous = head of cattle + kolos = to cultivate.

Theocritus quotes ~
• “Beauty is a delightful prejudice.”
• “Grasshopper to grasshopper, ant to ant is dear,
Hawks love hawks, but I the muse and song.”
• “Heaven's eternal wisdom has decreed that man of man should ever stand in need.”
• “Verily, great grace may go with a little gift; and precious are all things that come from a friend.”

• Idylls

Dylan Thomas
b. 10-27-1914; Wales
d. 11-9-1953; NYC

Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas wrote exclusively in English and often performed himself. His public readings, particularly in America, won him great acclaim; his sonorous voice with a subtle Welsh lilt became almost as famous as his works.

His best-known works include the “play for voices” Under Milk Wood and the celebrated villanelle for his dying father, “Do not go gentle into that good night”.

Thomas was notorious for his abuse of alcohol.

Dylan Thomas quotes ~
• “An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do.”
• “He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.”
• “My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.”
• “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
• “Somebody's boring me. I think it's me.”
• “These poems, with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God, and I'd be a damn' fool if they weren't.”
• “A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.”

Dorothy Thompson
b. 7-9-1893; Lancaster, NY
d. 1961; Portugal

Dorothy Thompson was a journalist who focused her attention on Central Europe during the time Hitler was rising in power. The report and book resulting from her interview with Hitler was considered offensive by the Germans and she was expelled from Germany.

Thompson was considered on equal influence with Eleanor Roosevelt. She was also married to author Sinclair Lewis from 1928 to 1940/42.

Dorothy Thompson quotes ~
• “Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict - alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence.”
• “The most destructive element in the human mind is fear. Fear creates aggressiveness.”
• "As far as I can see, I was really put out of Germany for the crime of blasphemy. My offense was to think that Hitler was just an ordinary man, after all. That is a crime in the reigning cult in Germany, which says Mr. Hitler is a Messiah sent by God to save the German people — an old Jewish idea. To question this mystic mission is so heinous that, if you are a German, you can be sent to jail. I, fortunately, am an American, so I was merely sent to Paris. Worse things can happen." (1934)

• World War II posters
• Historic Headlines posters
• American Cassandra: The Life of Dorothy Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson
b. 7-18-1937; Louisville, KY
d. 2-20-2005; Woody Creek, CO (suicide)

Journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, best known for his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), is credited with creating “Gonzo” reporting, a style where the reporter is an integral part of the action.

Hunter S. Thompson quotes ~
• “A word to the wise is infuriating.”
• “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
• "Call on God, but row away from the rocks."
• “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
• “The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”
• “Politics is the art of controlling your environment."
• “If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.”
• “America... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.”

Henry David Thoreau
b. 7-12-1817; Concord, MA
d. 5-6-1862, Concord, MA

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” Walden, Henry David Thoreau

• Henry David Thoreau posters
• more Writers Who Changed the World posters

Hester Thrale
b. 1-16-1741; Wales
d. 5-2-1821; Bristol

Hester Thrale (née Sulusbury, second marriage Piozzi), a patroness of the arts with her first husband Henry, were friends and supporters of Dr. Samuel Johnson. Mrs. Thrale was a writer whose diaries and correspondence with Johnson offers a balance to Boswell's Life of Johnson. She was also friends, for a time, with author Frances “Fanny” Burney.

• The Lives of the Muses- Nine Women and the Artists They Inspired

James Thurber
b. 12-8-1894; Columbus, Ohio
d. 11-2-1961; New York

Author and cartoonist James Thurber is best remembered for his wit and humor displayed in such works as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a series of fables, and several fairy-tales that are listed under children's literature.

James Thurber quotes ~
• “Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest earliest natural resources, which must be preserved at all cost.”
• “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”
• “Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.”
• “With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.”

• My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber

The Collected Writings of Wallace Thurman: A Harlem Renaissance Reader (no commercially available poster)

Wallace Thurman
b. 8-16-1902; Salt Lake City, UT
d. 12-22-1934; NYC

Wallace Thurman was a writer during during the Harlem Renaissance whose best known work is the novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life, which explores discrimination among black people based on skin color.