Arthur Harden was born in Manchester, England, on October 12, 1865; his father was Albert Tyas Harden and his mother Eliza Macalister. He was educated at a private school in Victoria Park (1873-1877) and at Tettenhall College, Staffordshire (1877-1881). He entered The Owens College in the University of Manchester in 1882, studying under Sir H.E.…

Ronald George Wreyford Norrish was born in Cambridge on November 9th, 1897. His father, a native of Crediton, Devonshire, came to Cambridge as a young Pharmacist to open one of the early shops of Boots, the Chemists, and remained there for the rest of his long life. After spending his early years at the local…

Artturi Ilmari Virtanen was born in Helsinki on the 15th of January, 1895, as the son of Kaarlo Virtanen and Serafiina Isotalo. He was educated at the Classical Lyceum at Viipuri, Finland. After finishing school, he studied chemistry, biology, and physics at the University of Helsinki, where he took his M.Sc. in 1916 and obtained…

Born in Cairo in 1911, Naguib Mahfouz began writing when he was seventeen. His first novel was published in 1939 and ten more were written before the Egyptian Revolution of July 1952, when he stopped writing for several years. One novel was republished in 1953, however, and the appearance of the Cairo Triology, Bayn al…

I was born on the 20th of January, 1873, in a village in North Jutland, the second son of the district veterinary surgeon, H. Jensen, a descendant on both sides of farmers and craftsmen. In 1893, at the age of twenty, I graduated from the Cathedral School of Viborg, and subsequently studied medicine for three…

Jacinto Benavente (1866-1954), the son of a well-known pediatrician, was born in Madrid. He studied law, but when his father died and left him with a comfortable income, he abandoned his studies and travelled widely in France, England, and Russia. On his return to Spain he edited, and contributed to, several newspapers and journals. He…

Derek Harold Richard Barton was born on 8 September 1918, son of William Thomas and Maude Henrietta Barton. In 1938 he entered Imperial College, University of London, where he obtained his B.Sc.Hons. (1st Class) in 1940 and Ph.D. (Organic Chemistry) in 1942. From 1942 to 1944 he was a research chemist on a government project,…

Odd Hassel was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway, I7 May, 1897. His father was Ernst Hassel, a physician who specialized in gynaecology, his mother Mathilde née Klaveness. In 1915 he entered the University of his native town where he studied mathematics and physics with chemistry as his chief subject and graduated as a cand.…

Willard Frank Libby was born in Grand Valley, Colorado, on 17th December, 1908, to Ora Edward Libby and his wife Eva May (née Rivers). He attended grammar and high schools near Sebastopol, California, between 1913 and 1926, moving to the University of California at Berkeley in 1927, where he studied till 1933, taking his B.Sc.…

Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958) belonged to the group of writers who, in the wake of Spain’s loss of her colonies to the United States (1898), staged a literary revival. The leader of this group of modernistas, as they called themselves, Rubén Darío, helped Juan Ramón to publish Almas de violeta (Souls of Violet), 1900, his…