Today in Bookish and Literary History, December 28

1732 Poor Richard's Almanack by Benjamin Franklin - US

Poor Richard's Almanack (sometimes Almanac) was a yearly almanac published by Benjamin Franklin, who adopted the pseudonym of "Poor Richard" or "Richard Saunders" for this purpose.

1903 Glad of It by Clyde Fitch - US

1923 Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw - Ireland

With Saint Joan, which distills many of the ideas Shaw had been exploring in earlier works on politics, religion, feminism, and creative evolution, he reached the height of his fame as a dramatist. Fascinated by the story of Joan of Arc, but unhappy with the way she had traditionally been depicted, Shaw wanted to remove “the whitewash which disfigures her beyond recognition.” He presents a realistic Joan: proud, intolerant, naïve, foolhardy, and brave—a rebel and a woman for Shaw’s time and our own.

1927 Royal Family by George Kaufman & Moss Hart - US

1961 Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams - US

Williams wrote: “This is a play about love in its purest terms.” It is also Williams’s robust and persuasive plea for endurance and resistance in the face of human suffering.

1969 Last of the Red Hot Lovers by Neil Simon - US

Middle-aged and married overworked and overweight Barney Cashman wants to join the sexual revolution before it's too late and arranges three seductions: the first Elaine Navazio proves to be a foul-mouthed bundle of neuroses; Bobbi Michele is next a 20-ish actress who's too kooky by half; finally comes September and Jeanette Fisher a gloomy depressed housewife …

1973 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Russia

The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.

1984 Ted Hughes is appointed British Poet Laureate by Queen Elizabeth II - UK