Danish author Karen Blixen was born #OTD in 1885. She is also known under her pen names Isak Dinesen, Tania Blixen, Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel.
Blixen is best known for Out of Africa (1937), an account of her life while in Kenya, and for one of her stories, Babette's Feast (1950). She is also noted for her Seven Gothic Tales (1934), Winter's Tales (1942), Last Tales (1957), Anecdotes of Destiny (1958) and Ehrengard (1963).
"Upon the library shelves tall tomes, with their backs to the world, preserved the ponderous knowledge of ages. But from time to time during three centuries, volumes of more frivolous thoughts, of longing and levity and words that rhymed, had happened to leap in amongst them."
Last Tales
~Karen Blixen
Blixen was considered several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but did not receive it because judges were reportedly concerned about showing favoritism to Scandinavian writers.