René Goscinny was a French comic editor and writer, who created the Astérix comic book series with illustrator Albert Uderzo. He worked on the comic series Lucky Luke with Morris and Iznogoud with Jean Tabary, he wrote a series of children's books known as "Le Petit Nicolas". Goscinny was born in Paris to a family of Jewish immigrants from Poland, his parents were Stanisław Simkha Gościnny, a chemical engineer from Warsaw and Anna Bereśniak-Gościnna from Chodorków, a small village near Zhytomyr in the Second Polish Republic. Goscinny's grandfather, Abraham Lazare Berezniak, founded a printing company. Claude, René's older brother, was born six years earlier, on 10 December 1920. Stanisław and Anna had met in Paris and married in 1919; the Gościnnys moved to Buenos Aires, two years after René's birth, because of a chemical engineer post which Stanisław had obtained there. René studied in the French schools there, he had a habit of being the "class clown" to compensate for a natural shyness. He started drawing early on, inspired by the illustrated stories which he enjoyed reading.

In December 1943, the year after he graduated from school, Goscinny's father died of a cerebral hemorrhage, forcing him to find a job. The next year, he got his first job, as an assistant accountant in a tire recovery factory; when he was laid off the following year, he became a junior illustrator in an advertising agency. Goscinny, along with his mother, left Argentina and went to New York in 1945, to join her brother Boris. To avoid service in the United States Armed Forces, he travelled to France to join the French Army in 1946, he served in the 141st Alpine Infantry Battalion. Promoted to senior corporal, he became the appointed artist of the regiment and drew illustrations and posters for the army; the following year, Goscinny worked on an illustrated version of the Balzac short story The Girl with the Golden Eyes. In April of that year he returned to New York. On arrival he went through the most difficult period of his life. For a while, he was jobless, alone and in poverty. By 1948, though, he recovered and started working in a small studio where he became friends with future MAD Magazine contributors Will Elder, Jack Davis and Harvey Kurtzman.

Goscinny became art director at Kunen Publishers where he wrote four books for children. Around this time he met two Belgian comic artists, Joseph Gillain, better known as Jijé, Maurice de Bevere known as Morris, the cartoonist and author of the series Lucky Luke. Georges Troisfontaines, chief of the World Press agency, convinced Goscinny to return to Paris and work for his agency as the head of the Paris office in 1951. There he met Albert Uderzo, they started out with some work for Bonnes Soirées, a women's magazine for which Goscinny wrote Sylvie. Goscinny and Uderzo launched the series Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior in the magazine La Libre Junior. In 1955, together with Uderzo, Jean-Michel Charlier, Jean Hébrad, founded the syndicate Edipress/Edifrance; the syndicate launched publications like Clairon for the factory union and Pistolin for a chocolate company. Goscinny and Uderzo cooperated on the series Bill Blanchart in Jeannot, Pistolet in Pistolin and Benjamin et Benjamine in the magazine of the same name.

Under the pseudonym Agostini, Goscinny wrote Le Petit Nicolas for Jean-Jacques Sempé in Le Moustique and Sud-Ouest and Pilote magazines. In 1956, Goscinny began a collaboration with Tintin magazine, he wrote some short stories for Jo Angenot and Albert Weinberg, worked on Signor Spaghetti with Dino Attanasio, Monsieur Tric with Bob de Moor, Prudence Petitpas with Maurice Maréchal, Globul le Martien and Alphonse with Tibet, Strapontin with Berck and Modeste et Pompon with André Franquin. An early creation with Uderzo, Oumpah-pah, was adapted for serial publication in Tintin from 1958-1962. In addition, Goscinny appeared in the magazines Vaillant. In 1959, the Édifrance/Édipresse syndicate started the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote. Goscinny became one of the most productive writers for the magazine. In the magazine's first issue, he launched Astérix, with Uderzo; the series remains popular worldwide. Goscinny restarted the series Le Petit Nicolas and Jehan Pistolet, now called Jehan Soupolet.

Goscinny began Jacquot le Mousse and Tromblon et Bottaclou with Godard. The magazine was bought by Georges Dargaud in 1960, Goscinny became editor-in-chief, he began new series like Les Divagations de Monsieur Sait-Tout, La Potachologie Illustrée, Les Dingodossiers and La Forêt de Chênebeau. With Tabary, he launched Calife Haroun El Poussah in Record, a series, continued in Pilote as Iznogoud. With Raymond Macherot he created Pantoufle for Spirou. Goscinny married Gilberte Pollaro-Millo in 1967. In 1968 their daughter Anne Goscinny, who became an author, was born. Goscinny died at 51, in Paris of cardiac arrest on 5 November 1977, during a routine stress test at his doctor's office, he was buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Nice. In accordance with his will, most of his money was transferred to the chief rabbinate of France. After Goscinny's death, Uderzo began to write Asterix himself and continued the series, although at a much slower

Winifred Carter was an English author and playwright, active from the 1920s–40s. Carter was the mother of the mystery and detective novel author Emery Bonett and the wife of novelist John L. Carter and actress and playwright Edith Carter. Winifred Carter's most successful work was her 1945 novel Princess Fitz, made into a 1947 film Mrs. Fitzherbert, it is a romance set in 1783, which chronicles the convoluted, yet doomed, relationship between a prince regent and a Catholic widow. Ashes of Eden 1915/— Lass o’ Laughter... The Novel of the Play by Edith Carter and Nan Marriott-Watson 1922/1922 Sylvia Revolts 1922/— Miss Mischief 1922/— Ashes of Eden 1922/— Celia Bound 1923/— A Lovable Imp 1925/— Marriage by Mistake 1925/— The Strange Case of Lorna Tallis 1925/— Rosemary the Rebel 1926/— Jealous Gwen 1927/— Rose-the Dancer 1928/1929 The Dead Return 1929/— Elizabeth Plays With Fire 1929/— The Pretty Governess 1929/— A Lost Paradise 1929/— Just a Butterfly 1929/— A Rejected Girl 1930/— The Marriage Bargain!

1930/— Whose Sin? 1930/— His Difficult Daughter 1930/— The Money Maid 1931/— Why Didn’t She Tell Him? 1931/— The Dashing Rebel 1932/— My Year of Love 1932/— Sometime-Never 1932/— Out of the Shadows 1933/— She Thought Herself Loved 1933/— Rich Girl Rival 1936/— Golden Bait 1937/— Probationer Pat 1937/— Judy-Be Careful! 1939/— The Love Call 1939/— The Wrong Prince Charming 1939/— This Love Business 1941/— Sarah. A Novel 1943/— Princess Fitz 1945/— In Scarlet Dress 1946/— Tudor Triangle 1947/— Enchanted Cup 1948/— Dr. Johnson’s Dear Mistress 1949/1950 Troubadour of Love 1950/— Son of Arlotte 1951/— A Man’s Enemies – Richmond Theatre, London High Fever – Arts Theatre and repertory Sarah-Duchess of Marlborough – Adelphi Theatre, London 1932 Marriage Harvest – Q Theatre, London 1932 Moloch. A play in Three Acts aka Escape From Glory – Players' and Strand Theatres and Bard Theater, US. A Play in Three Acts – Q Theatre and Townley Street Sunday School by the CS Players January 1945. A Play in Three Acts – Q Theatre and repertory.

A Comedy in One Act for Eleven Women – published 1936 Doctor Johnson’s Mrs. Thrale – Adelphi, Strand and Kingsway Theatres, London.

Benjamin Mayfield was a cowboy and a miner who killed the outlaw John Mason. Benjamin Mayfield, the second son of American pioneer farmer William Mayfield and his first wife, was born in Illinois in 1831, his father moved the family to Texas in 1837, where he and his older brother John grew up in Washington County and his brother Thomas Jefferson Mayfield was born in 1843. There his mother died sometime before his father was married to his second wife Mary Ann Curd on March 16, 1848; when Benjamin was 18, in 1849 his father moved the family again to California, with a U. S. Army wagon train but were sent back to avoid the danger to civilians from the Lipan Apache on the trail and they took a six-month trip by ship from Galveston around Cape Horn to reach California. After they landed at San Francisco, William took his family to the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley Mariposa County, now Tulare County to a place at the confluence of Sycamore Creek with the Kings River. There Ben and his older brother John helped his father put in crops and began mining.

Mary Mayfield died in December 1850, in 1851, William Mayfield left eight-year-old Thomas to be raised by the Choinumni, the friendly Yokut tribe living across the river from his cabin, while he and his two older sons left to engage in mining and raising cattle for the next 10 years. With his father and brother Benjamin ran cattle and horses through most of the San Joaquin Valley, captured wild horses on the west side of that valley and fought Monache on the east side, his father becoming well known throughout the valley. William Mayfield died on April 9, 1862, leading Tulare County militia in the Battle of Mayfield Canyon early in the Owens Valley Indian War. After his death Benjamin became a miner in the Lytle Creek mines. In April 1866, the outlaw John Mason intercepted and joined Benjamin Mayfield on the ride to Fort Tejon from his mine in Lytle Creek. Benjamin knew of him; however Mason was protected by the large number of pro secessionists in that part of the state, that made collecting the bounty dangerous.

Mason tried to recruit him into his gang. When Ben refused, Mason threatened to kill him. Mason had threatened to take the horse of another man W. H. Overton and kill him; that night while the three were in the same house, none went to sleep but in the early morning Mason lay down on his bed under a blanket, but was awake. Overton stepped out to look after his horse Mason tried to shoot Mayfield from his bed. Mason's pistol tangled in his blanket. Fearing reprisal from the gang or his secessionist friends and Overton carried Mason out on his bed and buried them in an unmarked grave, but his body was found. Mason's death was announced in the Stockton Daily Independent, April 21, 1866: Mason, the Desprado, Killed – Visalia, April 20 – Mason, of the distinguished firm of Mason & Henry, was killed a few days since in Tejon cannon, by some citizens. There appears to be but little doubt, it seems there were several of his clan together and they all got off except the chief. Mayfield and Overton for their pains were not rewarded but were accused of murder by friends of Mason, tried for murder in Los Angeles County.

The Sacramento Daily Union, June 23, 1866, quotes The Wilmington Journal on the verdict: On the evening of June 8, the jury in the case of Benjamin Ben Mayfeild, who murdered the highwayman John Mason, returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. The next day he was sentenced to be hung on August 1; the counsel of the murderer Intend to carry the case to a higher Court if possible. Mayfield's appeal resulted in a second trial in September 15, 1866; the jury again found the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree and the counsel for the defense asked for a new trial, refused by Judge de la Guerra. The prisoner was sentenced to be hanged in August 1867. On application to the Supreme Court a stay of proceedings was granted. Exonerated in 1869, Benjamin died an embittered man sometime in the 1870s