July 23

In literary history

• 1846Henry David Thoreau spent one night in the Concord jail for refusing to pay his poll tax, and found on release that someone had anonymously paid it while he slept. The experience produced Civil Disobedience, which later inspired Gandhi and King.

Writers born on July 23

• Raymond Chandler (1888)

The Daily Canon for July 23

The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz (1957).