On this day in literature
December 16
In literary history
- 1965W. Somerset Maugham died in Nice at ninety-one. His secretary moved the body from the hospital to his villa before informing anyone, to sidestep French law requiring an autopsy for hospital deaths. The last act was a piece of clever misdirection.
Writers born on December 16
- Jane Austen (1775),
- Philip K. Dick (1928)