Irving Fiske

Irving L. Fiske was an American playwright, writer, and public speaker. He worked for the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration during the 1930s, corresponded with George Bernard Shaw, wrote an article now considered a classic, Bernard Shaws Debt to William Blake, and translated Shakespeares Hamlet into Modern English. He and his wife Barbara Fiske Calhoun cofounded the artists retreat and hippie commune Quarry Hill Creative Center, on the Fiske family property, in Rochester, Vermont.

Fiske was born in Brooklyn, New York, to an immigrant Jewish family from Georgia, Russia, and Romania. He graduated from Cornell University in 1928. He had two brothers, Milton and Robert, and a sister, Miriam. Milton was a Bohemian, like Irving, and a classical composer, like his hero, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with whom he shared a birthday.

Source: Wikipedia