8 Fascinating Facts You Probably Don't Know About Famous Authors (PHOTOS, VIDEO))

Curiosity about great novelists has inspired me to read dozens of author biographies. I got hooked by the odd things I could discover in those books and on the web about the writers I love. I turned my obsession into this slideshow in which I collected trivia, anecdotes, oddities, coincidences, and trivial anecdotes that can be oddly coincidental.

I couldn't believe who lived next to Mark Twain or what I found out about Herman Melville. Go ahead. Click. There's plenty in the slideshow below.

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All for One, and Two for Diversity

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Was Gigi one of "The Three Musketeers?" Nope. But the very different French authors Colette (1873-1954) and Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) did have one thing in common: partial-black ancestry. Dumas' dad, who served as an officer under Napoleon, was the half-black son of a Haitian woman. Dumas' mother was white. The author -- best known for his revenge epic "The Count of Monte Cristo" -- tended to ignore racial issues in his novels. But there was one major exception: his 1843 book "Georges," which tackled prejudice amidst a rousing adventure plot. Colette, whose maternal grandfather was partly black, tended to create characters who were quite white -- like the "Gigi" novella star.

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Was Gigi one of "The Three Musketeers?" Nope. But the very different French authors Colette (1873-1954) and Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) did have one thing in common: partial-black ancestry. Dumas' dad, who served as an officer under Napoleon, was the half-black son of a Haitian woman. Dumas' mother was white. The author -- best known for his revenge epic "The Count of Monte Cristo" -- tended to ignore racial issues in his novels. But there was one major exception: his 1843 book "Georges," which tackled prejudice amidst a rousing adventure plot. Colette, whose maternal grandfather was partly black, tended to create characters who were quite white -- like the "Gigi" novella star.

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Comments

[deborahsnookie]

01:29 PM on 07/14/2011

I really enjoyed this, more please.

[Dave Astor]

03:52 AM on 07/15/2011

Thank you, Deborah!

[kerriberri]

12:26 PM on 07/07/2011

Thanks, Dave--nice slideshow! Melville's case is a sad one; his audience just didn't "get" allegorical fiction. But he HAS been vindicated. Just wished he'd been around to enjoy his book's success.

Thanks again for taking the time to put this together.

[Dave Astor]

12:44 PM on 07/07/2011

You're welcome -- and thanks for the kind comment, kerriberri. Your words about the underappreciated Melville and Moby-Dick summed things up perfectly.

[addisonsteele]

05:49 PM on 07/19/2011

I agree, but I should point out that there is another article in this section that includes Moby Dick with a number of other classics that one (allegedly) need not read.

[Dave Astor]

11:28 AM on 07/27/2011

Thanks, addisonsteele! Moby-Dick does have its slow moments, but all the non-plot stuff adds to the depth of the book -- while stoking the eagerness of readers to return to the doings of Captain Ahab and crew. "The Grapes of Wrath" also has non-plot chapters that eloquently give a macro view of things as the plot chapters give a heartbreaking micro view of things via the Joad family.

[MaybeMilo]

08:48 PM on 07/04/2011

Short & sweet: this piece was a treat.

Thanks!

[Dave Astor]

09:43 PM on 07/04/2011

Thank you, MaybeMilo. I greatly appreciate your comment!

[Dave Astor]

06:27 AM on 07/05/2011

... and the rhyme!

[Ran Ran Sturgis]

10:16 AM on 07/04/2011

Yea, that Author RAYMOND STURGIS should and will soon be one of them.

[Dave Astor]

12:15 PM on 07/04/2011

Well, hopefully not for many years, given that all the authors in this slideshow are deceased!

[Jerry Zezima]

09:40 AM on 07/02/2011

Great literature. Great photos. Great stuff, Dave. By the way, one of my favorite humorists, the late Frank Sullivan, known primarily for his essays in The New Yorker from the 1920s to the 1970s, wrote a piece called "A Garland of Ibids for Van Wyck Brooks." It's the funniest book review and literary spoof I have ever read. It's in a collection called "Frank Sullivan at His Best," which can be bought on Amazon, where I wrote a review of the book. You'll love the piece. It's priceless.

[Dave Astor]

09:51 AM on 07/02/2011

Thanks, Jerry! That's a high recommendation from a great humorist like you -- I need to read that Sullivan piece!

[cew314]

11:34 PM on 07/01/2011

OK HP... do your research. Seriously, he was referred to as Bronson Alcott, not Amos. sigh.

[Dave Astor]

07:48 AM on 07/02/2011

Well, his full name was Amos Bronson Alcott. The research WAS done! But you're right that he has often been referred to without the "Amos." 19th-century downsizing? Thanks for writing, cew314.

[NebDem78]

07:40 PM on 07/01/2011

Great article. I am a very big fan of John Steinbeck, and it was nice to see him included in your article. Steinbeck, wrote about German occupation in his WWII novel The Moon is Down. Also, in Cannery Row he wrote about an incident where Mac and the Boys collect frogs for Doc's lab. In that scene it has been suggested that it is an allusion to D-Day. He was at one time a newspaper man who did report on the brutality of war. In my opinion it was a shame that he was treated the way he was later on in his life. His son was serving in Vietnam when he got condemned for his reporting on the Vietnam war.

[Dave Astor]

07:59 AM on 07/02/2011

Thanks, NebDem78, for your kind compliment and for your thoughtful comments. You're definitely a Steinbeck expert! Yes, Steinbeck was aware of the brutality of war (as the great The Moon is Down book you mentioned indicates and as he could see from his journalistic work). I'm sure his son serving in Vietnam had something to do with his support of that war. Also, Steinbeck knew LBJ and perhaps hesitated to oppose him on that issue. And thanks for mentioning Cannery Row -- a wonderful, often funny book. Its "sequel," Sweet Thursday, is also excellent.

[suntzu]

02:03 PM on 06/30/2011

There must be thousands of little-known facts about famous authors. One that comes to mind is that Alexander Pushkin, who some consider to be the greatest Russian writer, was part African.

Another: one of Britain's greatest novelists, Joseph Conrad ("Heart of Darkness") was native-born Polish, and did not learn English till he was in his twenties. His birth name was Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski

Also: JD Salinger (Catcher in the Rye) who, according to his own daughter in her memoir, reputedly drank his own urine, and sometimes "spoke in tongues."

George Sand, one of France's greatest writers, born name Amandine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin was a feminist and lover of Frederic Chopin, and smoked cigars as part of her masculine persona.

There must be hundreds of things about Ernest Hemingway that would startle the conventional mind, but authors are strange people, sometimes, the greater the stranger.

[Dave Astor]

02:27 PM on 06/30/2011

You're right, suntzu, the slideshow only had a few of the many fascinating facts about authors. Thank you for providing a bunch of other great ones! All of them were very, very interesting. After seeing your Salinger one, I'm glad I had lunch a couple of hours ago!

[JoeyDee2]

01:11 PM on 06/30/2011

Ah, Melville, ah humanity. I believe 1,000 copies of Moby-Dick were sold and the rest burned as obscene. Two years after that he wrote a long short story called Bartleby the Scrivener (1853). A worker in a Wall Street office suddenly refuses to obey his boss. In the mid-19th century Melville brilliantly anticipates existentialism, abnormal psychology, and the soulless existence of office life.

Highly recommended and after that, check out two film versions on Netflix (the newer a modern interpretation).

[Dave Astor]

01:39 PM on 06/30/2011

I LOVE the Bartleby story. Melville really WAS ahead of his time, which is one reason why he didn't have more success during his life. Thanks for your eloquent comment, JoeyDee2!

[Mark Teich]

06:01 PM on 06/30/2011

Loved Bartleby, but loved Melville's "Benito Cereno" more -- one of the most amazing stories I've ever read. Chilling, shocking, and anticipates the racial movements of the 1960's 100 years ahead of its time. Read it, you'll never forget it. Its riveting, unwavering intensity is very different than the Dickensian tragicomic tone of Bartleby, and the ending is one of the best surprises I've ever seen in a short story -- up there with the ending of "The Lottery."

And "Moby Dick" is towering. What a shame that he and Van Gogh died as failures, never realizing that they would be held up one day as artist heroes for the ages. If you don't believe that dead folks get to look down at all of eternity from Heaven, these two really got a raw deal. lMark Teich

[Demitasse]

12:13 PM on 06/30/2011

Mark Twain, great author but lousy businessman filed bankruptcy. He repaid all his debts from the $$$ he earned on the lecture circuit.

Though not on your list, William Faulkner also wrote screenplays. He adapted Hemingway's "To Have And To Have Not" & Raymond Chandler's, "The Big Sleep." He also did the screenplay for the Jean Renoir film, "The Southerner."

Now if you ever find something about Thomas Pynchon, be sure to share.

[Dave Astor]

12:33 PM on 06/30/2011

Thanks, Demitasse, for the additional "fascinating facts"! You're right, Twain wasn't a good businessman; his large investment in a printing press was a disaster. As you say, earnings from the lecture circuit saved him. Sir Walter Scott also had major money troubles when a publishing business he invested in hit the skids, and he repaid all or most of his debt by writing himself into exhaustion during his later years. Good point about Faulkner! And I laughed at your comment's funny final line about the reclusive Pynchon!

[RedDogBear]

01:15 PM on 06/30/2011

Faulkner didn't do the big sleep on his own. There were other writers as well I think including Chandler himself

[Dave Astor]

01:48 PM on 06/30/2011

I think other writers may have been involved with John Steinbeck's screenplays, too. Thanks, RedDogBear!

[Demitasse]

02:18 PM on 06/30/2011

You're right. The other writers listed are Leigh Brackett & Jules Furthman. Leigh Brackett is a well known sci-fi writer; she also worked on a # of big screenplays including The Empire Strikes Back. If I'm not mistaken, Brackett did the bulk of the writing on The Big Sleep.

[Suzette Standring]

11:00 AM on 06/30/2011

This was so entertaining! I hope it becomes a regular feature. These exquisite writers need to live on in the public consciousness, and these little "E" type tidbits have appeal! I had visited the Alcott home, which is now a museum and the Alcott family was very impressive. But I didn't know the daughter died two hours after her father.

[Dave Astor]

12:40 PM on 06/30/2011

I appreciate the comment, Suzette! I've never visited the Alcott home, but would like to. If I'm remembering right, I think Nathaniel Hawthorne also lived in that home at one point.

[Maggie Van Ostrand]

10:23 AM on 06/30/2011

Melville must've been the Van Gogh of literature. I hated learning that Melville died without knowing that people came to revere Moby Dick, much as Van Gogh died without having sold a painting, except to his brother.

So then it stands to reason that my author friends with poor sales can look forward to huge sales after they're dead.

[JoeGdr]

10:36 AM on 06/30/2011

I immedeately thought of Van Goh as well. I also noticed how much Melville looked a lot like Ryan Reynolds. I wonder if his looks at least brought him some attention from the ladies while he was down and out.

[Dave Astor]

11:30 AM on 06/30/2011

Thanks, JoeGdr! There is definitely a Van Gogh comparison. Melville did have good sales for his first book, Typee, but then sales went downhill for his later, more complex, greater books. And, yes, the ancestor of musician Moby was a handsome guy!

[blogattelle]

10:47 AM on 06/30/2011

very well said, madam

[Dave Astor]

11:36 AM on 06/30/2011

"very well said, madam" -- I agree! Thanks, blogattelle.

[rjhuntington]

10:22 AM on 06/30/2011

"...Colette...and...Dumas...[had]...partial-black ancestry"

Big deal, so does everyone else!

[Dave Astor]

11:38 AM on 06/30/2011

Point taken, rjhuntington. A lot of people do have diverse ancestry. But I included that in the slideshow because I didn't think Colette's and Dumas' ancestry was well known. Thanks for your comment!

[suntzu]

02:07 PM on 06/30/2011

Well, in fact, it is reasonably well established that human beings evolved out of Africa, so in that sense, yes, we are all Africans. Of course your average Southern evangelist Christian may not agree with this anthropological view, and would say that God made whites white and blacks black, no two ways about it.

[Dave Astor]

02:29 PM on 06/30/2011

Excellent comment, suntzu! Thanks.

[concertina8]

10:01 AM on 06/30/2011

7 things I didn't know about famous authors. 1 thing I knew.

[Dave Astor]

11:39 AM on 06/30/2011

Thanks, concertina8! I'm glad you found out some things you didn't know.