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Sherlock Holmes is without a doubt literature's most famous and well-loved detective. His deductive reasoning skills and unique personality have garnered a following that has kept the novels and short stories in continuous print since their publication. The original four novels and fifty-six short stories have spawned numerous adaptations including television shows, movies, radio programs, video games, and cartoons. In fact, Guinness World Records lists Sherlock Holmes as the most portrayed character in history. Since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective entered into the public domain, even more derivative works featuring Holmes and other characters from his world have seen publication. It's safe to assume that nearly everyone has at least a cursory familiarity with Sherlock Holmes, who continues to captivate and entertain over one hundred years after his first appearance. But how was Holmes received by 19th century readers?
Grown organically from the Gothic genre, horror fiction has terrified and captivated readers since its beginnings in the late nineteenth century. It has its roots in novels like The Mysteries of Udolpho, which was itself famously referenced in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. Often dismissed as “penny dreadful”, the horror genre has grown to encompass books, television, and film in the modern age and is one of the most popular genres in each of those mediums. Authors like Anne Rice and Stephen King would not be so popular today without early horror writers paving the way before them. Here are five important early horror writers.
English writer Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh, better known as Evelyn Waugh was an expert satirist as well as an accomplished novelist, short story writer, biographer, and travel writer. He was born in London in 1903 though he preferred the country lifestyle and was a schoolteacher before he moved on to writing full time. He often worked as a special corespondent reporting on conflicts, and he served in World War II. Known for his ability to transform the tragedies of life and his brutal war experiences, his work is often satirical, humorous, and deeply moving. After his conversion to Catholicism, his work took on more religions and Catholic subjects and themes. Though his reputation was that of being self-important, mean tempered, and misanthropic, he was also said to exhibit great kindness among his wide circle of friends.
“The book was better than the movie,” has always struck me as a strange phrase. It's not that I don't believe them. It's that it seems like one is comparing entirely different things when pitting a book against a movie; like saying that the trip to the museum was better than the crème brûlée. Books and movies—or book adaptations—may tell the same story, but they are so different in their nature, and they provide their own distinct joys.
During the 1960s and '70s, David Cornwell worked as a member of British intelligence while secretly publishing spy novels under the pen name John le Carré. By his third novel, le Carré had become an international success. He quit his job in order to focus on writing full time. He is a force in the world of spy fiction and many of his novels are considered to be some of the best of the genre. His recurring character George Smiley features in many of his Cold War era novels and is considered to be one of literature's greatest spies. Le Carré has continued writing into his eighties, with his most recent novel A Legacy of Spies published in mid August of this year. Readers new to le Carré should look to the following examples of his impressive body of work.
Louisa May Alcott was born in New England in 1832 to transcendentalist parents. Her early education was comprised of lessons from a host of impressive family friends including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. A love of education and writing was instilled in her at an early age but due to financial struggles, Alcott was forced to pursue a variety of jobs. It was while working to help support her family that she first turned to writing as an escape. She began writing for the Atlantic Monthly, and letters she wrote while working as a nurse during the Civil War were collected and published as Hospital Sketches. She wrote several novels under a pseudonym before penning her most well-known novel, the enduring classic Little Women. But in spite of the success of the novel which brought her acclaim and financial security, the story of the March sisters was not as close to Alcott's heart as one might think.
One of the most important players in the Beat movement—a group of writers whose work focused on the human condition in a post-World War II America with an emphasis on exploration of the country, a rejection of materialism and commercialism, and the recreational and spiritual use of drugs—was writer Jack Kerouac. Born to French Canadian parents in Lowell, Massachusetts, Kerouac did not learn to speak English until he was six years old. Kerouac briefly attended Columbia University to play football. When he broke his leg, his football career ended, and he dropped out. It was around this time that Kerouac first met members of the Beat movement: Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. In 1950, he began working on what would become his second published and indisputably famous novel, On the Road, which celebrates its sixtieth anniversary today.
Though Margaret Mitchell had only one book published in her lifetime, it remains one of the most popular books of all time. Gone With the Wind won the National Book Award as well as the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1937. The story of Scarlett O'Hara's life in the aftermath of the Civil War, the changing nature of Atlanta, and her tumultuous relationship with Rhett Butler has intrigued generations of readers and movie fans. It's film adaptation, too, has endured as a classic and was a major influence on films for years after its release. Starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, the film won the Academy Award for Best Film in 1939, as well as twelve other awards, and is still considered a triumph today. Likewise, the book is still widely read and has never been out of print. So, what inspired Mitchell to pen a tale with such staying power?
