Authors | Guy Portman's Blog

Bizarre Author Deaths VI

Jan 24 2014

This week sees the penultimate instalment of the Bizarre Author Deaths series.

Sir Francis Bacon

(January 22nd 1561 – April 9th 1626)

Notable works: Novum Organum, De augmentis, Nova Atlantis

Sir Francis Bacon was an English philosopher, scientist, statesman, orator, essayist and author. A highly successful career saw the multi-talented Bacon serve as both Attorney General and Lord Chancellor. Today Bacon is remembered as an important figure in scientific methodology and natural philosophy. His accolades include being widely accepted as the creator of empiricism, in addition to establishing popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often referred to as the Baconian method.

Sixty-five year old Bacon purportedly met his demise when travelling in his carriage in the midst of a snowstorm in Highgate, it occurred to him that snow would be an ideal way to preserve and insulate meat. He immediately purchased a gutted chicken and attempted to prove his theory by stuffing the bird with snow. Unfortunately these actions resulted in pneumonia, and as he was too ill to return to his residence, he retired to the Earl of Arundel’s house in Highgate where he perished several days later.

Christopher Marlowe

(February 26th 1564 – May 30th 1593)

Notable works: Edward the Second, Hero and Leander, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Poet, translator and dramatist Christopher Marlowe was the most famous tragedian of his time. His popular plays influenced a host of playwrights, including William Shakespeare. Little is known about the private life of this famous proponent of blank verse, a form of poetry that utilises a regular metrical form with unrhymed lines.

To this day the exact circumstances surrounding Marlowe’s death remain a mystery. The renowned playwright met his premature demise at the age of twenty-nine when he was stabbed with a knife by companion Ingram Frizer. The official story is that an argument broke out over a drinks bill, resulting in Marlowe attacking Frizer with a knife, only to be disarmed and despatched with a single thrust of the blade to the eye. Some have argued that the playwright’s death was in fact a political assassination, perhaps related to his work as a spy, whilst others claim it was because Marlowe was deemed a danger to the state, due to his reputed atheistic beliefs.

Click here to read Part V.

Bizarre Author Deaths V

Jan 10 2014

This week’s blog post is dedicated to two more bizarre author deaths. Initially I did not envisage that this author series would have so many instalments, but with the multitude of bizarre/mysterious author deaths that have occurred down the years, I anticipate that there will be at least a further two instalments at some point.

Edgar Allan Poe

(January 19th 1809 – October 7th 1849)

Notable works: The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death, Tamerlan and Other Poems

Poe was an author, poet, editor and literary critic, whose tales of mystery and the macabre are still widely read to this day. One of the earliest American practitioners of the short story, Poe is also widely considered as being the inventor of the detective fiction genre. Evidence of the writer’s enduring popularity is the fact that an original copy of Poe’s Tamerlane and Other Poems sold at Christie’s in New York for $662,500, a record price for a work of American literature.

The bizarre events surrounding Poe’s death were as mysterious as the nature of his writing. On October 3rd 1849 Mr. Joseph Walker found Poe wandering the streets of Baltimore in a delirious state. The writer was taken to hospital, but was unable to give an accurate account of what had occurred before his demise four days later.

There has been much speculation surrounding Poe’s sudden deterioration and death. Due to the fact that he was found wearing someone else’s clothes it has been argued that he was the victim of cooping, a practice in which citizens were attacked, absconded, plied with alcohol and forced to vote for a political candidate. His sudden deterioration and demise has also been attributed to alcoholism, TB, epilepsy, diabetes and even rabies.

Dan Andersson

(April 6th 1888 – September 16th 1920)

Notable works: The Charcoal-Burner’s Tales, The Charcoal-Burner’s Songs, Three Homeless Ones

Dan Andersson was a Swedish author, poet and composer, who became a cult figure in his native Sweden posthumously. Regarded as one of Sweden’s greatest ever poets, his themes of naturalist mysticism and searching for God continue to resonate with his readers to this day.

Andersson’s memory has been commemorated with two stamps in his honour, a museum in his hometown of Ludrika, in addition to a Dan Andersson week, celebrated in the first week of every August. There is also a bust of the iconic poet in the country’s capital, Gothenburg.

The thirty-two year old Andersson met his premature demise when he went to Stockholm in September 1920 to try and secure a job at the newspaper Social-Demokraten. On arrival at the hotel he was due to stay in, the Hotel Hellman, the receptionist failed to inform him that his room had just been treated with hydrogen cyanide, in an effort to eradicate an infestation of bed bugs. At three pm on September 16th 1920 Andersson was found dead in his room.

Click here to read Part IV

Bizarre Author Deaths IV

Dec 27 2013

My final blog post of 2013 sees the return of the popular Bizarre Author Deaths series.

Li Bai

(701 – 762)

Notable works: The Hard Road to Shu, Quiet Night Thought, Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day

Chinese poet Li Bai was one of the two most prominent poets in China during the mid-Tang dynasty. Acclaimed for his adherence to the poetic tradition and mastery of poetic rules, the poet was an integral part of a rich poetic heritage. Themes that Li Bai explored in his work included friendship, the passage of time, solitude, the joys of nature and glorification of alcohol.

One of China’s greatest ever poets, Li Bai is today remembered for both embracing and improving upon long-established poetic forms. Approximately one thousand poems are attributed to him, some of which are still studied in Chinese schools.

Legend has it that Li Bai met a bizarre end when travelling on a boat one night. In his inebriated state, he allegedly attempted to embrace the moon, which resulted in him falling into the Yangtze River and drowning. Though some doubt the authenticity of this tale, it has long since gone down in myth.

Percy Shelley

(August 4th 1792 – July 8th 1822)

Notable works: Ozymandrias, Music, The Cloud, Queen Mab

The husband of Frankenstein author, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley was an English Romantic poet. Shelley did not achieve fame during his short lifetime, in part because publishers were reluctant to publish his work, due to his radical political and social views. Today he is regarded as one of the greatest lyric poets of the English language.

The talented poet met his premature end when he drowned in a storm while sailing off the coast of Italy. There has been much speculation over the exact cause of his death, with theories ranging from murder to suicide.

Events were to take a bizarre turn when Shelley’s washed-up body was cremated on the beach. The poet’s heart refused to burn, probably due to a heart condition that had caused it to calcify. Edward Trelawny, a friend of the deceased, removed the heart from the fire and gave it to Mary Shelley. What happened next is much debated, with some claiming that the poet’s wife kept the crumbling remains in her desk. The heart was later buried alongside her son, Percy Florence.

Click here to read Part 3 of the Bizarre Author Deaths Series.

Christmas Book Stampede

Dec 20 2013

With approximately 14% of the year’s total book sales being made in the final four weeks of the year, the Christmas period is crucial for the publishing industry.

Today’s blog post looks at some of the titles expected to compete with my humorous tale of the unexpected, Charles Middleworth, for centre stage this festive period. Here in the UK, the bookies anticipate that the following three books will be found jammed into stockings and underneath Christmas trees in greater numbers than any other this year.

(Courtesy of Cogito Books)

In order they are:

1). Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

Comment: You know its Christmas when everywhere you turn a sport star/celebrity stares back at you from a shiny front cover, a beaming smile upon their countenance. This year the former Manchester United manager’s imaginatively titled memoir is expected to give the hairdryer treatment to all challengers (by mid-December it had already sold over 79,000 hardback copies).

2). Save With Jamie: Shop Smart, Cook Clever, Waste Less by Jamie Oliver

Comment: Middle age and an expanding girth has done nothing to dampen the nation’s appetite for everything Jamie. Could the pucker chef top the Christmas bestseller charts for the fourth year in a row?

3). Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy – Helen Fielding

Comment: Oh no not again, haven’t we all had enough Bridget Jones for one lifetime. Evidently I am in the minority on this.

The popularity of these three titles is not a big surprise, especially the inclusion of Jamie Oliver, whose annual Christmas cookbooks have become as predictable as a visit from Santa. Having featured in the top three Christmas bestsellers in the UK for seven of the last twelve years, to mention nothing of his endless festive period television exposure, it would come as no surprise in several thousand years time if historians studying early twenty-first century man concluded that Christmas was in fact a Jamie Oliver celebration day.

(Courtesy of ContentBox Blog)

Across the pond comedian and Twitter deity, Rob Delaney, is making headlines with the release of his first book, Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage. The bizarre titled book is purportedly a comical account of the funny man’s struggles with alcoholism in his youth.

Whilst America has embraced Delaney with open arms, they have been less enamoured with former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin’s, Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas, in which the geography challenged hockey mom warns of the dangers to Christmas posed by seculars, whilst at the same time attempting to make a fortune out of it. The book could best be described as part theological statement, part recipe book. There is nothing I would less like to find in my stocking this year – with the possible exception of an incendiary device or David Hasselhoff’s album, The Night Before Christmas.

With some claiming that up to six million e-readers could be bought as presents this Christmas, vast quantities of ebooks will also be purchased. There seems little doubt that a surprise Christmas bestseller will be unearthed as a result. Here’s for hoping my humorous and insightful work of fiction, Charles Middleworth (£2.02/$3.29) will be one of them. Charles Middleworth is available from all regional Amazons in paperback and on Kindle.

Happy Christmas

(Click on image to read the great reviews)

Bizarre Author Deaths III

Dec 06 2013

This, the third instalment of my latest series about authors, is dedicated to two more bizarre author deaths. I chose this rather macabre subject matter, in part, because death is one of the themes in my second novel, Necropolis, a humorous work of dark fiction, due for release early next year (date to be confirmed shortly).

Dante Alighieri

(May/June c. 1265 – September 9th 1321)

Notable works: The Divine Comedy, Convivio, The Vita Nuova.

Florence born Dante’s defining work, The Divine Comedy, is widely regarded to this day, as the greatest piece of literature ever composed in Italian. The description of Dante’s fictional journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio) and Paradise (Paradiso), was to prove an important milestone in the development of Italian as an established literary language.

Italy’s sommo poeta (supreme poet) is remembered not only for his remarkable achievements, but also for the bizarre circumstances surrounding his death. Dante died of malaria in Ravenna in 1321, which was not unusual in itself during this era. However posthumous events took a bizarre turn when Florence, the city of Dante’s birth, demanded the return of their famous son.

Church officials in Ravenna secretly hid Dante’s body in a wall to prevent it from being stolen and returned to Florence. It lay forgotten until being unearthed during church renovations in 1863, when it was discovered that parts of the body had been taken at the time of the burial. In 1878 a repentant former town clerk, Pasquale Miccoli, returned a box of bones he had stolen.

Julien Offray de la Mettrie

(November 23rd 1709 – November 11th 1751)

Notable works: Man a Machine, The Natural History of the Soul.

French philosopher and physician, de la Mettrie, was one of the first materialists of the Enlightenment era. He was widely viewed as a scandalous figure during his lifetime and beyond, due to the highly controversial nature of his writings. Considering himself a mechanist materialistic, de la Mettrie held a number of beliefs, which were in stark contrast to church teachings, including his assertion that the body causes mental processes. Though many of his theories have since been disproved by science, the defiant writer is today regarded as having influenced psychology, particularly behaviourism.

Regarded as a rampant hedonist, de la Mettrie was to meet his demise as a direct result of his excess. Invited to a banquet, hosted by the French ambassador to Prussia, de la Mettrie, either as an attempt to show off his powers of gluttony, or his strong constitution, devoured an enormous quantity of pâté de fait aux truffes (pâte made from truffles). The resulting gastric illness culminated in a slow and painful death for the controversial writer.

Click here to read Bizarre Author Deaths II

Bizarre Author Deaths II

Nov 22 2013

Following on from last week, here is the second instalment of my series dedicated to bizarre author deaths.

Aeschylus

(525/524 BC – 456/455 BC)

Notable works: The Persians, Prometheus Bound, The Supplicants.

Often described as the father of tragedy, Aeschylus, along with Sophocles and Euripides, are the only Greek tragedians, whose plays are still performed and read today. Aeschylus wrote an estimated seventy to ninety plays, only seven of which have survived.

The tragedian’s innovations included most likely being the first dramatist to present his plays as a trilogy. His play, The Oresteia, is the only ancient example of the form to have survived. Another of his influential works, The Persians, is unique amongst Greek tragedies, as the only example to describe what was at the time a recent historical event. The play has proved to be an important source of information for historians studying the period in which it was written.

The playwright is also remembered for the purported bizarre nature of his demise. Aeschylus met his end when an eagle looking for a hard object to break open the shell of the turtle it was carrying, mistook Aeschylus’s bald head for a rock. The eagle dropped the turtle, killing the great tragedian instantly.

Mark Twain

(November 30th 1835 – April 21st 1910)

Notable works: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Mark Twain is regarded as the father of American literature. Acclaimed for his satire and wit, Twain’s quotes on politics and human nature continue to be staples amongst speechmakers. The author’s iconic works, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, often referred to as ‘The Great American Novel’, remain to this day required reading in American schools.

The influential author was born in November 1835, shortly after a visit by Halley’s Comet. Twain was convinced that he would meet his end when the comet next returned to earth. He once famously said,

‘I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming next year, and I expect to go out with it.’

On April 21^st 1910, nearly seventy four and a half years after the comet’s last visit, the iconic writer’s prophetic declaration came true, when he died of a heart-attack, merely one day after the comet’s closest proximity to earth.

Bizarre Author Deaths I

Nov 15 2013

This, the first instalment of my latest series about authors, is dedicated to two bizarre author deaths. I chose this rather macabre subject matter as death is one of the themes in my second novel, Necropolis, a humorous work of dark fiction, due for release early next year (date to be confirmed soon).

Virginia Woolf

(January 25th 1882 – March 28th 1941)

Notable works: To The Lighthouse, Mrs Dalloway, Orlando: A Biography, A Room of One’s Own.

Novelist, essayist, publisher and critic Virginia Woolf was an influential interwar writer and an important member of the prominent Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. Regarded today as a foremost modernist and one of the major English language lyrical novelists, Virginia Woolf was an experimental writer, who achieved considerable popular and critical success during her lifetime. Her notable works include the experimental parodic biography, Orlando: A Biography, in which the hero’s life spans three centuries and both genders.

Woolf’s existence was not without its tribulations however. The talented writer suffered from depression throughout her life, several episodes in her younger years being so severe that she was sent to a mental institution. It was the onset of World War II and the destruction of Woolf’s London home in The Blitz, alongside the poor reception of her biography of late friend Roger Fry that were to send matters spiralling out of control.

Shortly after finishing the manuscript of her last novel, Between the Acts (posthumously published), Woolf entered a deep depression. On the 28th March 1941 the author put on her overcoat, filled the pockets with stones and walked out into the River Ouse near her home in Sussex. After her body was finally discovered on the 18th April, Woolf’s husband, political theorist and author Leonard Woolf, had her cremated remains buried under an elm tree in the garden of their home in Rodmell.

Tennessee Williams

(March 26th 1911 – February 25th 1983)

Notable works: The Glass Menagerie, A Street Car Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

American playwright Tennessee Williams found fame with his play The Glass Menagerie (1944), a big hit on Broadway in New York. More success followed and by 1959 Williams had two Pulitzer Prizes, three New York Drama Critics Awards, three Donaldson Awards and a Tony Award to his name.

However the glory was not to last and the 1960s’ and 70s’ saw the talented playwright facing professional failures and personal problems. These may in part have been due to his increasing alcohol and drug consumption, as well as the death of former partner Frank Merlo in 1963. Beloved sister Rose being diagnosed with schizophrenia and his own dysfunctional upbringing, Williams’s father was a heavy drinker with a violent temper and his mother overbearing, could also have been factors in the playwright’s descent into depression, drugs and commitments to mental health facilities.

On the morning of February 26th 1983, Williams was found dead in his suite at the Elysee Hotel in New York. The medical examiner’s report indicated that the cause of death was Williams having choked to death on a cap from a bottle of eye drops. It was noted that alcohol and drugs might have contributed to his demise, as they may have suppressed the gag reflex. The bizarre nature of the playwright’s death was to be the subject of much scrutiny over the forthcoming years. A forensic detective who reviewed the file stated that it was an overdose that killed Williams, whilst friend Scott Kenan claimed someone in the coroner’s office invented the bottle cap scenario.

Alcoholic Authors IV

Nov 01 2013

Here is part four of my Alcoholic Authors series.

Truman Capote

(September 30th 1924 – August 25th 1984)

Notable works: In Cold Blood, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Born Truman Streckfus Persons, Capote went on to become a prolific writer of short stories, novels, plays and nonfiction, whose accomplishments include at least twenty films and television dramas having been produced from his works.

Capote, who had a turbulent upbringing marred by divorce, long absences from his mother and periods of poor health started writing at a young age. By his late teens he had achieved considerable success and with the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966) international renown.

The author was a notorious heavy drinker. While writing In Cold Blood, Capote would allegedly have a double martini before lunch, another with lunch and a stinger after. On numerous occasions he sought help in various clinics, including Silver Hill in Connecticut, after being arrested for drink driving in Long Island. However he was to never kick his addiction, dying aged fifty-nine from liver cancer.

Capote once famously said, ‘I drink,’ …. ‘because it’s the only time I can stand it.’

Charles Bukowski

(August 16th 1920 – March 9th 1994)

Notable works: Post Office, Factotum, Pulp.

The German born Bukowski was a novelist, poet, short-story writer and columnist, who was described by Time in 1986 as a ‘laureate of American lowlife.’ His writing included the acclaimed novel Post Office, a semi-autobiographical account of Bukowski’s hand-to-mouth years existence whilst employed in a menial job at the post office and Pulp, a humorous and vulgar parody of the detective/mystery genre. The author’s writing was heavily influenced by his home city of Los Angeles.

Bukowski started drinking at aged thirteen and never looked back. A prodigious smoker and bar frequenter, he was a controversial figure renowned for his bravado. In later years the author preferred to drink at home, more often than not whiskey being his beverage of choice. Though by his own admission he suffered three hundred hang-overs a year, Bukowski never quit the habit. Despite this extraordinary excess he lived to the relatively old age of seventy-three.

Bukowski once said, ‘Alcohol is probably one of the greatest things to arrive upon the earth – alongside of me.’

Click on the links to read my reviews of Post Office and Pulp.

If you missed it here is Part III of my Alcoholic Authors series.

Famous Authors Who Died Poor II

Oct 18 2013

The following post is dedicated to two world famous and iconic authors, who died poverty stricken.

Oscar Wilde

(October 16th 1854 – November 30th 1900)

Notable works: The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The flamboyant Oscar Wilde was a writer, poet and playwright, acclaimed for his enduring wit and writing abilities. At the height of his fame in the early 1890s’ Wilde was a successful playwright and a mainstay of the London social scene.

However his world was to come crashing down with his arrest for gross indecency with other men in 1895. A guilty verdict and the resulting legal fees forced the author into bankruptcy. Sentenced to two years of hard labour, the intellectual Wilde, who was used to a life of relative luxury, suffered terribly, his health going into marked decline. Many of his friends deserted him, his name was removed from marquees where his plays were showing and the sale of his tragedy Salome fell through.

The Irish playwright was to never recover and at the age of forty-six Oscar Wilde died virtually destitute of cerebral meningitis in Paris. His final address was made from the squalid Hotel d’Alsace where he had taken up residence. He wrote:

‘This poverty really breaks one’s heart, it is so sale, so utterly depressing, so hopeless.’

O.Henry

(September 11th 1862 – June 5th 1910)

Notable works: The Gift of the Magi, The Ransom of Red Chief, A Retrieved Reformation.

Born William Sidney Porter, O.Henry is remembered as a renowned and prolific short-story writer. The author published hundreds of short-stories during his lifetime, many of which contained his trademark surprise ending.

O.Henry’s early writing career included founding Rolling Stone, an unsuccessful humour weekly and writing a column for The Houston Daily Post. In 1898 Henry was sentenced to five years in prison for embezzling funds whilst employed at First International Bank.

On being released early in 1891 for good behaviour Henry moved to New York City where he made a comeback. In the ten years prior to his demise he published over three hundred stories and became America’s favourite short-story writer. However when he died in 1910 Henry was virtually penniless. This was no doubt due in part to the alcoholism that afflicted him in later years and the fact he was carefree with money, on several occasions spending his advances, but not delivering the promised story or script.

Click here to read Part One.

Alcoholic Authors III

Oct 04 2013

As my Alcoholic Authors series has proven to be fairly popular here is a further instalment.

Dorothy Parker

(August 22nd 1893 – June 7th 1967)

Notable works: Enough Rope, Sunset Gun, A Star is Born.

American writer and poet Dorothy Parker was renowned for her sardonic wit and writing abilities. Parker sold her first poem to Vanity Fair in 1914 and went on to have an incredibly successful career, which saw her publish books, short-stories, screenplays and poetry. Her achievements include being a script writer for the Academy Award nominated film, A Star is Born.

A lifelong heavy drinker, Parker suffered from bouts of acute depression, even attempting suicide on several occasions. In later years as a direct result of her habit she was to suffer declining health. There has been much speculation as to why she drunk so heavily, perhaps it was a result of a traumatic childhood – her mother died when she was a small child, or her failed marriages and affairs; the author was married three times, twice to the same man.

Parker once famously said about her favourite drink martini:

“I like to have a martini,

Two at the very most.

After three I’m under the table,

After four I’m under my host.”

Little has been documented about Parker’s drinking habits, this may be in part due to the often isolated nature of her consumption, but also because as a woman her alcohol excess was never glorified.

Jack Kerouac

(March 12th 1922 – October 21st 1969)

Notable works: On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur.

American novelist, writer, poet and artist Jack Kerouac was a member of the Beat Generation that also included William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. Kerouac primarily wrote autobiographical novels in a spontaneous prose style. His most famous book, On the Road, set against a backdrop of poetry, jazz and drug use was the defining work of the postwar Beat Generation.

Kerouac was a very heavy drinker, who particularly enjoyed Margaritas, having developed a taste for them during one of his trips to Mexico. The author was acutely aware of his drinking problem, often expressing a desire to quit or at least moderate his habit. In his book, Big Sur, Kerouac eloquently explained the nature of alcoholism. He once said, ‘Don’t drink to get drunk. Drink to enjoy life.’

In later years Kerouac’s alcohol consumption increased as he found himself feeling isolated from the burgeoning counter-culture movement that he had reluctantly started. On October 20th 1969, Kerouac was rushed to hospital with abdominal pain. He died the following day from an internal hemorrhage caused by cirrhosis of the liver, caused by a lifetime of alcohol excess; he was forty-seven years old. The author’s legacy is that he will always be remembered as a literary pioneer and an integral part of the Beat Generation.

I am currently in Munich at the annual Oktoberfest beer festival. It seems likely that the alcohol theme will continue next week when I plan to recount my time there.

Click here to read Part 2 of Alcoholic Authors.

Category - Authors

Bizarre Author Deaths VI

Like this:

Bizarre Author Deaths V

Like this:

Bizarre Author Deaths IV

Like this:

Christmas Book Stampede

Like this:

Bizarre Author Deaths III

Like this:

Bizarre Author Deaths II

Like this:

Bizarre Author Deaths I

Like this:

Alcoholic Authors IV

Like this:

Famous Authors Who Died Poor II

Like this:

Alcoholic Authors III

Like this:

Category - Authors

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: