Authors | Guy Portman's Blog

15 Authors’ Epitaphs

Oct 09 2015

This week sees the latest instalment in my famous author series. Here are 15 famous authors’ epitaphs:

John Keats – (1795 – 1821) – Here Lies One Whose Name was Writ in Water

Edgar Allan Poe – (1809 – 1849) – Quoth the Raven, Nevermore

Emily Dickinson – (1830 – 1886) – Called Back

Oscar Wilde – (1854 – 1900) – And alien tears will fill for him. Pity’s long broken urn, For his mourners will be outcast men, And outcasts always mourn. (from Wilde’s poem, The Battle of Reading Goal).

Jack London – (1876 – 1916) – The Stone the Builders Rejected

Joseph Conrad – (1857 – 1924) – Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – (1859 – 1930) – Steel true, Blade Straight.

D. H. Lawrence –  (1885-1930) – Homo sum! the adventurer

H.P. Lovecraft – (1890 – 1937) – I am Providence

F. Scott Fitzgerald – (1896 – 1940) & Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald – (1900 – 1948) – So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. – (The Great Gatsby).

Virginia Woolf – (1882 – 1941) – Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!

Sylvia Plath – (1932 -1963) – Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted. (From Monkey by Wu Ch’Eng-En)

C. S. Lewis – (1898 – 1963) – Man must endure his going hence

Dorothy Parker – (1893 – 1967) – Excuse my dust

Billy Wilder – (1906 – 2002) – I’m a writer but then nobody’s perfect

…………………………………………………………………………………….

Necropolis by Guy Portman — Dyson Devereux works in the Burials and Cemeteries department in his local council. Dyson is intelligent, incisive and informed. He is also…(more)

21 Famous Authors’ Last Words

Oct 02 2015

Here are 21 famous authors’ purported last words. They are presented in chronological order.

Voltaire (1694–1778) – On his deathbed when asked by the priest to renounce Satan, Voltaire allegedly said, ‘Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies.’

Jane Austen (1775–1817) – When her sister, Cassandra, asked the dying author if she wanted anything, Jane Austen replied, ‘Nothing, but death.’

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) – ‘Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight.’

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) – The Victorian poet was close to death when her husband enquired as to how she felt. Browning replied, ‘Beautiful.’ She then passed away.

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) – ‘Moose. Indian.’ Perhaps not the most rational last words ever uttered, but apt, considering the subject matter of Thoreau’s writing.

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) – ‘So, this is death. Well!’

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) – ‘This is the fight of day and night. I see black light.’

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) – ‘Let us go in; the fog is rising.’

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) – Immediately after Chekhov told his wife that he was about to die, he purportedly picked up a glass of champagne and said, ‘It’s a long time since I drank champagne.’ After drinking the glass, he died.

Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) – The Norwegian playwright and poet allegedly uttered his last words to a nurse, who commented that he seemed to be improving. Ibsen said, ‘Tvertimod!’ (‘On the contrary!’) He then died.

O. Henry (1862–1910) – ‘Turn up the lights, I don’t want to go home in the dark.’

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) – ‘But the peasants…how do the peasants die?’

Saki (1870 –1916) – Immediately prior to being killed by a sniper’s bullet in a First World War trench, the author allegedly said, ‘Put that bloody cigarette out.’

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) – Suffering from tuberculosis, Kafka demanded his doctor give him an overdose of morphine. He shouted, ‘Kill me, or else you are a murderer!’ These were his last words.

J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) – Prior to dying of pneumonia the Peter Pan author said, ‘I can’t sleep.’

James Joyce (1882 –1941) – ‘Does nobody understand?’

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) – ‘Dying is easy, comedy is hard.’

Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953) – ‘I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room, and God damn it, died in a hotel room.’

Walter De La Mare (1873–1956) – ‘Too late for fruit, too soon for flowers.’

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) – ‘A certain butterfly is already on the wing.’ Fitting last words for a lepidopterist.

Truman Capote (1924–1984) – ‘It’s me, it’s Buddy… I’m cold.’

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My 3 novels include the satirical black comedy Necropolis. It is about a sociopath who works for the burials and cemeteries department in his local council.

10 Bizarre Author Deaths

Sep 25 2015

Though death is admittedly a rather morbid subject matter it is one that fascinates many of us, including me.

I have only included male authors in this post, the reason being that the female authors that I am aware of, who died in a manner that some might describe as bizarre (notably Sylvia Plath & Virginia Woolf), I concluded were more tragic than bizarre, so I omitted them.

Here are 10 authors who met bizarre ends. They are presented in chronological order.

Aeschylus(525/524 BC – 456/455 BC)

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 70 to 90 plays, only 7 of which have survived. The playwright purportedly 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.

Cause of Death: Turtle falling on head

Li Bai(701 AD – 762 AD)

Chinese poet Li Bai was one of the 2 most prominent poets in China during the mid-Tang dynasty. Approximately 1000 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.

Cause of Death: Drowning

Pietro Aretino(April 20th 1492 – October 21st 1556)

Aretino was an Italian author, playwright, poet and unrepentant satirist, who is widely regarded as being the inventor of modern literate pornography. Ironically the humourist purportedly met his demise due to laughing himself to death. There has been much speculation over how Aretino died. One version is that Aretino was at a party, when a guest told him a joke, involving the writer’s own sisters and the brothel that they were employed at. So amused was Aretino that he was unable to stop laughing, and falling back in his chair, died of suffocation.

Cause of Death: Died from laughing

Julien Offray de la Mettrie(November 23rd 1709 – November 11th 1751)

French philosopher and physician, de la Mettrie, is best known for his work L’homme machine (Machine Man). On November 11th 1751 the rampant hedonist was invited to a banquet, hosted by the French ambassador to Prussia. Either as an attempt to show off his powers of gluttony, or his strong constitution, de la Mettrie 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.

Cause of Death: Overeating

Edgar Allan Poe(January 19th 1809 – October 7th 1849)

Poe’s tales of mystery and the macabre are still widely read to this day. On October 3rd 1849 Mr. Joseph Walker found Poe wandering the streets of Baltimore in a delirious state. He was taken to hospital, but died 4 days later. There has been much speculation surrounding his sudden deterioration and death. His demise has been attributed to alcoholism, TB, epilepsy, cooping (a practice in which citizens were attacked, absconded, plied with alcohol and forced to vote for a political candidate), diabetes and even rabies.

Cause of Death: A mystery

Gustav Kobbé(March 4th 1857 – July 27th 1918)

American music critic and author Gustav Kobbé’s posthumously published, The Complete Opera Book, remains to this day the opera lover’s bible. Kobbé was on the verge of international fame when he met his demise. On July 27th 1918, Kobbé, an avid sailor, was out sailing in the Great South Bay off Bay Shore, New York, when an errant seaplane coming into land, misjudged its descent and struck his boat, killing the opera critic instantly.

Cause of Death: Hit by aeroplane

Dan Andersson(April 6th 1888 – September 16th 1920)

Dan Andersson was a Swedish author, poet and composer, who became a cult figure in his native Sweden posthumously. The 32-year-old Andersson met an unfortunate end when he went to Stockholm in September 1920. On arrival at his hotel, 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 3pm on September 16th 1920 Andersson was found dead in his room.

Cause of Death: Hydrogen Cyanide

Sherwood Anderson(September 13th 1876 – March 8th 1941)

Anderson found fame during his lifetime with his interrelated short story sequence, Winesburg, Ohio and his bestselling novel, Dark Laughter. In 1941 at the age of 64, Anderson fell ill with abdominal pains on a cruise to South America. He was rushed to hospital, where he was diagnosed with peritonitis and died. The autopsy revealed that he had swallowed a toothpick, which had damaged his internal organs, causing the infection. It is widely assumed that this occurred when the author was eating the olive from a martini.

Cause of Death: Swallowed a toothpick

Yukio Mishima(January 14th 1925 – November 25th 1970)

Arguably the most important Japanese author of the 20th Century, Mishima was a nationalist with a commitment to the code of the Samurai (bushido). On November 25th 1968 the author and 4 members of his Tatenokai ‘shield society’ (a private militia sworn to protect the Emperor of Japan) barricaded themselves in the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan’s self-defence forces. Having delivered a speech from the balcony to the soldiers below, Mishima committed Seppuku, a Japanese ritual suicide consisting of disembowelment followed by beheading.

Cause of Death: Seppuku

Tennessee Williams(March 26th 1911 – February 25th 1983)

American playwright Tennessee Williams found fame with his play The Glass Menagerie (1944), a big hit on Broadway in New York. By the 1960s the talented playwright had descended into depression, drug use 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 choking to death on a cap from a bottle of eye drops.

Cause of Death: Swallowing bottle of eye drops

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10 Famous Authors’ Day Jobs

Sep 18 2015

This week’s blog post is dedicated to famous authors’ day jobs. Whether it is/was due to financial necessity, or through choice, many authors have/had other careers.

Here are 10 famous authors and their day jobs.

Bram Stoker – (1847 – 1912) – Stoker is best remembered for his seminal work Dracula, but he also wrote 11 other novels and 3 collections of short stories. The author spent 27 years working as an acting manager and business manager for Irving’s Lyceum Theatre in London.

Joseph Conrad – (1857 – 1924) – Many of Joseph Conrad’s works have a nautical theme. This is not surprising considering that the author had a 19 year career in the merchant-marine, which began when he left his native Poland as a teenager in 1874.

Lewis Carroll – (1832 – 1898) – The author of the children’s classics Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass was a brilliant mathematician, who produced numerous books on the subject. Carroll also had stints working as an artist, photographer and Anglican cleric.

Agatha Christie – (1890 – 1976) – It was during World War I that prolific author Agatha Christie began writing detective stories. At the time she was employed as an apothecary’s assistant. Her knowledge of poisons was to come in useful in her detective stories.

Herman Melville – (1819 – 1891) – Although the author of Moby-Dick had some success with his writing in his younger years, money problems meant that he was forced to work for much of his life. Melville was employed as a customs inspector in New York for 19 years.

Arthur Conan Doyle – (1859 – 1930) – The creator of Sherlock Holmes was an important figure in the field of crime fiction. Doyle was also a practicing doctor, whose field of expertise was ophthalmology. He quit medicine to concentrate on writing full time.

Virginia Woolf – (1882 – 1941) – Woolf is regarded as one of the greatest literary innovators Britain has produced. To escape publishing houses creative restraints, Woolf and her husband started their own publishing house, Hogarth Press. In addition to her works, they published Russian translations and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.

Franz Kafka – (1883 -1924) – Kafka did not receive much acclaim for his writing efforts during his lifetime. The iconic author worked in various occupations, including being employed at an insurance firm. In 1911, Kafka co-founded Prague’s first asbestos factory.

Vladimir Nabokov – (1899 – 1977) – The Russian born Nabokov was an author, chess composer and lepidopterist (someone who specialises in the study of moths & butterflies). At once time Nabokov was the curator of the moth and butterfly collection at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.

Harper Lee – (Born: 1926) – The reclusive Harper Lee always wanted to be a writer, but in her younger years she earned a living through other endeavours. Lee had a 8 year stint working as an airline ticket agent before quitting to concentrate on her writing.

6 Writers Who Went Into Hiding

Sep 04 2015

This week sees the latest instalment in my famous author series. Prior to researching this subject matter I was only aware of 2 writers who had gone into hiding, but I soon discovered there were/are many more.

Here are 6 writers who went into hiding:

Samuel Beckett (April 13th 1906 – December 22nd 1989)

Irish born avant-garde novelist, playwright and poet Samuel Beckett is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th Century. His accolades include having won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. Beckett spent most of his adult life in Paris. When Germany occupied Paris in 1940, Beckett joined the French Resistance. In 1942 Beckett’s unit was betrayed. He fled to the village of Roussillon, where he continued assisting the resistance effort, as well as working on his novel Watt.

Salman Rushdie (Born: June 19th 1947)

Salman Rushdie’s second novel, Midnight’s Children, won the Booker Prize in 1981. His fourth book, The Satanic Verses (1988), caused controversy from the outset. The title of the book was deemed offensive by many Muslims, as it refers to a number of allegedly pagan verses, temporarily included in the Qur’an and later removed. When the Supreme Leader of Iran, The Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a Fatwa against the author in January 1989, Rushdie was rushed into the protective custody of Special Branch.

Anne Frank
(June 12th 1929 – February/March 1945)

Anne Frank was a member of a Jewish family, who spent 2 years hiding in concealed rooms behind a bookcase in a building in Amsterdam. During this period Anne kept a diary chronicling her life. When her family was betrayed Anne Frank and her sister Margot were sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died, most likely as a result of typhus. However, her wartime diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, survived. It was first published in the UK and US in 1952.

Hamed Abdel-Samad (Born: February 1st 1972)

Hamed Abdel-Samad is a German-Egyptian historian, political scientist and author, who in his youth was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He later became an atheist. His autobiography, Mein Abschied vom Himmel (My Farewell from Heaven), provoked anger in his home country of Egypt. When a fatwa was issued against the author he was placed under police protection. As a result of continued death threats, Abdel-Samad has spent time in hiding. Not surprisingly he does not list a location on his Twitter profile @hamed_samad.

Juan Tomás Avila Laurel (Born: 1966)

Juan Tomás Avila Laurel is an Equatorial-Guinean novelist, short story writer and poet. Laurel’s writing has been highly critical of his country’s political and economic landscape. This has not endeared him to all in Equatorial Guinea, one of the World’s most repressive regimes. His disgust with his country’s government led him to move to Spain, but after his asylum application was refused he returned home. Concern over potential persecution from Equatorial Guinea’s security forces have forced Avila Laurel to go into hiding.

Taslima Nasreen (Born: 25 August 1962)

Bangladeshi author and poet Taslima Nasreen became a controversial figure in her home country due to her feminist views and criticism of religion. In 1993 a fatwa was issued against her. The following year she fled to West Bengal. 8 years later concerns for her safety culminated in Nasreen going into hiding in New Delhi. In 2015 death threats from Islamic extremists resulted in the author moving to the US. She has not been able to return to Bangladesh, or her adopted home of West Bengal.

Chuck Palahniuk

Aug 28 2015

Did you know that Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (the book not the film) was published 19 years ago this month? I inadvertently discovered this whilst online yesterday. I am marking the anniversary of the release of Fight Club by dedicating this week’s blog post to Chuck Palahniuk’s books.

(Born: February 21st 1962)

I have read and reviewed 7 of this iconic transgressive author’s works. The following books are presented in the order in which they were published.

Fight Club

The book’s narrator becomes friends with an anarchist by the name of Tyler Durden. The duo form a fight club, which meets every Sunday in basements and car lots.

My Review: The protagonist, who remains nameless, is an insomniac leading a bland corporate existence, investigating accidents for a car company, whose only concern is profit. (More)

My Rating: Excellent

Invisible Monsters

An accident leaves a model horribly disfigured and incapable of coherent speech. Whilst in hospital she meets Brandy Alexander. Their ensuing cross-country trip concludes with a surprising revelation.

My Review: Shannon McFarland is a catwalk model, who is the centre of attention wherever she goes. That is until she ‘accidentally’ blasts her jaw shot off with a gun … (More)

My Rating: Average

Choke

Choke is in essence a social commentary about our innate craving for attention. Protagonist Victor is a victim of the selfish motivations at the very root of modern American society.

My Review: The protagonist, Victor Mancini, is a sex addict employed at an eighteenth-century historical re-enactment park. Victor attends various sexual addiction support groups, where he meets … (More)

My Rating: Average

Haunted

In this harrowing and provocative set of short stories, Palahniuk skilfully explores a variety of themes, in addition to dispensing intelligent commentary on the human psyche.

My Review: Haunted is about a group of writers, who have been assembled by the conniving Mr Whittier to attend a writers group. The location of the retreat …(More)

My Rating: Good/Disturbing

Rant

Rant challenges our own traditions by demonstrating how we contort our recollection of events in accordance with our desires, motives and beliefs. There are obvious parallels with the gospels.

My Review: Rant is the oral history of Buster ‘Rant’ Casey, recounted by an array of people including his relations, friends, enemies and lovers. Rant’s childhood companions from … (More)

My Rating: Quite good but convoluted

Damned

Damned is a satire of hell. Written in a lighthearted style, the book is punctuated with comical details, pop-culture references and Theological irony. Palahniuk’s vivid imagination is on display throughout.

My Review: The protagonist is thirteen-year-old Madison, the daughter of wealthy alternative parents. The privileged Madison studies at an exclusive Swiss boarding school and spends her holidays alternating … (More)

My Rating: Good

Doomed

After escaping from Hell Madison Spencer (protagonist of Damned) is forced to spend a year languishing on Earth as a ghost. In her absence Madison has spawned a religion, Boorism.

My Review: Doomed is the sequel to Damned and part two of a proposed Dante inspired trilogy. It sees the return of Damned’s protagonist – the plucky, post-life, plump, periphrastic, … (More)

My Rating: Bad

10 Books About Prison

Aug 21 2015

This week sees the latest instalment in my popular famous book series. In recent years I have read a number of books about prisons/prisoners, all of which I have reviewed here on my blog. I thought it would make an interesting topic for a post.

Here are 10 books (4 of which I’ve read) about prison:

Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov

Invitation to a Beheading was originally published in a Russian émigré magazine in 1935-6. The book’s protagonist is Cincinnatus C., a prison inmate and citizen of an imaginary country, who has been sentenced to death.

Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler

Darkness At Noon is dedicated to the victims of The Moscow Trials. Although the characters in the book are fictitious, the historical circumstances are not. Protagonist Rubashov is a veteran of the Revolution and a decorated war hero.

Click here to read my review.

The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill

The Great Escape chronicles the famous escape of more than 600 men from a German prisoner-of-war camp. Their escape was meticulously planned over the course of year. Tunnels were dug, maps drawn, passports forged and clothes made. Then came the big night.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is a former POW serving a 10 year term in a Gulag on the Kazakh steppe for being a spy. He is innocent. The book chronicles a single day of his existence, beginning with a 5 a.m. reveille.

Click here to read my review.

Birdman of Alcatraz by Thomas E. Gaddis

This is the story of Robert Stroud, an inmate of the notorious Alcatraz prison, situated in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Stroud became so fascinated with the birds that landed outside his cell that he wrote several books about their behaviour.

Papillon by Henri Charrière

Papillon is an autobiography about Henri Charrière. Convicted in Paris of a murder that he did not commit, Charrière was sentenced to life imprisonment in French Guiana, where he became obsessed with the idea of escape.

Midnight Express by Billy Hayes & William Hoffer

In 1970 Billy Hayes, an English student, was caught smuggling hashish in Istanbul airport. His punishment, life imprisonment in a Turkish prison. One night he made a daring bid for freedom. Midnight Express is an Academy Award-winning film of the same name.

Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut

When protagonist Eugene Debs was sacked from his job as a college professor he became a teacher at a local prison. This unusually constructed novel is presented as if it had been written on scraps on paper and then assembled.

The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Pierre Rigoulot, & Kang Chol Hwan

Chol-Hwan is a North Korean, whose family had previously resided in Japan. The family initially flourished in their adopted country, but then they were sent to a prison camp. Chol-Hwan eventually fled to China and then on to South Korea.

Click here to read my review.

Escape from Camp 14 Blaine Harden

Escape from Camp 14 is the life story of Shin Dong-Hyuk, the only known person born in a North Korean gulag to have escaped. Shin started life in a fenced encampment less than fifty miles north of the capital Pyongyang.

Click here to read my review.

7 Famous Authors’ Favourite Foods

Aug 07 2015

The title of this post is admittedly rather presumptuous. However, after diligent research, I am confident that at the very least the given author was extremely fond of the foodstuff listed here as their favourite.

Here are 7 famous authors’ alleged favourite foods:

Emily Dickinson (December 10th 1830 – May 15th 1886)

Emily Dickinson was a prolific poet with over 1700 poems to her name, who is today remembered as being one of the most acclaimed American female writers of all time. Despite her very private nature we know from her letters that she loved baking for her family and friends. Her poem, The Things that never come back, are several, was composed on the back of a friend’s recipe for Coconut Cake.

Favourite Food: Bread & Cakes

Agatha Christie
(September 15th 1890 – January 12th 1976)

Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time, having sold approximately 2 billion books. Miss Marple was a fan of clotted cream, and her creator even more so. Christie grew up in Devon, where clotted cream was regularly served as an accompaniment to scones at teatime. Her grandson fondly remembers her love of cream. It is said that a cup of it could be found more often than not beside her typewriter.

Favourite Food: Devonshire Cream

J.D. Salinger
(January 1st 1919 – January 27th 2010)

The reclusive J.D. Salinger was an American author, whose seminal work The Catcher in the Rye has sold over ten million copies worldwide. Two years after the book’s publication Salinger withdrew completely from public life. We do know from frequent sightings of Salinger in his hometown of Cornish, New Hampshire, that he enjoyed fast-food. In a letter to his friend Donald Hartog, Salinger mentioned that in his opinion Burger King hamburgers were superior to other chains offerings.

Favourite Food: Burger King Burgers

Jean-Paul Sartre (June 1st 1905 – April 15th 1980)

Sartre was a playwright, novelist, biographer and philosopher. In 1964 he famously turned down the Nobel Prize in Literature, stating that ‘a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution.’ Letters to his lover Simone De Beauvoir reveal that he was somewhat obsessed with a sweet snack called halva. Sartre wrote, ‘I got your books but no halva. Is there another package?’ The halva eventually arrived.

Favourite Food: Halva

Ernest Hemingway(July 21st 1899 – July 2nd 1961)

In his younger years The Nobel Prize in Literature (1954) winner was an avid outdoorsman, who particularly enjoyed trout fishing. In his essay Camping Out the author wrote, ‘A pan of fried trout can’t be bettered.’ He went on to give detailed instructions on how to prepare the trout. The recipe included bacon. Hemingway concluded by stating, ‘If there is anything better … the writer has yet to taste it …’

Favourite Food: Trout

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
(January 28th 1873 – August 3rd 1954)

Colette was a novelist and performer, best known for her novel Gigi. Her risqué sexual activities, which included numerous affairs with both males and females, provoked outrage. Considering her sexual appetite it is perhaps not surprising that the food she seemingly craved above all others were truffles. Truffles were prized for their aphrodisiac qualities in Ancient Rome. Colette once said, ‘If I can’t have too many truffles, I’ll do without truffles.’

Favourite Food: Truffles

H. P. Lovecraft (August 20th 1890 – March 15th 1937)

Lovecraft was an American author, who is regarded as one of the most important horror fiction writers of the 20th Century. The author achieved very little success during his lifetime, and was only ever published in pulp magazines. Lovecraft lived frugally for much of his adult life, and this was no doubt one reason that he enjoyed spaghetti with meat and tomato sauce, which he used to cover in cheese.

Favourite Food: Spaghetti with Meat and Tomato Sauce

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10 Writers Who Went To Prison

Jul 31 2015

The following writers all spent time in prison. They are presented in chronological order.

Sir Thomas More More (February 7th 1478 – July 6th 1535)

Sir Thomas More was an English statesman, philosopher, author and Lord High Chancellor of England (October 1529 – May 1532). More was the author of the popular novel Utopia (1516). Utopia is about the political system of an ideal, imaginary country. More was imprisoned due to his opposition to Henry VIII’s split from the Catholic Church. After serving time in a number of prisons, including the Tower of London, he was beheaded.

Miguel de Cervantes (September 29th 1547 – April 22nd 1616)

Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish poet, playwright and novelist, whose influence on the Spanish language was so considerable that Spanish is sometimes referred to as la lengua de Cervantes (the language of Cervantes). Cervantes was working as a purchasing agent for the Spanish navy when a banker he had deposited Crown funds with went bankrupt. This led to Cervantes’s imprisonment. It was during this time that he begun working on his seminal work, Don Quixote.

Voltaire(November 21st 1694 – May 30th 1778)

Voltaire was a satirical polemicist, whose voluminous writing output included novels, poems, plays and essays. His most famous work is the satirical novella Candide. Voltaire was renowned both for his wit and scathing criticism of the Catholic Church. Punishments for his controversial views included periods of exile, in addition to several stints in prison. Voltaire spent 11 months imprisoned in the notorious Bastille.

Fyodor Dostoevsky(November 11th 1821 – February 9th 1881)

Russian novelist and short story writer Fyodor Dostoevsky is best remembered for his novels Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoyevsky served 8 years in a Siberian labour camp. His crime was being found guilty of circulating essays that were deemed to be critical of the government. During his time in the camp, Dostoyevsky began working on his novella, Notes from Underground.

Oscar Wilde(October 16th 1854 – November 30th 1900)

Oscar Wilde was a flamboyant writer, poet and playwright, acclaimed for his enduring wit and writing abilities. At the height of his fame Wilde was a very successful playwright. In 1895 Wilde was arrested for gross indecency with other men. This culminated in a guilty verdict. Wilde was imprisoned first in Pentonville Prison and later at Wandsworth Prison, where prisoners were required to do hard labour.

O.Henry(September 11th 1862 – June 5th 1910)

Henry was a renowned and prolific short story writer. In the 10 years prior to his demise he published over 300 stories. Having been convicted of embezzlement, O. Henry was given a 5 year sentence in 1898, which he served at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. As he was a licensed pharmacist he was employed in the prison hospital. There is no evidence that he spent any time in the prison’s cellblock.

Chester Himes (July 29th 1909 – November 12th 1984)

Himes was an American author who wrote If He Hollers Let Him Go, as well as a series of Harlem Detective novels. In 1958 he won France’s Grand Priz de Littérature Policière. Himes served 7 1/2 years in the Ohio State Penitentiary after being found guilty of armed robbery. It was during his incarceration that Himes began writing short stories. Later he was employed briefly as a Hollywood screenwriter.

Joan Henry

(April 8th 1914 – 2000)

Joan Henry was an English novelist, screenwriter and playwright. Born into a wealthy and prestigious family, her life was to change markedly when she was jailed for passing a fraudulent cheque in 1951. Her best-known works are based on her time in prison. The most famous is Who Lie in Gaol. The book went on to become a bestseller. It spawned a film titled The Weak and the Wicked.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
(December 11th 1918 – August 3rd 2008)

Russian novelist and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was an ardent critic of the Soviet regime. It was his writing that first brought global attention to the Gulag. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In February 1945, whilst serving in the Red Army, he was arrested for having made a derogatory comment about Stalin. Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to an 8 year term in a labour camp.

Jeffrey Archer (Born April 15th 1940)

Jeffrey Archer is an English author and former politician, who has sold over 250 million books. When, in 1974, a financial scandal left Archer almost bankrupt, he resigned as a Member of Parliament. Later he became deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. His political career ended with his conviction and imprisonment for perjury and perverting the course of justice. On July 21st 2003 Archer was released, having served half of his sentence.

10 Famous Alcoholic Authors

Jul 17 2015

Here are 10 famous alcoholic authors and their favourite beverages:

Truman Capote

(September 30th 1924 – August 25th 1984)

Capote was a prolific writer of short stories, novels, plays and nonfiction, whose accomplishments include at least 20 films and television dramas having been produced from his works. He 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. Capote’s heavy drinking was to continue. He died aged 59 from liver cancer.

Favourite Beverage: Martini (double)/Screwdriver

Charles Bukowski (August 16th 1920 – March 9th 1994)

Bukowski was a novelist, poet and short-story writer, who is regarded as being the ‘laureate of American lowlife’. He started drinking at 13 and never looked back. In his younger years he was a bar frequenter, but in later years he preferred to drink at home. Though by his own admission he suffered three hundred hangovers a year, Bukowski never quit the habit. Despite this excess he lived to 73.

Favourite Beverage: Whiskey

Dorothy Parker (August 22nd 1893 – June 7th 1967)

Dorothy Parker was renowned for her sardonic wit and writing abilities. A lifelong heavy drinker, she 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, perhaps because as a woman her alcohol excess was never glorified.

Favourite Beverage: Martini

Jack Kerouac (March 12th 1922 – October 21st 1969)

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 was a very heavy drinker. 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 wrote, ‘Don’t drink to get drunk. Drink to enjoy life.’

Favourite Beverage: Margarita

James Joyce(February 2nd 1882 – January 13th 1941)

Irish novelist and poet James Augustine Aloysius Joyce is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the modernist avant-garde. Joyce was a notorious binge drinker, who was adamant that he could not write as well without the aid of alcohol. During his time living in Paris Joyce was a drinking buddy of Ernest Hemingway. The slightly-built Joyce was said to often start bar fights and then hide behind the much bigger Hemingway.

Favourite Beverage: Wine

Hunter S. Thompson (July 18th 1937 – February 20th 2005)

The father of Gonzo journalism was an iconic figure in the counter-culture. Hunter S. Thompson first became famous internationally for his book, Hells Angels (1967). The author was known for his lifelong heavy use of alcohol. The writer drank a wide range of alcoholic beverages. Never one for the vagaries of waiters, Thompson would typically order 3 to 6 drinks at a time.

Favourite Beverage: Wild Turkey

Ernest Hemingway(July 21st 1899 – July 2nd 1961)

Ernest Hemingway is remembered as a pillar of American literature, a writer with a unique style, who won both The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1953) and The Nobel Prize in Literature (1954). The iconic writer was a notorious drinker for most of his life, though he did not write whilst under the influence. A number of alcohol related quotes have been attributed to Hemingway, including, ‘Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk.’

Favourite Beverage: Mojito

William Faulkner(September 25th 1897 – July 6th 1962)

William Cuthbert Faulkner to give his full name is one of the most important writers in American history. A lifelong heavy drinker, Faulkner, in contrast to many writers, liked to write under the influence – a bottle of whiskey, preferably bourbon was generally within arms reach. The author was notorious for his binge drinking and it was fortunate that he had a remarkable capacity for recovery. Faulkner once said, ‘Civilization begins with distillation.’

Favourite Beverage: Whiskey

Scott Fitzgerald (September 24th 1896 – December 21st 1940)

Scott Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, who is widely accepted as being one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century. Alcohol and alcoholics hold a prominent place in much of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing, which is perhaps not surprising considering the author was an alcoholic from college days to his death from an alcohol related heart attack aged 44.

Favourite Beverage: Gin Rickey

John Cheever (May 27th 1912 – June 18th 1982)

Sometimes referred to as ‘the Chekhov of the suburbs’, John Cheever is recognised as being one of the most important short story writers of the 20th Century. He also wrote four novels. At the height of his literary career Cheever began a 20 year struggle with alcoholism. He did not admit to having a problem with alcohol until he was sent to a rehabilitation centre in 1972. Cheever managed to quit the habit.

Favourite Beverage: Gin

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