Tag - authors’ last words

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15 Bizarre Male Author Facts
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21 Famous Authors’ Last Words

15 Bizarre Male Author Facts

Here are 15 bizarre male author facts.

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Did you know that:

There is an asteroid named after Kurt Vonnegut.

Victor Hugo wrote The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables in the nude. Hugo would order his valet to hide his clothes until after he had finished writing.

Only 10 people attended D. H. Lawrence’s funeral. 1 of them was Aldous Huxley.

Billy Wilder’s epitaph is – I’m a writer but then nobody’s perfect.

William Burroughs accidentally killed his partner Joan Vollmer by shooting her in the head.

WilliamBurroughs

On his marriage document in 1582, William Shakespeare’s name was spelled William Shagspeare.

American music critic and author Gustav Kobbé’s was out sailing when a seaplane misjudged its descent and struck his boat, killing him.

American playwright Tennessee Williams died from swallowing a bottle of eye drops.

In 1912 Ambrose Bierce invented 1 of the earliest emoticons, the snigger point, written as \ ___ /! It was designed to look like a smiling mouth.

Vladimir Nabokov had a ‘genitalia’ cabinet, in which he stored his collection of male butterfly genitalia.

Nabokov

Dr Seuss included the word ‘contraceptive’ in a draft of his children’s book Hop on Pop to make sure the publisher was concentrating.

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.’

John Boyne claims to have written The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas in only 2 and a half days.

Henry David Thoreau’s last words were allegedly, ‘Moose. Indian.’ Perhaps not the most rational last words ever uttered, but apt, considering the subject matter of Thoreau’s writing.

Vladimir Nabokov had a fixation with index cards. The majority of his novels were written out on cards with a pencil. Nabokov also wrote standing up.

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I am the author of the satirical black comedy, Necropolis.

Necropolis

 

21 Famous Authors’ Last Words

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

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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.

Quill

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.

Necropolis

 

 

 

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