Lesser known books by known authors

[Dark Muse]

When it comes to classical writers often times there will be one or two books that become more or less synonymous with the authors name, and I think sometimes other works by these authors may become overshadowed by the more popularized books. I think often times, people will tend to go and read the books that are most well known, but than not really take the time to look into further work by the author.

So what books by noted authors do you think have not received the recognition that they deserve?

[book_jones]

I'm sure I can think of more, but I can only think of one right now.

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. While Steinbeck is mostly known for his longer and more serious novels, this shorter, more lighthearted novel is one of my favorites.

[Leabhar]

Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell.

[stlukesguild]

I wouldn't call Cannery Row unknown by any stretch of the imagination. They even made it into a movie.

Kafka's Parables and Paradoxes which contains aphorisms, parables, etc... not collected in the short stories collections... and his Blue Octavo Notebooks which collect more short writings from private journals.

Dante's La Vita Nuova (The New Life)... well translated by Mark Musa, although I will always love Dante Gabriel Rossetti's marvelous version. A lovely collection of prose and sonnets that sets the satge for the Comedia.

Speaking of Rossetti... he is almost certainly under-rated himself... and especially his marvelous little book, The Early Italian Poets, which contains La Vita Nuova... and other poems by Dante, as well as marvelous translations of Cavalcanti and others. Rossetti honed his skills as a poet through his translations.

Boris Pasternak- My Sister, Life... in the English-speaking world it seems as if Pasternak is known solely for Dr. Zhivago... and yet Pasternak was THE great Russian poet of the century... recognized as such by other poets of such stature as Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam, and Yevgeny Yevtuschenko. This collection has huge reputation and strikes me... in translation I will admit... as to singing with a crystalline music that reminds me of Rilke.

Baudelaire- The Prose Poems... Les Fleurs du Mal is Baudelaire's central text... deservedly... but don't overlook the prose poems.

[Dark Muse]

Dante's La Vita Nuova (The New Life)... well translated by Mark Musa, although I will always love Dante Gabriel Rossetti's marvelous version. A lovely collection of prose and sonnets that sets the satge for the Comedia.

Speaking of Rossetti... he is almost certainly under-rated himself... and especially his marvelous little book, The Early Italian Poets, which contains La Vita Nuova... and other poems by Dante, as well as marvelous translations of Cavalcanti and others. Rossetti honed his skills as a poet through his translations.

I love Rossetti

[book_jones]

I wouldn't call Cannery Row unknown by any stretch of the imagination. They even made it into a movie.

Well no book by a famous author is going to be completely unknown. Especially not one in the 20th century. Most Steinbeck books were made into movies. The question was simply books that have not received the recognition they have deserved. I believe that Cannery Row is one of the best books ever written. I will agree that The Grapes of Wrath is better, but this might be his second greatest book. When people are discussing the best Steinbeck, this one rarely comes up.

And for the record, the movie was actually parts of this book and Sweet Thursday squished together. People who have seen the movie really have no idea what the book is about. I guess that's somewhat normal for movie versions though.

[aeroport]

Pierre; or, The Ambiguities by Melville. And it should stay 'lesser known'. Perhaps I shouldn't even have mentioned it. Stay away, dear reader!

[JBI]

Also, you may wish to consider Ugo Foscolo, who does not have nearly a wide enough English speaking audience.

[Dark Muse]

I will look up the name and look into some of his work. I always like to be introduced to new things

[stlukesguild]

JBI... I was going to ask you if you had read anything by Foscolo. All I've come across in English is his Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis and his poem Of Tombs or Sepulchers.

[JBI]

I'm using Italian Wikisource, but I am unable to find on Amazon anything but the Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis. Perhaps nothing else exists, which is quite sad really, since he was quite the poet.

[johann cruyff]

Invitation to a Beheading - Nabokov

What a great book, I really liked it. Too bad it's almost never listed as one of his best works.

[Dark Muse]

I do like the titile hehe

[WICKES]

Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell.

good one...it is a really great book.

Those Barren Leaves by Aldous Huxley (he is mainly remembered for Brave New World and his interest in psychedelics, which is a shame beacuse his early stuff, satirising the British upper classes and intelligensia is his best)

Hermann Hesse's 'Knulp' and 'The Prodigy'

Evelyn Waugh: Decline and Fall (imo better than Brideshead Revisited)

[kelby_lake]

The Loved One- Evelyn Waugh
The Last Tycoon- F Scott Fitzgerald (think gatsby but in hollywood)