Authors with the most interesting lives

[Dark Muse]

I sometimes feel like I ought to get to know more about some of the authors who I read, particularly the ones whom I like, and are considered among the classics and more notable authors, but I have to be honest, biographies often just don't interest me that much, but on occasions when primarily through school I had been forced to learn more about the background of authors, there have been some that intrigued, and in the end, I enjoyed learning more about them, even if I am not easily self-motivated to look into their lives, when it has been forced upon me I often enjoyed it.

So which authors have you found to have the most interesting lives?

And if there are any biographies in particular on certain authors you want to recommend.

[Dark Lady]

I used to put off actual study of texts by telling myself I needed some 'background knowledge' first. That background reading would inevitably end up with me reading up on the writer's life.

One writer's life I remember about from lectures and my own reading is F. Scott Fitzgerald and by extension, though I haven't read her novel yet, Zelda Fitzgerald. What a stormy marriage those two had.

[March Hare]

Hemingway is the first one that comes to mind. Adventurous at least.

Woolf and the Bloomsbury set have always piqued my interest. I never delved into it. I could be wrong.

[amarna]

The life of Jaroslav Hasek, the Czech author who wrote "The brave Soldier Svejk", was rather adventurous. He founded an anarchist party (he promised a pocket aquarium to every of his voters), became subeditor of a zoological journal but was fired because he wrote several articles about imaginary animals, the breeding of werewolves and alcoholism among parrots. Afterwards he lived on stealing and selling dogs, went to Russia and became officer of the Red Army, and was charged with bigamy after he returned to Prague.

[Desolation]

I find Dostoevsky really interesting because all of his greatest characters(other than Prince Myshkin) are based on things that he hates about society.

Apparently I find Jack Kerouac's life pretty interesting too, as I've read all of his autobiographical works.

Also, with some authors, like Rimbaud and Celine, I think it's best to avoid their life stories, as it ruins the work(which is kind of odd with Celine, since his stuff is largely autobiographical as well).

[Dark Lady]

Ooh. Just thought of another writer's life I was very interested in for a while; Mary Wollstonecraft.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Oscar Wilde as an obvious starter. Mostly all of the Romantic poets had interesting lives.

[Dark Muse]

For a project in highschool I read an biography on Jack London which I found really interesting, he did have quite the fascinating life I thought, and quite adventerous.

I also did some research on E.M Forester for an English class and found him to be pretty interesting as well, and though I haven't read much upon him, some of the things I heard about Evelyn Waugh peeked my currisoty.

I have a biography on Herman Hesse becasue I was interested in him after Sidharatha, and some of the things I heard about his life, though I haven't read it yet.

I have also read some background on Kafka and Tolstoy that have peeked my interest.

[Michael T]

If you count poetry, then Sir Phillip Sidney must be right up there.

[amarna]

And mad-bad-dangerous-to-know Lord Byron, I suppose.

[Jeremiah Jazzz]

The life of Jaroslav Hasek, the Czech author who wrote "The brave Soldier Svejk", was rather adventurous. He founded an anarchist party (he promised a pocket aquarium to every of his voters), became subeditor of a zoological journal but was fired because he wrote several articles about imaginary animals, the breeding of werewolves and alcoholism among parrots. Afterwards he lived on stealing and selling dogs, went to Russia and became officer of the Red Army, and was charged with bigamy after he returned to Prague.

definitely! He was a goofball bohemian turned anarchist.


I find Dostoevsky really interesting because all of his greatest characters(other than Prince Myshkin) are based on things that he hates about society.

Not even that, the fact that he was pardoned at the last moment had a deep psychological turn on him that is found in his books, primarily the episode in The Idiot where Myshkin explains the face of a man before being beheaded. You can certainly see the connection. Of course you could also go into the exile in Siberia, atheist turned christian, etc...

[Helga]

I agree with most of the above choices, Wilde and Hemingway had very interesting lives. I agree that biographies aren't always the interesting but I loved John Fowles biography...

[jinjang]

Mark Twain, the pen name for Samuel Langhorne Clemens, would be my choice.

[Frankie Anne]

I read a fascinating biography about Raymond Chandler.

[mayneverhave]

Very few authors' lives are uninteresting to me. Oddly enough, Faulkner's life story, aside from some minor war experience and alcoholism, is pretty unimportant to me.

I enjoy Dante's exile, Christopher Marlowe's espionage, and Pushkin's rash and untimely end.

[grotto]

I have always liked to know a little about the authors that I have enjoyed reading, mostly just factual information though, (their history, relationships, where they came from, time table, locations, travels, moral convictions, struggles in life and the like). Some of my favorite writers though have been very, “how should I say”, morally picked apart by their biographers for lack of a better word and sometimes the biographers have overshadowing opinions that give the authors original works a black eye for years or centuries to follow.

Some of the biographical opinions of writer like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Hesse, Kafka, Heidegger and Rilke to name a few, not to mention many of the Eastern writers have taken years to clear up and many potential readers still turn their nose up at these writers by bigotries’ statements that have been made generations ago, yet still live on. Just look at what it takes to get some to read The Bible, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Shakespeare? Just for the reference alone to modern literature! Be it overflowing glory or mud raking, it doesn’t matter; I like the author’s works to stand on their own and not to have to be justified by a biographer. I do like the mystery of trying to figure out what was in the mind of the author, having someone tell me what they were thinking kind of spoils it for me, like the feeling you get after seeing a movie of one of your favorite books and standing up saying, No you idiots! You got it all wrong! Didn’t you read the book!

I am a curious type though and will always raise an eye to a bit of historical information; I will however keep that one eye open for the motive in that biography. Just look at the garbage that is on the shelves in any book store called biography, a week after Obama picked Biden as his running mate, there must have been 20 books out on the vise president alone! Yeah, they are, I’m sure all worth reading now aren’t they? Hehe.

[wat??]

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Ernest Hemingway

[sixsmith]

Interesting topic. Many authors live rather prosaic lives precisely because they are writing when others are living (as it were). I think its that sacrifice that prevents many from turning to the writing life.

No one has mentioned Norman Mailer yet. War veteran, heralded novelist at 25, 7 wives one of whom he stabbed, would-be pugilist, drug taker, ran for mayor of New York, film-maker, had a convicted murderer released from prison only to see him murder again, trenchant critic of the feminist movement, pioneering journalist, all-round media whore.

Orwell's short life was quite interesting. Repudiating his middle class upbringing to live in relative poverty. Imperial policeman and member of the Spanish resistance.

Hunter S Thompson also rates a mention.

[wat??]

Interesting topic. Many authors live rather prosaic lives precisely because they are writing when others are living (as it were). I think its that sacrifice that prevents many from turning to the writing life.



Well I don't know about this. Most people work eight hours (or more) a day, five days a week. Do you really think that writers, on average, spend significantly more time working?

[JBI]

I think Baudelaire is the archetype for this question, then probably Byron.

[sixsmith]

Well I don't know about this. Most people work eight hours (or more) a day, five days a week. Do you really think that writers, on average, spend significantly more time working?

Good point. I'm thinking of some stereotypical examples. Perhaps this is an excuse i've developed for not pursuing a more creative existence.

[billl]

I'm not saying he's in the top 5 or anything, but Ken Kesey had a pretty interesting life.

[stlukesguild]

Nerval!

[mortalterror]

Archilochus- Mercenary
Bertran de Born- Baron. Troubadour. Rebelled from king. Fought dynastic struggle with brother. Became a monk
Francois Villon- Thief. Vagabond. Murderer.
Christopher Marlowe- Spy. Stabbed in the head in a bar arguing over the bill.
Sir Walter Raleigh- Noble. Took part in Irish massacres. Adventurer, sailed to New World in search of El Dorado. Founder of the lost colony on Roanoke. Fought Spanish Armada. Imprissoned in the Tower of London. Beheaded.
Lope De Vega- Jailed for libel. Exiled from his native Castile. Sailed with the Spanish Armada.
Cervantes- Served as a soldier. Captured by pirates. Jailed for embezzling.
John Wilmot- Nobility. War hero. Heiress abductor/seducer. Brawled with cops. Impersonated physician. Practiced on barren women “not without success”. Died of syphilis and alcoholism.
Marquis De Sade- Nobility. Fought in 7 Years War. Imprisoned for rape, poisoning, insanity. Escaped. Recaptured. Wrote in his own blood. Revolutionary. Politician. Imprissoned again. Released. Imprissoned for obscenity.
Joseph Conrad- Sailor.
Jack London- Vagabond. Boxer. Sailor. Gold miner.
W. Somerset Maugham- Spy.
Ernest Hemingway- Adventurer. Boxer. Bullfighter. Big game hunter. Multiple plane crashes. Ambulance driver WWI. Attempted to save others while wounded in leg. Covered Spanish Civil War as Journalist. Killed two nazi SS soldiers with grenade while a non-combatant observer WWII. Suicide.
George Orwell- Cop. Vagabond. Anarchist. Fought in the Spanish Civil War. Shot in neck.
James Jones- Soldier.

[Josh Wardrip]

William S. Burroughs, for obvious reasons. In addition to the comprehensive Ted Morgan biography, there's a pretty good book that just covers the brief time he spent living in south Texas.

Stephen Crane's short life was pretty interesting.

Oh, and how about Mishima? He committed seppuku after attempting a coup d'etat.

[My name is red]

Tennesse Williams!:bawling:

I don't know any other can beat this one.

[kelby_lake]

Antonin Artaud was kinda cool.


And mad-bad-dangerous-to-know Lord Byron, I suppose.
He was kinda pretty, wasn't he?

[MANICHAEAN]

Graham Greene. Converted to Catholicism & then as a writer, questioned the very foundations of Church teachings. Went back to the basic principles of Christianity & ruthlessly placed it side by side with modern day reality. Try "The Power & The Glory". A whiskey priest, state persecution in Mexico, and a modern day Judas. "The Hon Consul". The disenchanted ex-priest turned guerrilla & his separation from an institution which was the crux & nexus of his very existence.

[lupe]

Rimbaud: very interesting and controversial
Kerouac: he lived his own myth

[Pecksie]

Some who haven't yet been specifically mentioned:

* Shelley and his wife Mary left the stifling conventions of English society for Italy's more relaxed lifestyle in 1818. They had married in late 1816 after his first wife committed suicide. In the continent they led a nomadic existence which took them to many different cities until he was drowned off the coast of Livorno in 1822. Two of their children died in Italy, probably as as a consequence of these wanderings. Percy may have had an ongoing affair with Mary's stepsister Claire, who was a part of their household. There's also a mysterious baby involved, who some biographers argue was Shelley and Claire's.

* Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga had a lifelong history of suicides and accidental deaths. His stepfather committed suicide after being crippled in an accident. As a young man Quiroga accidentally killed a friend while showing him how to clean a gun the friend had purchased for a duel, an event that haunted him for the rest of his life. His first wife, who was severely depressed, killed herself after a violent argument with him. These deaths are probably behind some at least of his best-known horror stories, which are as good as Poe's. His love life was troubled, and he had an unfortunate tendency to fall in love with women much younger than himself. In 1937, on learning he had cancer, Quiroga committed suicide with laudanum.
Besides that, he spent part of his life in the Misiones jungle, living by his hands (and wits); some of his best stories were inspired by his life in the wild.

* Count Tolstoy, a nobleman of liberal tendencies, married an eighteen-year-old woman to whom he gave his diaries to read, believing that there should be no secrets between them. The naive young girl was extremely upset by reading about his love affair with a female serf with whom he had had a son and who was still living on the estate. The chronicle of their fifty-odd years of marriage makes wonderful reading. Tolstoy liked to work on a par with his serfs, and thrived on hard work and austerity. As he grew older, he became more and more preoccupied with religion and mysticism, attracting several parasites and hangers-on along the way. He died at a train station, after fleeing his home in an attempt to escape his increasingly troubled marriage, an enterprise into which he was goaded by a malicious daughter.

* Alexander Pushkin, the great-grandson of a black slave given as a present to czar Peter the Great (and who subsequently rose to high command in the army), had a history of trouble with the authorities due to his subversive writings and acerbic wit. When he was in his thirties, he married an eighteen-year-old beauty and socialite, Natalia Goncharova, and it was in duel over her with the French rake Georges d'Anthès that he was killed.

[Pecksie]

Some who haven't yet been specifically mentioned:


Shelley and his wife Mary left the stifling conventions of English society for Italy's more relaxed lifestyle in 1818. They had married in late 1816 after his first wife committed suicide. In the continent they led a nomadic existence which took them to many different cities until he was drowned off the coast of Livorno in 1822. Two of their children died in Italy, probably as as a consequence of these wanderings. Percy may have had an ongoing affair with Mary's stepsister Claire, who was a part of their household. There's also a mysterious baby involved, who some biographers argue was Shelley and Claire's.


Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga had a lifelong history of suicides and accidental deaths. His stepfather committed suicide after being crippled in an accident. As a young man Quiroga accidentally killed a friend while showing him how to clean a gun the friend had purchased for a duel, an event that haunted him for the rest of his life. His first wife, who was severely depressed, killed herself after a violent argument with him. These deaths are probably behind some at least of his best-known horror stories, which are as good as Poe's. His love life was troubled, and he had an unfortunate tendency to fall in love with women much younger than himself. In 1937, on learning he had cancer, Quiroga committed suicide with laudanum.
Besides that, he spent part of his life in the Misiones jungle, living by his hands (and wits); some of his best stories were inspired by his life in the wild.


Count Tolstoy, a nobleman of liberal tendencies, married an eighteen-year-old woman to whom he gave his diaries to read, believing that there should be no secrets between them. The chronicle of their fifty-odd years of marriage makes wonderful reading. Tolstoy liked to work on a par with his serfs, and thrived on hard work and austerity. As he grew older, he became more and more preoccupied with religion and mysticism, attracting several parasites and hangers-on along the way. He died at a train station, after fleeing his home in an attempt to escape his increasingly troubled marriage, an enterprise into which he was goaded by a malicious daughter.


Alexander Pushkin, the great-grandson of a black slave given as a present to czar Peter the Great (and who subsequently rose to high command in the army), had a history of trouble with the authorities due to his subversive writings and acerbic wit. When he was in his thirties, he married an eighteen-year-old beauty and socialite, Natalia Goncharova, and it was in duel over her with the French rake Georges d'Anthès that he was killed.

[Honest]

I would say: Virginia Woolf who committed suicide. Sorry if it has been already mentioned.

[bluosean]

Stephen Crane and Cervantes. Cervantes was a slave for six years. And Rudyard Kipling. Kipling couldnt avoid the hardships that happened to him while he was young. When he made money he started to take life easy.

[Kafka's Crow]

Comte de Lautreamont (Isidore Lucien Ducasse): Born in Montevideo, came to Paris at very young age. Wrote strange poems that later became model works for the Surrealists. Predicted his own young death in his poem, created the most abominable anti-hero in Maldaror. He experience two painful sieges: in Montevideo and later in Paris during his very short life and died before the latter was over at the age of 24. Left behind a strange poem which alone is enough to guarantee him immortality. Now here is a boy-writer's dream life!