#lit trivia

[literatureismyutopia]

Five Book Titles With Shakespearean Origins

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (from The Tempest)

The Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth (from Julius Caesar)

Alms for Oblivion, Simon Raven (from Troilus and Cressida)

The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner (from Macbeth)

Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust (from Sonnets)

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Writer's Block

Five Writers Who Regularly Suffered From Constipation

Aldous Huxley

Marcel Proust

Sigmun Freud

Samuel Pepys

James Joyce

source: Literary Trivia

[literatureismyutopia]

Bizaare Behavior

Assorted Literary Eccentricities

Percy Bysshe Shelley hated cats so much he once tied a tomcat to a kite in a thunderstorm in the hopes of seeing it electrocuted.

Rudyard Kipling once painted his golf balls red so he could play in the snow.

H.G. Wells always carried two pens with him: a big one for long words, he claimed, and a smaller one for the little ones.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, while at parties, would often imitate a person sitting on a toilet.

Dorothy Parker once bought herself a new typewriter because the ribbon on her old one ran out and she didn't know how to replace.

William Wordsworth once wallpapered an entire room with newspapers.

J.M. Barrie always ordered Brussels sprouts but never ate them. When asked why, he replied because he loved saying the words.

Charles Dickens used to get so excited performing his own work on stage that he sometimes fainted.

Diogenes roamed the streets in broad daylight with a lantern looking for that rare thing: an honest man.

source: Literary Trivia

[literatureismyutopia]

Five Writers And Their Cats

Samuel Johnson His devotion to felines caused certain tension in his relationship with his friend and biographer James Boswell, who was a confirmed cat hater.

Edward Lear  Was so concerned with the sensitivities of his tomcat Foss that, when he changed his house one time, he modeled his new abode exactly on the old house so Foss wouldn't feel out of place.

Edgar Allan Poe   Was so devoted to his favorite cat Catarina, that when he was away he would often write to her. She also used to sit on his shoulder as he wrote.

Colette  Was so besotted that she had up to a dozen of them living with her. She also took in strays and neighbor's cars when they were on vacation.

Raymond Chandler  His black Persian cat named Taki- whom he referred to as his 'secretary'- stayed loyally beside him when he was writing- usually sitting on his paper.

[literatureismyutopia]

Five Writers and their Phobias

James Joyce was afraid of thunder, dogs and firearms.

Sigmund Freud suffered from agoraphobia and siderodromophobia, the fear of trains.

Charles Dickens had a lifelong fear of bats.

Thomas Peacock had a fear of fires.

Fyodor Dostoevsky had a terror of being buried alive.

[literatureismyutopia]

Grave Matters

Five Epitaphs Suggested By Authors For Themselves

Excuse my dust (Dorothy Parker)

The defense rests (John Mortimer)

Don't try it. (Charles Bukowski)

His first holiday. (Dion Boucicault)

This is over my head. (Robert Graves)

source: Literary Trivia

[literatureismyutopia]

Five Authors Who Liked To Write In Bed

Robert Louis Stevenson coughed so much from his tuberculosis that he was often reduced to writing in bed for long periods.

Edith Wharton liked working in bed so much that she once threw a tantrum because the bed in her hotel room wasn't facing the light.

Mark Twain not only wrote in bed, but even stayed in his pajamas while receiving visitors.

Ernest Hemingway wrote in bed when he was suffering from insomnia.

Voltaire often spent sixteen hours a day in bed scribbling away.

[literatureismyutopia]

Celluloid Scribblers

10 Movie Stars Who Wrote Novels

Simone Signoret, Adieu Volodia

David Niven, Once Over Lightly

Jean Harlow, Today is Tonight

George Kennedy, Murder on Location

Tony Curtis, Kid Andrew Cody and Julie Sparrow

Joan Blondell, Center Door Fancy

Mary Astor, A Place Called Saturday

Mae West, The Constant Sinner

Orson Welles, Mr. Arkadin

Carrie Fisher, Postcards from the Edge

source: Literary Trivia