Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Literary One Hit Wonders

To Kill a Mockingbird is pretty well known as Harper Lee's only published book.

The Bronte Sisters, Emily, Charlotte and Anne were all authors but many consider the greatest work from the three to be Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

It was her only published book.

Did you know that Margaret Mitchell never wrote another book after Gone with the Wind

And Anna Sewell's classic, beautiful literary work, Black Beauty, was her only book.

This one I found really interesting. Oscar Wilde. He was really famous for writing plays mostly. (I looked that up to be sure) But this is his one and only book.


Boris Pasternak...but he was Russian...who can figure Russians. And wasn't Dr. Zhivago really LONG. Or am I mixing it up with other Russian books. My knowledge of Russian literature is, to be brutally honest, slim.

The only other thing I know about Sylvia Plath is that she killed herself. So downer there.

5 comments:

Julia M. Reffner said...

You've mentioned some of my favorite authors. I have to comment on Oscar Wilde that I believe his best works are his plays (I think we can learn a lot about writing comedy from The Importance of Being Earnest and The Ideal Husband), although his lifestyle was very sad.

Mary Connealy said...

The Portrait of Dorian Gray was wildly famous. I wonder why he didn't convert his plays into books. You know, come at us from every direction. He must've been keeping busy. :)

tbsomeday said...

if i ever were able to muster the talent and determination to write a book...it would pretty likely be only once also :)

Tales of Whimsy said...

What a fun post. I never thought about them being one hit wonders before ;)

Winona Cross said...

Love this post, Mary. I knew most of these and was quite proud of myself. Thanks to University Lit classes.