Secret Lives of Great Authors

What Your Teachers Never Told You about Famous Novelists, Poets, and Playwrights

Part of Secret Lives

Illustrated by Mario Zucca
Look inside
Paperback
$16.95 US
On sale Feb 01, 2008 | 304 Pages | 9781594742118

See Additional Formats
The strange-but-true tales of the rumors, idiosyncrasies, and feuds of literary legends—including Agatha Christie, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Shakespeare, and more

This fascinating—and shocking!—tour through the lives of classic literature icons is the perfect stocking stuffer for book lovers and fans of little-known history.

 
With outrageous and uncensored profiles of everyone from William Shakespeare to Thomas Pynchon, Secret Lives of Great Authors tackles all the tough questions your high school teachers were afraid to ask: What’s the deal with Lewis Carroll and little girls? Is it true that J. D. Salinger drank his own urine? How many women—and men—did Lord Byron actually sleep with? And why was Ayn Rand such a big fan of Charlie’s Angels? Classic literature was never this much fun in school!

Authors included:
William Shakespeare
Lord Byron
Honoré de Balzac
Edgar Allan Poe
Charles Dickens
The Brontë Sisters
Henry David Thoreau
Walt Whitman
Leo Tolstoy
Emily Dickinson
Lewis Carroll
Louisa May Alcott
Mark Twain
Oscar Wilde
Arthur Conan Doyle
W.B. Yeats
H.G. Wells
Gertrude Stein
Jack London
Virginia Woolf
James Joyce
Franz Kafka
T.S. Eliot
Agatha Christie
J.R.R. Tolkien
F. Scott Fitzgerald
William Faulkner
Ernest Hemingway
Ayn Rand
Jean-Paul Sartre
Richard Wright
William Burroughs
Carson McCullers
J.D. Salinger
Jack Kerouac
Kurt Vonnegut
Toni Morrison
Sylvia Plath
Thomas Pynchon
Robert Schnakenberg is the author of several nonfiction books including Distory: A Treasury of Historical Insults. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. 

About

The strange-but-true tales of the rumors, idiosyncrasies, and feuds of literary legends—including Agatha Christie, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Shakespeare, and more

This fascinating—and shocking!—tour through the lives of classic literature icons is the perfect stocking stuffer for book lovers and fans of little-known history.

 
With outrageous and uncensored profiles of everyone from William Shakespeare to Thomas Pynchon, Secret Lives of Great Authors tackles all the tough questions your high school teachers were afraid to ask: What’s the deal with Lewis Carroll and little girls? Is it true that J. D. Salinger drank his own urine? How many women—and men—did Lord Byron actually sleep with? And why was Ayn Rand such a big fan of Charlie’s Angels? Classic literature was never this much fun in school!

Authors included:
William Shakespeare
Lord Byron
Honoré de Balzac
Edgar Allan Poe
Charles Dickens
The Brontë Sisters
Henry David Thoreau
Walt Whitman
Leo Tolstoy
Emily Dickinson
Lewis Carroll
Louisa May Alcott
Mark Twain
Oscar Wilde
Arthur Conan Doyle
W.B. Yeats
H.G. Wells
Gertrude Stein
Jack London
Virginia Woolf
James Joyce
Franz Kafka
T.S. Eliot
Agatha Christie
J.R.R. Tolkien
F. Scott Fitzgerald
William Faulkner
Ernest Hemingway
Ayn Rand
Jean-Paul Sartre
Richard Wright
William Burroughs
Carson McCullers
J.D. Salinger
Jack Kerouac
Kurt Vonnegut
Toni Morrison
Sylvia Plath
Thomas Pynchon

Author

Robert Schnakenberg is the author of several nonfiction books including Distory: A Treasury of Historical Insults. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. 

Three Penguin Random House Authors Win Pulitzer Prizes

On Monday, May 5, three Penguin Random House authors were honored with a Pulitzer Prize. Established in 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes are the most prestigious awards in American letters. To date, PRH has 143 Pulitzer Prize winners, including William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Josh Steinbeck, Ron Chernow, Anne Applebaum, Colson Whitehead, and many more. Take a look at our 2025 Pulitzer Prize

Read more

Books for LGBTQIA+ Pride Month

In June we celebrate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual + (LGBTQIA+) Pride Month, which honors the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan. Pride Month is a time to both celebrate the accomplishments of those in the LGBTQ+ community and recognize the ongoing struggles faced by many across the world who wish to live

Read more