Odd Type Writers: From Joyce and Dickens to Wharton and Welty, the Obsessive Habits and Quirky Tec hniques of Great Authors
by Celia Blue Johnson
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Description
"Every great writer has a unique way of setting a story to paper. And, it turns out, many of these writers used methods that were just as inventive as the works they produced. Odd Type Writers explores the quirky writing habits of renowned authors, including Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, and Alexandre Dumas, among many others. * To meet his deadline for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo placed himself under strict house arrest, locking up all of his clothes and wearing nothing but show more a large gray shawl until he finished the book. * Virginia Woolf used purple ink for love letters, diary entries, and to pen her acclaimed novel Mrs. Dalloway. Also, in her twenties, she preferred to write while standing up. * Friedrich Schiller kept a drawer full of rotten apples in his study. According to his wife, he couldn't work without that pungent odor wafting into his nose. * Eudora Welty evaluated her work with scissors handy. If anything needed to be moved, she cut it right out of the page. Then she'd use pins to put the section in its new place. In Odd Type Writers, you'll find out why James Joyce wrote in crayon, what Edgar Allan Poe's cat was doing on his shoulder, why Vladimir Nabokov had to keep his feet wet, and the other peculiar tools and eccentric methods used to compose some of the greatest works of all time"-- show lessTags
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CGlanovsky One a meditation on the practice and practitioners of writing, the other on the practice and practitioners of reading.
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An interesting and sometimes entertaining collection of essays about well-known writers and there habits, rituals, quirks, superstitions, obsessions, muses, and more.
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Author Information
4+ Works 200 Members
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Odd Type Writers: From Joyce and Dickens to Wharton and Welty, the Obsessive Habits and Quirky Techniques of Great Authors
- Original title
- Odd Type Writers: From Joyce and Dickens to Wharton and Welty, the Obsessive Habits and Quirky Techniques of Great Authors
- People/Characters*
- Friedrich Schiller; Honoré de Balzac; Alexandre Dumas père; Victor Hugo; Edgar Allan Poe; Charles Dickens (show all 20); Edith Wharton; Marcel Proust; Colette; Gertrude Stein; Jack London; Virginia Woolf; James Joyce; D. H. Lawrence; Vladimir Nabokov; Ernest Hemingway; John Steinbeck; Eudora Welty; Truman Capote; Flannery O'Connor
- Dedication*
- For Ian
- First words*
- The first time I visited Chumley's I got lost on the way.
- Last words*
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"[...] I felt as if I were dealing with a giant of enthusiasm streaked with doubt that was subdued by ice cream, which I forced myself to eat in oder to help him."
- Original language*
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genre
- Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 808.02 — Literature & rhetoric Literature, rhetoric & criticism Rhetoric and collections of literary texts from more than two literatures Rhetoric and anthologies Authorship techniques, plagiarism, editorial techniques
- LCC
- PN165 .J64 — Language and Literature Literature (General) Literature (General) Authorship
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 76
- Popularity
- 411,850
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.63)
- Languages
- English, French
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 1
