TIL: Today I Learned

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Kyriakos said:
Go back 100, 150, 200 years and try to find who the most famous authors were then - almost always it is people you won't have heard of, nor will you hear about them again. Though in the case of the english language (due to the US) a few may have lingered around longer than they deserved (due to the rippling effect with 'popular culture' and the movie industry)
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Hm. I've read some Dickens, some Twain, and Oliver! was a very good musical (in my case it was "see the musical, learn songs from the musical in Grade 7 music class, then read the original novel").

But why stop at 200 years? People still enjoy Shakespeare, whether in written form, performed on stage, in movie form, or adapted by various other genres (ie. the movie "Forbidden Planet" is a science fiction version of The Tempest and West Side Story is a musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet).

Or how about Dumas? The Three Musketeers is still popular, as is The Count of Monte Cristo. I have computer games based on those books, I enjoyed the Musketeers movies (the ones with Richard Chamberlain, Oliver Reed, and Michael York), and of the two versions I've seen of The Man in the Iron Mask (also based on Dumas), I prefer the Richard Chamberlain one. As for cross-genre adaptations, Ben Bova's novel Mercury is simultaneously part of his Grand Tour series and an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo.
 
I think the question is whether the authors we look back on as "the giants from their times" were actually giants, or even recognized in the times. I picked out one and went looking, and yes Ayn Rand was actually as well known in her own time as she is now...but I'm willing to ponder whether she is an exception.

So...a quick check of the not always reliable Wikipedia gives this quote about Charles Dickens: "His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime,..." Hmm.

Shakespeare might tilt more in favor of @Kyriakos' premise. He was certainly successful in his own time, but it seems very unlikely that anyone was watching plays by a guy who seems to have been little known outside London and guessing he would be talked about 400 years later as "the greatest of all time."

Dumas appears to have been extremely successful during his lifetime as well.

Kyriakos, I think your premise is shot.
 
Timsup2nothin said:
I think the question is whether the authors we look back on as "the giants from their times" were actually giants, or even recognized in the times. I picked out one and went looking, and yes Ayn Rand was actually as well known in her own time as she is now...but I'm willing to ponder whether she is an exception.

So...a quick check of the not always reliable Wikipedia gives this quote about Charles Dickens: "His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime,..." Hmm.

Shakespeare might tilt more in favor of @Kyriakos' premise. He was certainly successful in his own time, but it seems very unlikely that anyone was watching plays by a guy who seems to have been little known outside London and guessing he would be talked about 400 years later as "the greatest of all time."

Dumas appears to have been extremely successful during his lifetime as well.

Kyriakos, I think your premise is shot.
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Likely not enough examples to shoot down a premise. Dickens was extremely famous, yes, but so was his friend, Wilkie Collins. I have to suppose he isn't equally famous now, wouldn't you think?
At least he can still be googled and read, if you try - which is more than can be said for others who were known in the past.
 
Of course he's not equally famous, but if you've studied Gothic literature, you must have come across the arguably first author in the field.

A more interesting case is Lord Dunsany, the Anglo-Irish Edwardian writer who was perhaps the most famous writer of his day.
 
Arakhor said:
Of course he's not equally famous, but if you've studied Gothic literature, you must have come across the arguably first author in the field.

A more interesting case is Lord Dunsany, the Anglo-Irish Edwardian writer who was perhaps the most famous writer of his day.
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I didn't know that he was famous back then - but he was an actual lord anyway :)

I love some of his short stories.
 
Timsup2nothin said:
A writer of fiction in the 1940s who was famous enough that her books were consistently picked up for movie adaptations, and we are still stuck with her delusions of philosophic grandeur today: Ayn Rand.
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aimeeandbeatles said:
...I always assumed Ayn Rand was a male and never actually checked.

So, uh, TIL?
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Lexicus said:
lmao really?
just to clarify, I'm not judging you at all because she's obviously not worth looking into or expending any mental energy on, but it's funny to me nonetheless
I really hate Ayn Rand
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After The Simpsons episode "A Streetcar Named Marge" was shown, an episode that featured as a section "The Ayn Rand School for Tots", the creators received a message from the Ayn Rand society. The society gave the creators a lot of praise for mentioning Ayn Rand and her philosophy, then ended with "By the way, were you making fun of us?"
 
Kyriakos said:
Likely not enough examples to shoot down a premise. Dickens was extremely famous, yes, but so was his friend, Wilkie Collins. I have to suppose he isn't equally famous now, wouldn't you think?
At least he can still be googled and read, if you try - which is more than can be said for others who were known in the past.
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But that's the reverse of your premise, I thought. I was under the impression you were suggesting that authors often followed a similar path as painters, where they starve in anonymity in life only to be regarded as masters after they're dead.
 
Timsup2nothin said:
But that's the reverse of your premise, I thought. I was under the impression you were suggesting that authors often followed a similar path as painters, where they starve in anonymity in life only to be regarded as masters after they're dead.
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There are some cases of that, yes. Eg Kafka was unknown (pretty much)*.
But I was talking about how common it is that people become famous during their time as writers, and then fade away. There are many cases there, and if it isn't US-related it is certainly harder to even know of the names now.

Relative prominence is another thing. Eg afaik for a time Oscar Wilde was the most famous author in Britain (well, going by his own statement in the letter he wrote from prison, anyway :p ).

*afaik, Fernando Pessoa was also generally unknown, while now he is something like the major author of modern portoguese letters.

Goes without saying that some are very famous in their time and remain known and read - many examples there. But it isn't safe to bet that if one is famous in their time, they will still be read decades after their death.

Arakhor said:
but if you've studied Gothic literature, you must have come across the arguably first author in the field.
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This perplexed me, a bit. Not that I am some authority on Wilkie Collins, but I have a passing familiarity with his list of works and have read a couple of the short stories - along with synopses of his novels. Did you mean to say not gothic, but detective story?
 
I have heard The Woman in White being described as one of the first Gothic novels. If you prefer the mystery classification instead, either way.
 
Zkribbler said:
IIRC, Kafka did not publish during his lifetime.
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He did, but iirc only four books. The Metamorphosis, two story collections and possibly some tome with The Penal Colony and the first chapter of Amerika in some literary magazine :)
I know for a fact that he did publish the Metamorphosis and prior to that a short story collection, while in the end of his life he published another story collection (A Country Doctor and other stories).
 
If you go around Iqaluit, there's a few places where you can see the shadow of the camera, mounted on a backpack and being carried around on foot. :lol:
 
aimeeandbeatles said:
If you go around Iqaluit, there's a few places where you can see the shadow of the camera, mounted on a backpack and being carried around on foot. :lol:
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It's a very small town. And cold too.
 
I've always wanted to visit the Churchill area. I had dreams as a kid of ending up stranded in the craggy marshes just north of there on the border of Nunavut and needing to survive Hatchet-style. :lol: Nowadays I just think it'd be interesting to see what it's like there.

Not the marshes. They're completely inaccessible. And I'd die. But Churchill could still be neat to check out.
 
The bears will eat you.
 
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