by Camille Hunt
The literary works of great authors are widely known and generally a bit about their personal lives, but their fates are not usually common knowledge. The brooding, troubled writer stands as a common stereotype, and while in some cases it holds true, many authors led perfectly normal, enjoyable lives. Wikipedia defines the concept of the ‘tortured artist’ as “a stock character and real-life stereotype who is in constant torment due to frustrations with art and other people.” Listed below are a few famous historical writers who undoubtedly fuel the dark stigma that frequently surrounds famous poets, novelists, and playwrights, alternating with a few who dispel it.
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Oscar Wilde: Died destitute, without many friends, and under mysterious circumstances in Paris at age 46. - Robert Penn Warren: Died at the age of 84 happy, successful, and as the first poet laureate of the United States.
- Virginia Woolf: Committed suicide at age 59 by filling her pockets with stones and walking into a river near her house to drown herself.
- William Faulkner: A Nobel Prize winner, Faulkner lived happily on his Mississippi farm and died at age 64.
- Ernest Hemingway: Committed suicide at age 61 with a gun.
- James Merrill: Son of investment banker Charles E Merrill, co-founder of the brokerage firm Merrill Lynch, James Merrill grew up extraordinarily wealthy. After winning virtually every literary prize known to man, Merrill died at age 68 of a heart attack while on vacation.
The Brontë Sisters: All three died young of tuberculosis within less than seven years of each other. Emily died at the age of 30 in 1848, the same year that Wuthering Heights was published. Anne died at age 29 in 1849. Charlotte lived on until 1855, dying at age 38, three weeks before her 39th- Henry James: Well-travelled and exceptionally educated in his youth, James became a British socialite. He travelled between Europe and America at various points in his life; though born in the United States, James became a naturalized English citizen in 1915. He died renowned as a great writer of his century at age 72.
- Tennessee Williams: Choked on a bottle cap and died of suffocation. Williams had developed a drug and alcohol problem over the course of a steady decline in his career. By the time of his death, Williams had fallen from the spotlight and into a line of failed productions, never again achieving the same success as he experienced with hits like “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
- Geoffrey Chaucer: Born to an affluent London wine merchant between 1340 and 1344, Chaucer flourished in multiple positions thanks to his father’s connections. He received a life pension from King Edward III of England, and traveled abroad on diplomatic missions. Eventually elected a justice of the peace and member of Parliament and considered today the “Father of English literature,” Chaucer died at age 57, well past the average life expectancy in medieval England.
Edgar Allen Poe: Death is a mystery (fitting). Poe was found semi-conscious in a gutter, and never regained enough consciousness to explain what happened to him. Theories of how he got there include: beating, cooping, alcohol abuse, carbon monoxide poisoning, heavy metal poisoning, rabies, a brain tumor, the flu, and murder. Died at age 40.- Harper Lee: Born in Monroeville, Alabama in 1926, Harper Lee wrote beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960). Lee published her second novel, a sequel to To Kill A Mocking Bird, fifty-five years later. She aided author and childhood friend Truman Capote in writing his blockbuster nonfiction piece, In Cold Blood (1966). Lee died this last month (February 19, 2016) at age 89 after living a quiet life between New York City and her home in Monroeville during which she made frequent and generous donations to charity.
- Truman Capote: Interestingly enough, his final work, Answered Prayers, features Tennessee Williams as a minor character. Answered Prayers, which essentially exposed the inner secrets of Manhattan’s elite and turned most of his high society friends against him, sent him into a tailspin of drug and alcohol abuse, the cause of death. The complete manuscript was never found; Random House published only the 180-some-odd pages that had been previously been released in magazines.
So, must writers, like the Brontë sisters, undergo immense suffering before their works reach the peak of recognition? Or can one, like James Merrill, enjoy a life of privilege and success, only to become just as renowned in the literary world? My list above debunks the common assumption that all history’s most talented writers were tortured, twisted souls. True, some did peak earlier in in their careers, the genius of their works recognized posthumously, but I find the ratio between those authors who found lasting success during their lifetime and those who did not fairly equal.