Honorable Mentions

Charles Dickens is rightly remembered for such beloved classics as Great Expectations and Oliver Twist -- but his most famous work remains A Christmas Carol. First published on December 17, 1843, the story tells the tale of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, and the three Christmas ghosts who appear throughout Christmas Eve night to warm his heart -- and save his soul. It's been adapted dozens of time for stage and screen, and has become an undeniable staple of the holiday season.

But did you know that A Christmas Carol wasn't Dickens's only ghost story?  Dickens actually wrote a variety of stories featuring ghosts -- some of which, like The Signal-Man, could be considered outright horror thrillers. (The title character of The Signal-Man works on the railway, and is haunted by a specter who appears before him every time a terrible event is to occur.)

Dickens is not the only author whose own wild success actually overshadowed some of his lesser-known efforts. Here are five more authors whose littler-known works are still undeniably worthwhile:



~ Louisa May Alcott's Thrillers

She's best remembered for writing titles that might now be considered part of the "young adult" genre -- classics like Little Women and Eight Cousins. But Louisa May Alcott wrote several stories for older audiences, usually under the pen name "A. M. Barnard" -- and many of those works were not only thrillers, but stories that dealt with radical issues of nineteenth-century sexism and the constraints of society and culture.

Her most critically-acclaimed work is, arguably, the thriller novella Behind a Mask. The story details the life of Jean Muir, a character with a shady past (she was formerly an actress, a considerably more scandalous profession in the nineteenth century) who has reached her thirtieth birthday still a spinster. And then she finds one last chance to fulfill society's expectations of her: she takes the job of governess in a house with two unmarried sons and one unmarried uncle. She means to adopt the mask of a "little woman" herself -- appearing the perfect example of a polite, respectable young lady (she wins her place as governess with a feigned fainting spell in front of the family) until she ensnares a husband. But Jean's motives are far more clever, and downright manipulative, than what you'd see from the March sisters -- though this may not stop you from rooting for her!

Request Behind a Mask from the Catalog



~ Edgar Allan Poe's Detective Stories

Sherlock Holmes is the name we remember, but C. Ausguste Dupin got there first. While Conan Doyle drew on several inspirations for his Sherlock Holmes character (including his med-school professor Dr. Joseph Bell), he was always quick to praise Edgar Allan Poe for his detective stories that paved the way for Sherlock Holmes. ("Where was the detective story," Conan Doyle once asked, "until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?")

Poe is remembered as the master of horror, but he actually wrote in a wide variety of genres, including science fiction and detective stories. In the latter category, he produced three short stories: Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and my personal favorite, The Purloined Letter. The stories star Dupin, an amateur detective (although the word "detective" had not yet been invented) who assisted the police in a trio of bizarre investigations. He's accompanied in his adventures by our unnamed narrator, who serves as Dupin's closest friend and our window into Dupin's world.

Request the Dupin stories from the Catalog



~ Conan Doyle's Historical Fiction

Most Sherlock Holmes fans already know about Arthur Conan Doyle's love-hate relationship with his most famous fictional creation. While Conan Doyle ultimately seemed to be fond enough of his consulting detective (and also loved writing about the adventures of Professor Challenger in such tales as The Lost World), he always considered his best and most important works to be his historical fiction.

Such historical works include extensively-researched novels like The White Company and Sir Nigel, both set during the Hundred Years' War between the royal houses of England and France. There was also Micah Clarke, a coming-of-age story set in seventeenth-century England that details the religious and political tension of the time; and a series of comical short stories about Brigadier Gerard, a soldier in the French Army during the Napoleonic Wars, who Conan Doyle used to comment on the stereotypes and prejudices that the British and French had for one another.

Request The White Company from the Catalog

Request Sir Nigel from the Catalog

Request Micah Clarke from the Catalog

Request the Brigadier Gerard stories from the Catalog



~ Agatha Christie's Love Stories

Agatha Christie remains the best-selling novelist of all time, beloved for her classic mysteries like And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express, as well as such characters as Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. But while she has come to be affectionately known as "the Queen of Crime" due to her incredible skills in the mystery genre, she also wrote half a dozen novels of a different sort entirely.

Using the pen name "Mary Westmacott," Christie wrote a series of romance and family stories, referring to them as "bitter-sweet stories about love." The books enjoyed modest success -- much to Christie's delight, as the novels succeeded under their own merits and not due to her name being on the cover (her identity as Westmacott would remain hidden for nearly two decades). She wrote the Westmacott books throughout her life, telling stories that focused not only on romance, but on family relationships between parents and children or between siblings. The results were among the works she was most proud of.

Read an essay about "Mary Westmacott" written by Rosalind Hicks, Christie's daughter

Request Westmacott books from the Catalog



~ Michael Crichton's Medical Thrillers

Before he was a best-selling author of such novels as The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton was a med student. But while he was earning his MD from Harvard Medical School, Crichton had his first publishing success, writing under the pen names "Jeffery Hudson" and "John Lange."

He published ten mystery thrillers that sold well enough to help pay his way through med school -- no mean feat, as any pressed-for-time med student could tell you. While Crichton viewed them mostly as pulpy entertainment ("I write them fast and the reader reads them fast and I get things off my back," he explained in a 1969 interview), they showcased his skill at engaging characters and tightly-plotted storylines, not to mention a love of research and accuracy. Though Crichton successfully graduated with his MD, it's not surprising to know he turned to writing full-time -- always incorporating his love of science into his stories.

Read more about Michael Crichton's "med school" thrillers

Request A Case of Need from the Catalog



-- Post by Ms. B 

Nevermore

On January 29, 1845, a poem was published in the pages of The Evening Mirror, a daily New York newspaper. The poem was an instant success, catapulting its author to fame and helping to cement his place as one of the classic American writers. 167 years after its original publication, "The Raven" remains not only Edgar Allan Poe's best-known work, but also one of the most famous poems in American literature.

"The Raven" -- along with such Stephen-King-esque fare as "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "The Tell-Tale Heart" -- has cemented Poe in the public consciousness as a somber, depressed, gothic figure, who may or may not have been a little crazy.

But scary stories aside (and they are true masterpieces of psychological horror, don't get me wrong), our modern-day popular perception of Poe is mostly incorrect. An innovator in the genre of science fiction, the inventor of modern-day mystery and detective novels, and a fierce literary critic in his time, Poe gets his morose, gothic reputation primarily at the hands of Rufus Griswold, the man (and literary rival) who wrote Poe's obituary.

In some ways, much of Poe's life is as mysterious as the cryptic puzzles he liked to invent for his mystery tales. The basic facts are clear: he was born in 1809 to parents who were traveling actors, although by the age of three both of his parents had died. He was raised instead by wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan, and his wife Frances Valentine Allan (from whom Poe received his "middle" name). Poe had early designs on becoming a writer and had composed enough poetry by the age of 13 to fill up a publishable manuscript, although it would be another five years before his work would first appear in print.

He attended school at both the University of Virginia and the United States Military Academy at West Point, the latter coming after Poe spent two years enlisted in the United States Army. After the death of Frances Valentine, the woman who'd raised him, Poe fell out completely with John Allan (a man he'd never gotten along with). Plagued by poverty as he struggled to make a living with his writing, he turned to his aunt, Maria Clemm. He would eventually move to Richmond and later bring Maria down to live with him -- along with Maria's daughter, Virginia, who Poe would eventually marry.

Poe's writing began to grow in popularity, but it wasn't until the publication of "The Raven" that his royalties began to grow as well. By now Poe was beginning to attract large crowds to his lectures, as well as gaining attention for being a fierce literary critic. But in 1847, Poe's wife Virginia finally succumbed to the tuberculosis which had plagued her for several years -- tuberculosis also being the cause of death for Poe's mother, brother, and foster mother.

Poe himself would die two years later, and modern-day historians still debate both his living habits of the past few years (was he really an alcoholic?) as well as his still-unknown cause of death. A few days after he died, literary rival Rufus Griswold would pen his scathing -- and patently untrue -- obituary for Poe, painting the author as a raving, drunken womanizer "with no morals or friends." Unfortunately, that (highly) inaccurate picture of Poe is still the one most people hold today.

The truth of the matter is that Poe is a much more complicated figure than that. For my part, I didn't become interested in Poe until I read his short story "The Purloined Letter" in high school and discovered, much to my surprise, that Poe essentially invented the mystery genre. His "consulting detective" character, C. Auguste Dupin, appeared in 1841 in the short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." "Murders" is widely held to be the first modern-day detective story, featuring as it does the first-ever fictional detective. (Hence the Mystery Writers of America choosing to name their annual awards "the Edgar" to honor the year's best works of mystery fiction, non-fiction and television.) A far more famous fictional detective owes his existence in large part to Dupin's inspiration -- prompting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to offer a wry tip of the hat to Poe in one of his stories. When Dr. John Watson makes a mention of Poe's famous detective, Sherlock Holmes responds that, in his own opinion, "Dupin was a very inferior fellow." (Conan Doyle did not share his character's humorous derision, however, and was known to be an admirer of Poe's work.)

Likewise, Poe's short story "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" was considered a ground-breaking work of science fiction, telling a tale about space travel and otherworldly aliens -- even if it was meant, at the time, as a satiric piece poking some fun at the scientific community of the day ... as well as serving as a hoax to the readers of Southern Literary Messenger. And again, a future author of far bigger fame in the genre would go on to be inspired by Poe's writing: Jules Verne, who references the story in his own work From the Earth to the Moon.

If Poe's best-remembered stories are his psychological thrillers, his influence on other genres is nonetheless undeniable -- as is his influence on the pop culture consciousness. But Poe himself remains, in large part, a mystery.

It's been three years since the Poe Toaster has last appeared -- the Toaster being a mysterious figure who arrived at Poe's gravesite in Baltimore every year on the author's birthday to leave behind roses and a bottle of cognac. Apparently starting the tradition in the 1950s, the Toaster (or Toasters; there's evidence to suggest that there was more than one) appeared annually until 2009, the year which marked the 200th anniversary of Poe's birthday. But interest in Poe remains, with his stories being continually reinterpreted as graphic novels, fictionalized historical novels, and even a murder mystery film due for release this April (with Poe himself -- appropriately enough -- in the role of detective).

Whatever your opinion of Poe -- and whatever the truth of the man himself -- he'll always be remembered as an author who changed the literary world forever. And that's one fact, at least, that his fans and admirers can be certain of.

You can read more about Poe here at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum's homepage.



-- Post by Ms. B

About the Classics

This weekend saw the release of the movie The Three Musketeers -- the latest offering in over twenty film adaptations of the classic Dumas tale. Since the early days of motion pictures, Dumas's classic stories of the adventures of Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan have graced the silver screen in a variety of interpretations and incarnations.

The interpretations are as varied as the filmmakers behind them. There's the silent Douglas Fairbanks version, the classic two-parter with Oliver Reed and Raquel Welch, the fluffy but fun modernized Disney take. (This newest version does appear to be the first adaptation in 3-D. To be fair.)

Dumas joins a cadre of fellow authors -- like Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and William Shakespeare -- whose classic works are often adapted for the big (and small) screen. But for every version of A Christmas Carol or Sherlock Holmes that appears -- as adaptations become farther and farther removed from their source material -- it's interesting to go back and look at the original stories ... and their authors.

Read on for a handful of little-known facts about the authors behind some of the biggest-known stories in history (with a particular look at Mr. Dumas himself):

-- Alexandre Dumas suffered from insomnia.

-- It's important to have a hobby: Charles Dickens was interested in hypnotism and conjuring. Lewis Carroll was an amateur photographer; Jane Austen did embroidery.

-- Number of books Dumas wrote in his lifetime: 272.

-- Master of Mystery Agatha Christie went missing for several days in December 1926, shortly after discovering her husband was having an affair. She was found at a health resort in Yorkshire ten days later. (There have been rumors of suicide attempts and amnesia, although the time-travelling science fiction show Doctor Who has the most unique explanation for her disappearance.)

-- Meanwhile, the Master of the Macabre -- Edgar Allan Poe -- is reported to have never started to write until he had completely mapped out his story, setting, and characters. He is also said to have paced back and forth across the room to get revved up before beginning to work.

-- Dumas wasn't just an author; during the 1830 French revolution, he operated as a secret agent, helping to place the Duc d'Orleans on the French throne.

-- It is rumored that Victor Hugo considered calling The Hunchback of Notre Dame "What there is in a bottle of ink" because he penned the last line of the novel with the last drop of ink in the bottle.

-- Dickens doubled as an actor. He is said to have gotten so excited performing his own work onstage that he'd sometimes pass out from overexcitement.

-- There are actually two authors by the name of Alexandre Dumas: Alexandre Dumas pere (father) and Alexandre Dumas fils (son). (The father was the one of Musketeer and Monte Cristo fame.)

-- Hugo wrote his first play when he was only 14.

-- Dumas was once asked to donate 25 francs towards the funeral expenses of a recently deceased bailiff. Not a fan of the office, Dumas apparently tossed over 50 francs and snapped, "There you are -- bury two of them!"

-- H.G. Wells always carried two pens with him, one large and one small. He claimed the big one was for the long words and the little one was for the small ones.

-- William Shakespeare had eleven different ways of spelling his name.

-- Dumas's supposed last words, referring to his unfinished book: "I shall never know how it all comes out now."


-- Post by Ms. B