Morticom strange and unusual stories of famous writers
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CELEBRITY TRIVIA
WRITERS / LITERATURE
(36 Entries)
1)
The French poet, Gerard de Nerval was in the habit of taking his pet lobster
for a walk on the end of a length of ribbon through the Palais Royal gardens
in Paris.
2)
Karl Marx, the founder of Russian Communism never set foot in Russia himself.
He was actually born in Germany and then moved to France and finally England
where he wrote 'Das Kapital' and other works.
3)
Dr. Benjamin Spock, the child care expert, was a rowing champion and actually
won a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics.
4)
19th century English author, Beatrix Potter, who is famous for writing and
illustrating the Peter Rabbit children's books actually had a squirrel shot
to death in order to provide a model for the character "Nutkin"
and had a rabbit killed with chloroform to provide the model for "Peter
Rabbit".
When she needed a model for a fox character she had a recently killed fox
skinned and boiled and the skeleton rebuilt.
5)
Writer, Harold Robbins, who mainly wrote airport fiction and specialised in
violence, sold over 750 million books in his lifetime giving him the opportunity
to live the playboy lifestyle.
He had quite a colouful life which included taking drugs when he was only
eight years old, running errands for prostitutes and Jamaican drug dealers
and he even supplied the famous songwriter, Cole Porter, with cocaine.
Robbins would not drive any car unless it was a Rolls Royce, he had a nasty
habit of swearing and he always surrounded himself with prostitutes and loose
women.
6)
The German playwright, Goethe, had a phobia where he could not stand the sound
of dogs barking and he could only ever write anything if he had a rotten apple
in the top drawer of his desk!
7)
English poet and writer, Lord Rochester, who lived during the 17th century,
caused a sexual revolution after publishing many of his poems.
One verse went, "I rise at eleven, I dine at two, I get drunk before
seven, and the next thing I do, I send for my whore when, for fear of the
clap, I come in her hand and I spew in her lap."
Rochester suffered from STD most of his life.
8)
Lord Byron, the English poet, had a tortured life and suffered from many ailments.
These included a clubfoot, biliousness, cataarh, chilblains, convulsions,
rheumatism, constipation, faintness, giddiness, gonorrhea, haemorrhoids, warts
and malaria which eventually killed him off at the age of 36.
To help ease his illnesses, Byron invented his own health regime which consisted
simply of violent exercise and fasting and he would wear seven waistcoats
and a greatcoat all of the time to encourage perspiration!
9)
Writer, James Joyce suffered from stomach ulcers most of his life and believed
that the key to good health was defecation.
If he didn't sit down to have a crap at least three times a day then he would
fret and he was so fascinated by stools that he once asked his wife, Nora,
to shit on a piece of paper while he lay down underneath her and observed.
10)
In 1777 the 'New York Gazette' was the very first newspaper in the world to
have a front page headline.
11)
Norwegian playwright and dramatist Henrik Ibsen always had a picture of his
arch-rival August Strindberg hanging over his desk so that it would make him
work harder!
12)
Lewis Carroll, the author of 'Alice in Wonderland' wrote all of his books
standing up.
13)
The Classic book 'The Great Gatsby' was originally entitled 'Incident at West
Egg'.
14)
Naturalist and author Charles Darwin never actually said anything about 'The
survival of the fittest.'
15)
Ecuadorian poet Jose Olmedo, who became the National poet of his country,
was presented with a statue of himself by the government even though it was
actually a statue of Lord Byron.
The Ecuadorian government could not afford a new one so when they found out
that the Lord Byron statue was being sold cheap they snapped it up instantly.
16)
More books have been written about Jack the Ripper than of any other murderer
in the world.
17)
Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung's 'Little Red Book' became a bestseller coming
only second to the bible.
This was mainly due to the fact that everyone was ordered to buy a copy!
18)
More books are written about Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe and Cervantes than
about any other writers in the entire world!
19)
As early as 246 BC there have been fraudsters who have 'aged' manuscripts
so that they could then sell them to collectors as antiques.
20)
There have been copies made of the Holy Bible and the Koran that are small
enough to fit in a walnut shell.
21)
French writer Eugene Sue was left a strange present in his dead lover's will.
Her skin! She left enough of her skin to bind one of his books which he actually
used!
22)
In China during the 15th century, scholars began work on an encyclopaedia
which contained a total of 22,937 volumes.
Two copies of this encyclopadiea were produced but amazingly every single
volume has been lost!
23)
In Turkey during the 19th century newspapers were severly censored. When the
King and Queen of Turkey were murdered it was reported that they had both
died of indigestion!
24)
The world's first book publishers were probably the Egyptian undertakers who
always inserted a copy of the 'Book of the dead' with each mummified corpse
that they buried.
25)
Author T.S Eliot renounced his American citizenship and became a British subject.
26)
Authors Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain both had premature obituaries published
in newspapers.
27)
Ernest Hemingway drove an ambulance during the first world war.
28)
Oscar Wilde, Miguel de Cervantes and Adolf Hitler all wrote their best work
while they were in prison.
29)
To produce a Sunday edition of the 'New York Times' uses the equivalent of
63,000 trees.
30)
English author John Ruskin was so appalled by his wife's pubic hair on their
wedding night that he totally gave up sex.
31)
In the USA in 1968 a library book was returned late and the charge came to
a whopping $22,000!
The book had been borrowed in 1823!
32)
Tolstoys famous book 'War and Peace' was originally entitled 'All's well that
ends well'.
33)
French author Emile Zola had two families with his wife and his mistress and
they all lived in the same house together.
34)
English poet Shelley hated cats so much that he once tied one to the string
of a kite during a thunderstorm to see of it would be electrocuted.
35)
In 1800 Mr. Claude St. James published his book 'How to win at poker'. Later
a group of businessmen got together and invested £500,000 for him to
play with.
He lost every penny!
36)
After reading 'Alice in Wonderland' Queen Victoria sent a letter to author
Lewis Carroll asking for another of his books to read.
Carroll, who was also a brilliant mathematician, sent her a book on algebra.