1. William Shakespeare was born and died on the same day (but, fortunately, on different years) - On April 23, 1564, he was born and, 52 years later, died on the same day.
2. Another one died on the same day as Shakespeare. great writer- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The author of Don Quixote died on April 23, 1616.
3. Contemporaries claimed that Shakespeare was fond of poaching - he hunted deer in the domain of Sir Thomas Lucy, without any permission from this very Lucy.
4. The great poet Byron was lame, prone to obesity and extremely loving - in a year in Venice, according to some reports, he made 250 ladies happy with himself, lame and fat.
5. Byron had an amazing personal collection - strands of hair cut from the pubes of his beloved women. The locks (or perhaps curls) were kept in envelopes on which the names of the hostesses were romantically inscribed. Some researchers argue that it was possible to admire (if this word is appropriate here) the poet’s collection back in the 1980s, after which traces of vegetation were lost.
6. And also great poet Byron loved spending time with boys, including, alas, minors. We don’t even comment on this! 250 ladies wasn’t enough for the scoundrel!
7. Well, a little more about Byron - he really loved animals. Fortunately, not in the sense that you may have put into this phrase after reading about Byron a little higher. The romantic poet adored animals platonically and even kept a menagerie in which a badger, monkeys, horses, a parrot, a crocodile and many other animals lived.
8. Charles Dickens had a very difficult childhood. When his dad went to debtor's prison, little Charlie was sent to work... no, not in a chocolate factory, but in a blacking factory, where he stuck labels on jars from morning to evening. Not dusty, you say? But stick them from morning to evening instead of playing football with the boys, and you will understand why Dickens’ images of unfortunate orphans were so convincing.
9. In 1857, Hans Christian Andersen came to visit Dickens. This is not a Kharms joke, this is life itself! Andersen and Dickens met back in 1847, were completely delighted with each other, and now, 10 years later, the Dane decided to take advantage of the invitation given to him. The trouble is that over the years in Dickens’s life everything has changed a lot and become more complicated - he was not ready to accept Andersen, and he lived with him for almost five weeks! “He doesn’t speak any languages except his Danish, although there are suspicions that he doesn’t know that either,” Dickens told his friends about his guest in this way. Poor Andersen became the target of ridicule from the numerous descendants of the author of Little Dorrit, and when he left, Dad Dickens left a note in his room: “Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks, which seemed like years to our family.” And you also ask why Andersen wrote such sad fairy tales?
10. Dickens was also fond of hypnosis, or, as they said then, mesmerism.
11. One of Dickens’ favorite pastimes was going to the Paris morgue, where unidentified bodies were exhibited. Truly a dear person!
12. Oscar Wilde did not take Dickens's writings seriously and mocked them for any reason. In general, contemporary critics of Charles Dickens endlessly hinted that he would never be included in the list of the best British writers. And we’ll get to Oscar Wilde later.
13. But Dickens was devotedly loved by ordinary readers - in 1841, in the port of New York, where the continuation of the final chapters of “The Antiquities Shop” was to be brought, 6 thousand people gathered, and everyone shouted to the passengers of the mooring ship: “Will little Nell die?”
14. Dickens could not work if the tables and chairs in his office were not arranged as they should. Only he knew how to do it - and each time he began work by rearranging the furniture.
15. Charles Dickens disliked monuments so much that in his will he strictly forbade him from erecting them. The only bronze statue of Dickens is in Philadelphia. By the way, the statue was initially rejected by the writer’s family.
16. American writer O. Henry began his writing career in prison, where he was sentenced for embezzlement. And things went so well for him that everyone soon forgot about prison.
17. Ernest Hemingway was not only an alcoholic and a suicide, as everyone knows. He also had peiraphobia (fear of public speaking), in addition, he never believed the praise of even his most sincere readers and admirers. I didn’t even believe my friends, and that’s all!
18. Hemingway survived five wars, four automobile and two air crashes. As a child, his mother also forced him to attend dance school. And over time, he himself began to call himself Pope.
19. The same Hemingway often and willingly talked about the fact that the FBI was watching him. The interlocutors smiled wryly, but in the end it turned out that the Pope was right - declassified documents confirmed that this was indeed surveillance, and not paranoia.
20. The first person in history to use the word “gay” in literature was Gertrude Stein, a lesbian writer who hated punctuation and gave the world the term “lost generation.”
21. Oscar Wilde - like Ernest Hemingway - was dressed up in girls' dresses for a long time as a child. In both cases, we note, it ended badly.
23. Honore de Balzac loved coffee - he drank about 50 cups of strong Turkish coffee a day. If it was not possible to make coffee, the writer simply ground a handful of beans and chewed them with great pleasure.
24. Balzac believed that ejaculation is a waste of creative energy, since semen is a brain substance. Once, talking with a friend after a successful conversation, the writer exclaimed bitterly: “This morning I lost my novel!”
25. Edgar Allan Poe was afraid of the dark all his life. Perhaps one of the reasons for this fear was that as a child the future writer studied... in a cemetery. The school where the boy went was so poor that it was impossible to buy textbooks for the children. A resourceful math teacher taught classes in a nearby cemetery, among the graves. Each student chose tombstone and calculated how many years the deceased had lived by subtracting the date of birth from the date of death. It is not surprising that Poe grew up to become what he became - the founder of world horror literature.
26. The most psychedelic writer of all time should be recognized as Lewis Carroll, a shy British mathematician who wrote fairy tales about Alice. His writings were inspired by the Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Tim Burton and others.
27. Lewis Carroll's real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He had the church rank of deacon, and also in personal diaries Carroll constantly repented of some sin. However, these pages were destroyed by the writer’s family so as not to discredit his image. Some researchers seriously believe that Carroll was Jack the Ripper, who, as we know, was never found.
28. Carroll suffered from swamp fever, cystitis, lumbago, eczema, furunculosis, arthritis, pleurisy, rheumatism, insomnia and a whole bunch of other diseases. In addition, he had an almost constant - and very severe - headache.
29. The author of “Alice” was a passionate admirer of technological progress, and he himself personally invented a tricycle, a mnemonic system for remembering names and dates, an electric pen, and it was he who came up with the idea of writing the title of a book on the spine and created the prototype of everyone’s favorite game Scrabble.
30. Franz Kafka was the grandson of a kosher butcher and a strict vegetarian.
31. Great American poet Walt Whitman had a very specific sexual orientation. He admired, however, first of all Abraham Lincoln, whom he praised in the poem “Oh, Captain! My captain!". And once Whitman met another gay icon - the sarcastic Irishman Oscar Wilde, who so disliked Charles Dickens (who, in turn, did not like Andersen, see above). Wilde told Whitman that he adored Leaves of Grass, which his mother often read to him as a child, after which Whitman kissed the “excellent, large and handsome young man” right on the lips. “I can still feel Whitman’s kiss on my lips,” the author of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” shared with his friends. Brr!
32. Mark Twain - literary pseudonym a man named Samuel Langhorne Clemens. In addition, Twain also had the pseudonyms Tramp, Josh, Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, Sergeant Fathom and W. Epaminondas Adrastus Blab. By the way, “Mark Twain,” a concept from the field of navigation, means “measure two” fathoms: this is how the minimum depth suitable for navigation was noted.
33. Mark Twain was friends with one of the most mysterious people of his time - the inventor Nikola Tesla. The writer himself patented several inventions, such as self-adjusting suspenders and a scrapbook with adhesive pages.
34. Twain also adored cats and hated children (he even wanted to erect a monument to King Herod). A great writer once said: “If it were possible to cross a person with a cat, the human race would only benefit from this, but the cat breed would clearly worsen.”
35. Twain was a heavy smoker (he is the author of the phrase that is now attributed to everyone: “There is nothing easier than quitting smoking. I know, I’ve done it a thousand times”). He started smoking when he was eight years old and smoked 20 to 40 cigars daily until his death. The writer chose the smelliest and cheapest cigars.
36. The author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, J. R. R. Tolkien, was an extremely bad driver, snored so much that he had to spend the night in the bathroom so as not to disturb his wife’s sleep, and was also a terrible Francophobe - he hated the French since William the Conqueror.
37. On his first wedding night with Sophia Bers, 34-year-old Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy forced his 18-year-old newly married wife to read those pages in his diary, which described in detail the amorous adventures of the writer with different women, among others - with serf peasant women. Tolstoy wanted there to be no secrets between him and his wife.
38. Agatha Christie suffered from dysgraphia, that is, she practically could not write by hand. All of her famous novels were dictated.
39. Chekhov was a big fan of going to a brothel - and, finding himself in a foreign city, the first thing he did was study it from this side.
40. James Joyce was afraid of dogs and thunderstorms more than anything else, hated monuments and was a masochist.
41. When Tolstoy left home in old age, most of the reporters rushed after him, and only one, the most shrewd journalist, came to Yasnaya Polyana- find out how Sofia Andreevna is doing. Soon the editor received a telegram: “The Countess, with a changed face, is running to the pond.” This is how the reporter described Sofia Andreevna’s intention to drown herself. Subsequently, the phrase was picked up by two completely different writers - Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, presenting it to their brilliant hero Ostap Bender.
42. William Faulkner worked as a postman for several years until it was discovered that he often threw undelivered letters into the trash.
43. Jack London was a socialist, and also the first American writer in history to earn a million dollars with his work.
44. Arthur Conan Doyle, who invented Sherlock Holmes, was an occultist and believed in the existence of small winged fairies.
45. Jean-Paul Sartre experimented with mind-expanding substances and strongly supported terrorists. Perhaps the first was somehow connected with the second.
The image of Russia on the scale of world literature is unthinkable without these names. And on the shelves of any more or less decent book lover, the books of these Russian writers are displayed in plain sight out of pride.
But what do we know about our favorite writers, whose books are considered mandatory reading at any conscious age? To modern man It’s not enough to read the author’s book; please give him another book about the author.
In continuation of the article about two great Russian classics — L. N. Tolstoy and F. M. Dostoevsky, I am posting another no less interesting selection of interesting facts about Russian writers:
A. S. Pushkin
- I smoked a lot.
He shocked the ladies of Ekaterinoslav with translucent pantaloons without underwear.
He was the father of four legitimate children and at least one illegitimate one.
Was sure he would die from white man or a white horse.
He chose the place for his grave himself.
I studied poorly at the Lyceum.
He ordered a mass for the repose of the soul of God's servant George, that is, Byron.
Gave my friend Delvig a skull.
I lost a lot at cards, but always found means to cover my gambling debt.
Dantes was a relative of Pushkin. At the time of the duel he was married to my own sister Pushkin's wife - Ekaterina Goncharova.
Before his death, Pushkin asked for forgiveness for violating the royal ban on dueling: “... I’m waiting the king's word to die in peace..."
M. Yu. Lermontov
- He was short, broad-shouldered, stocky, big-headed and limped like Lord Byron.
More than anyone in the world, he loved his grandmother, and she loved him.
He took part in a duel with a Frenchman who provided pistols for the duel between Pushkin and Dantes.
He considered himself a descendant of the Scotsman Learmont.
He stole a friend’s bride, and then wrote an anonymous slander against himself to get rid of the annoying girl.
Showed courage in battles in the Caucasus.
I studied Azerbaijani language.
He was keenly interested in various kinds of predictions, fortune-telling and symbols.
He was sarcastic, impudent, merciless to the weaknesses of others, vindictive and arrogant.
In his short 26-year life, Lermontov participated in three duels, and four more were avoided thanks to the common sense of those around him.
For fun, he loved to upset upcoming marriages, pretending to be in love with someone else's bride, and showered her with flowers, poems and other signs of attention. Sometimes he threatened, promising to commit suicide if his “love” married someone else. And then he admitted to the prank...
He managed to lose in all games and competitions; only the fall of the Frenchman Barant in a decisive attack was able to save the wounded Lermontov in the first duel. During his return from Caucasian exile, the poet decided to tell fortunes and tossed fifty kopecks - where should he go: to work or should he take another walk, stopping briefly in Pyatigorsk. And he had the chance to go to Pyatigorsk. There (July 15, 1841), near Mount Mashuk, he was killed in a duel by a retired cavalryman Martynov, who, as it turns out, was an amateur shooter. It turned out that before this duel he only fired a pistol three times...
A. P. Chekhov
- Worked in his father's shop.
Brought from the island of Ceylon a tame mongoose named Bastard.
In the gymnasium, for the sake of shockingness, he wore provocative-colored trousers under his uniform.
As a child, he dressed up as a beggar, put on make-up and received alms from his own uncle.
He gave the policeman a salted watermelon wrapped in paper, saying that it was a bomb.
Received a fee for furniture from the editorial office of the magazine "Alarm Clock".
He studied tailoring at the district school. At the request of his dapper brother Nikolai, he sewed gray gymnasium trousers, so tight that they were nicknamed macaroni.
He sang church hymns at home. As for his voice, Anton Pavlovich spoke in a loud bass voice.
An army of female fans followed him everywhere. When Chekhov moved to Yalta in 1898, many of his fans followed him to Crimea. As newspapers wrote, ladies literally rushed after the writer along the embankments, just to see their idol more often, “studying his costume, gait, and trying to somehow attract his attention.” For such devotion, the local gossip column aptly dubbed the girls “Antonovkas.”
One of the three most filmed authors in the world. More than 287 film adaptations.
At first glance he saw a suicide in a stranger.
Chekhov had about fifty pseudonyms. Well, you definitely know one of them from your school days - Antosha Chekhonte, of course. There were also: Schiller Shakespeareovich Goethe, Champagne, My Brother's Brother; Nut No. 6; Nut No. 9; Rook; A person without a spleen; Akaki Tarantulov, Someone, Arkhip Indeikin
Chekhov's grandfather was a serf, and the writer himself renounced hereditary nobility. Yegor Mikhailovich Chekhov was able to buy himself and his family freedom. Subsequently, his famous grandson never forgot about his origin. Moreover, in 1899, when Emperor Nicholas II, by his decree, awarded the writer the title of hereditary nobleman and the Order of St. Stanislaus of the third degree, Anton Pavlovich simply ... did not accept this privilege. The highest decree remained without attention and consequences - as well as the title of honorary academician Russian Academy sciences, which Chekhov also considered useless for himself.
To be continued…
Based on materials from the magazine
A huge staff of proofreaders and copyists worked for the storyteller Andersen. The writer had very little knowledge of spelling and punctuation, and in order for his texts to appear in a decent form, he ordered multiple edits. Hans Christian hated being called a children's writer, and always said that his fairy tales were addressed to adults too. And shortly before his death, he strictly forbade the depiction of children on the monument dedicated to him.
Agatha Christie is revered by the people of Great Britain no less than the Queen. The writer is considered one of the symbols of the country and national treasure. And the circulation of her books in Britain is second only to the Holy Scriptures and the works of Shakespeare.
Many writers asked for more than strange fees for their work. When a Canadian film company invited the American Mencken to film his novel, he agreed. But not for cash payment, but for drinking. The filmmakers fulfilled the condition, and within for long years, until the end of the writer’s life, they sent him a couple of boxes of ale every month.
The most beloved American writer by filmmakers is Edgar Allan Poe. The plots of his works were included in 114 films.
Konstantin Simonov was given the name Kirill at birth. He had to become Constantine after an accident. As a boy, while playing with a razor, he cut his tongue, which made him unable to pronounce the letters R and L clearly. And later he chose a pseudonym that was easy for him to pronounce.
Rudyard Kipling could not stand multi-colored ink and wrote only in black.
When Charles Dickens worked, there was always a mug of hot water next to him. After every 50 lines, the writer took a sip from it.
At the end of his life, Victor Hugo was so popular that readers who sent him letters indicated “Avenue V. Hugo” as their destination, although the writer lived on a street with a very specific name. The messages always found the addressee.
In the 70s, American publishers had unspoken rule– publish no more than one book by one author per year. The young Stephen King, who wrote much more, wanted to be published without delay and, as a ploy, came up with a pseudonym for himself - Richard Bachman. The deception was discovered when one of the sellers discovered similarities in the styles of the writer King and the writer Bachman, after which he did not fail to “snitch” to the publishers. King had to show his cards. He gave an interview in which he said that Richard Bachman died from incurable disease- pseudonym cancer.
Stephen King's favorite state is Maine. It is there that the events of his most terrible novels unfold. Although, if you look at the statistics, it is in Maine that less crime compared to other US states.
Ernest Hemingway was a fanatical cat person. Several purrs always lived in his house, and admirers of his talent often gave him cats. Today, fifty of these pets walk around the writer’s museum and don’t need anything. Many tourists come there not to get acquainted with Hemingway’s work, but to look at “Vasek” with “Murki”.
Valentin Kataev received a C for an essay based on his own book. One day, a very puzzled friend came to visit his granddaughter: she was asked to reveal the image of Vanya from “Son of the Regiment.” The writer decided to help the girl and told how he himself sees this image. The schoolgirl wrote everything from his words, but received only “satisfactory” - with the note that Kataev’s Vanya is not at all like that.
Dumas was one of the first writers to resort to the help of " literary blacks" His assistants did dialogues, descriptions for him, and even made adjustments to the plot. For example, “The Count of Monte Cristo” was suggested to the writer by his biographer, Claude Schopp.
Chekhov was a great humorist not only in own stories, but also in life. He affectionately, and without any desire to humiliate, called his soulmate an actress, a snake, a dog, and even “the crocodile of my soul.”
Interesting facts about writers and poets who glorified Russian literature are of interest to everyone who is at least a little passionate about Russian literature. Their books can be found on the shelves of the home library of any educated person in our country, but do we know everything about their biography? Sometimes Russian classics simply amazed those around them with their unexpected and extravagant actions and antics. The most interesting stories you will find in this article.
Alexander Pushkin is considered the founder of Russian literary language, but there are enough interesting facts about this writer, although it seems that we know his biography thoroughly.
In fact, many may be surprised that the poet smoked a lot, and often shocked the surrounding ladies with transparent pantaloons, under which there was no underwear. Officially, Pushkin had four children, at least one child was illegitimate. This is the son of 19-year-old serf Olga Kalashnikova, Pavel, whom the poet seduced in 1824 during his exile in Mikhailovskoye. He sent her to Boldino to Vyazemsky to give birth. The child was born prematurely. By your destiny already ex-lover and Pushkin was not interested in her son, only learning about the boy’s death a few years later. Most likely, he had other illegitimate children, but nothing is known for certain about them.
Here is another interesting fact from the writer’s life. Despite his education, he believed fortune tellers and was sure that he would die at the hands of a white man or a white horse. In general, Pushkin often thought about death - he himself chose the place for his grave, once gave a skull to his friend Delvig, had a hard time with the death of the English poet Byron, and even ordered a mass for the repose of the soul of God's servant George.
Pushkin received his education at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Moreover, he studied extremely poorly; he showed success only in literature. Throughout almost his entire life, he played cards a lot, often lost, and was constantly in debt with cards.
Fatal duel
It is worth recognizing that his opponent in the fatal duel in which he was killed was very unusual. was a relative of Pushkin. He was married to the sister of the poet’s wife, Ekaterina Goncharova. Before his death, the poet was very worried that he had violated the royal ban on participating in duels; he even said that he was waiting for forgiveness from the emperor in order to die peacefully.
In one of the last moments of enlightenment before his death, Pushkin asked for cloudberries, and finally said goodbye to his most faithful friends who were in the room, these were his books. Here's what Interesting Facts about literature and writers can open Pushkin for you in a new way.
Mikhail Lermontov became famous during the time of Pushkin, although he was much younger than him. If we talk about interesting facts about writers and poets of Russia, then there is something to tell about him. His appearance was frankly unprepossessing: he was broad-shouldered, vertically challenged, big-headed and stocky. At the same time, he limped on one leg, as some believe, to resemble Byron.
Most of all of his relatives he loved his grandmother, who reciprocated his feelings. Like Pushkin, he was an avid duelist. Once he took part in a duel with a Frenchman who supplied pistols for the fatal duel between Alexander Sergeevich and Dantes. For participating in duels he was exiled to the Caucasus, where he proved himself to be a brave officer. There he began to learn the Azerbaijani language.
He was amorous and changeable. Once he stole his friend’s bride, and when he got tired of the girl, he wrote an anonymous slander against himself. Friends noted that Lermontov was famous for his unpleasant character - he was vindictive, did not forgive people’s weaknesses, and treated everyone arrogantly.
heads or tails
For my short life(he lived only 26 years) took part in three duels. He managed to avoid four more only thanks to the efforts of his acquaintances. One of his pastimes was to upset upcoming marriages. He pretended to be an ardent young man in love with the bride, showed her signs of attention, sent poems and flowers. Sometimes he even went so far as to promise to commit suicide if she married someone else. When the girl succumbed to these advances, he admitted that it was a joke.
Surprisingly, Lermontov managed to lose in all the competitions and games in which he participated. Only the fall of his opponent saved him from death in the very first duel. Returning from exile in the Caucasus, he tossed a coin to determine where he should go - to work or to stop in Pyatigorsk. As a result, he had to go to Pyatigorsk, where he was killed by a retired cavalryman Martynov. As it turned out later, he had only fired a pistol three times before this duel.
You can find many interesting facts in the biography of the writer Chekhov. As a child, he worked in his father's shop. At his home lived a tame mongoose named Bastard, whom Anton Pavlovich brought from the island of Ceylon.
As a high school student, he often dressed up as a beggar, carefully put on make-up and begged for alms from his own uncle. He most often did not recognize him and gave him money. In general, Chekhov had a hooligan character. Once he handed the policeman pickle, wrapped in paper, saying it was a bomb.
There are many writers. For example, his plays and stories made Chekhov one of the most filmed authors in the world. On this moment directors made almost 300 films based on his works.
"Antonovka"
Followed him everywhere real army fangirls. When Chekhov moved to Yalta in 1898, many of his fans immediately followed to Crimea. Local journalists wrote that the ladies were guarding the writer on the embankment, only to see their idol again, to try to somehow attract his attention. Newspapers even dubbed the girls with the nickname "Antonovka".
An interesting fact about the writer Chekhov is that he often wrote under a pseudonym. In total, he had about 50 of them. For example, Antosha Chekhonte, Man without a Spleen, Nut No. 9, Champagne, Akaki Tarantulov and many others.
Chekhov's grandfather was a serf who managed to buy himself and his family freedom. The writer himself refused the title of nobility, which was awarded to him by Nicholas II in 1899. That's how many interesting factors there are about the biography of the writer, whose photo is in this article.
Leo Tolstoy also often shocked those around him. One day he dressed as a beggar and went to his serfs to find out about their problems. They recognized him and became afraid, never admitting to anything. Disillusioned with understanding the Russian soul, Tolstoy began making boots, which he gave to all his relatives and friends.
An interesting fact about the Russian writer is that Tolstoy was interested in religion so seriously that some contemporaries even believed that he had gone crazy. At the same time, the count himself explained his passion for mowing and plowing by his habit of being on the move all the time. If he never went for a walk all day, then by the evening he became irritable.
There is also an interesting fact about the writer’s books. His handwriting was very illegible, and in addition, his drafts contained a whole system of additions and signs that only his wife Sofya Andreevna could understand. His wife rewrote his novel War and Peace by hand several times. Surprisingly, when the famous Italian psychiatrist Lombroso saw Tolstoy’s handwriting, he said that only a prostitute with psychopathic tendencies could write like that.
The Last Journey
It is known that Tolstoy was a vegetarian, which in his time was considered strange and unnatural. At 82, Tolstoy decided to go wandering, leaving his wife and children on the estate. IN farewell letter he admitted to his wife that he was no longer able to live in luxury, he wanted to spend last days in silence. He set off to wander without any purpose, accompanied only by his doctor Dušan Makovicki. Having stopped at Optina Pustyn, he went to his niece to the south, from where he intended to get to the Caucasus. He failed to complete the journey. Tolstoy caught a cold and died in the small house of his boss railway station called Astapovo.
Many interesting facts about writers can be gleaned by studying the biography of Dostoevsky. Fyodor Mikhailovich began to show strangeness since childhood. He had a reserved character, and his vivid imagination only alienated him from his peers. Classmates often called him a “fool,” and while studying at an engineering school, simply called him an “idiot.”
An interesting fact about the writer is that in adulthood he was prone to seizures and excessive excitability. As it turned out later, he suffered from epilepsy. Specific mental changes were manifested in his excessive pettiness, pedantry, irritability, resentment, numerous fears, attacks of melancholy and even angry mood.
As a child, the sadistic inclinations of the writer, who loved to whip frogs with a nut whip, still manifested themselves. Many prominent psychiatrists were interested in the Russian writer. Galant noted that his psychopathy was most strongly expressed in the area of psychosexual experiences, and Sigmund Freud argued that the desire for perversion could lead to crimes or sadomasochism.
Obsession with the game
Dostoevsky was obsessed with the game. He lost a lot of money at billiards and often met cheaters. Another oddity of his was his disturbing suspiciousness. For example, the writer never drank tea, preferring ordinary warm water, and the color of the tea leaves horrified him. Like Gogol, he was worried that he might plunge into Sopor and be buried alive. In this regard, he insisted that his funeral take place no earlier than five days after his alleged death.
It is remarkable and surprising that Dostoevsky, who was actively treated for his numerous illnesses, never sought help for epilepsy. The writer sought help from doctors because of problems with the intestines, lungs, and somatic disorders, but did not consider epilepsy as a disease. At the same time, the attacks were very difficult for him to endure, but he believed that only thanks to these mental disorders his energy did not dry out. creative potential.
While telling interesting facts about writers and poets, we need to remember about the great fabulist Ivan Krylov. Besides literature, his main passion was food. Despite his obesity, he was the first to head to the dining room as soon as the footman announced that the table was set.
Krylov began dinner with a huge plate of pies, followed by three plates of fish soup, veal cutlets, fried turkey, cucumbers, plums and cloudberries. I ate it all with apples, and at the end I had a Strasbourg pate made from butter, goose liver and truffles. Having finished several plates, I drank kvass and finished the meal with two glasses of coffee with plenty of cream.
Many of his acquaintances recalled that the main bliss in life for Krylov lay precisely in food. At the same time, by the way, it is not true that the fabulist died from volvulus due to overeating. In reality, death was due to extensive pneumonia.
The prose writer Kuprin also surprised many. For example, few people know that he preferred to work completely naked. At the same time, he was famous for his incredible instincts. His friends even joked that he was more of an animal than a man. And ladies were often offended when Kuprin began to persistently sniff them. One day, the writer amazed a noble French perfumer with his flair by describing in detail all the components of the fragrance he had made.
They say that one of their most famous works(the story “The Duel”) it was no accident that the writer ended it so suddenly. Instead of a logical ending, the ending is a short report. His wife demanded that he hand over the manuscript and did not let him out of the office. Kuprin really wanted to drink, so he finished the piece in a hurry.
Today I will tell you 20 facts about writers and poets that you did not know. Or maybe they knew, of course. I can’t guarantee you that all this is true, and no one can. It’s your choice to believe it or not.
20 facts about writers and poets that you didn't know
Fact No. 1.Alexander Pushkin was blond!
True, only up to 19 years old. In Memories little Pushkin called a "frisky blond boy", he was blond as a child. Pushkin lost his blond locks due to illness. At the age of 19, he was struck down by fever, and the poet was shaved bald. For a long time, Alexander Sergeevich wore a red skull cap, and then the cap was replaced by dark brown hair. And he began to look the way we are used to.
Fact No. 2. Alexandre Dumas is Pushkin
There is a version according to which our beloved Pushkin did not die at all, but faked his death and left for France, since he spoke French perfectly. There is a whole lot of evidence. One of them is that until Pushkin died, Dumas could not write anything, but after 1837 he began to write brilliant novels one after another. “The Count of Monte Cristo”, “The Three Musketeers”, “Twenty Years Later”, “Queen Margot”...
Fact No. 3. Conan Doyle believed in winged fairies
Yes, yes, the man who invented Sherlock Holmes believed in the existence of fairies. He wrote the book “The Coming of Fairies”, in which he published photographs of winged fairies and examinations proving the authenticity of the photographs. The writer, who believed in the existence of the little people, spent more than a million dollars on this research.
Fact No. 4. Chekhov's pet was a mongoose
The writer brought this strange animal from a trip to the island of Ceylon. Chekhov himself called the mongoose “a cute and independent little animal,” and his family nicknamed him “Bastard.” By the way, Chekhov later exchanged Bastard for a free ticket to the Moscow Zoo.
Fact No. 5.Nikolai Gogol invented the first attraction
The writer converted a windmill into a Ferris wheel and gave peasant children rides on it. But the problem is that Gogol didn’t think about reliable insurance. Then everything is like in the book: “The auditor is coming to us!” In general, the amusement park closed it down.
Fact No. 6. A St. Petersburg journalist received royalties for The Master and Margarita
Dying, Bulgakov bequeathed to give part of the royalties for the book to the one who, after the publication of “The Master and Margarita,” would bring flowers to the writer’s grave, and not just some day, but on the day when he burned the first version of the novel’s manuscript. This person was Vladimir Nevelsky, a journalist from Leningrad. It was to him that Bulgakov’s wife gave a check for a decent amount of royalties.
Fact No. 7.Lewis Carroll invented the tricycle
The author of "Alice in Wonderland" was a mathematician, poet and great inventor. He invented a tricycle, a mnemonic system for remembering names and dates, an electric pen (by the way, what is that?!), a dust jacket, a prototype of everyone’s favorite game Scrabble, which in its Russian counterpart is called “Erudite”.
Fact No. 8.Edgar Poe studied in a cemetery
And, by the way, he was terribly afraid of the dark. The school where little Edgar studied was very poor, and the children did not have textbooks. And a resourceful mathematics teacher took schoolchildren to the cemetery, where they counted the graves and calculated the years of life of the dead.
Fact No. 9. Hans Andersen had Pushkin’s autograph
The Danish storyteller received it from the wife of the owner of the “Kapnist Notebook”, into which Pushkin rewrote the poems he had selected in his own hand. The wife tore out one sheet from the notebook and sent it to Andersen, who was immensely happy. By the way, this leaflet is now kept in the Copenhagen Royal Library.
Fact No. 10. Nikolai Gogol was an excellent knitter.
Gogol had a passion for cooking and handicrafts. He treated his friends to personally prepared dumplings and dumplings, knitted and sewed scarves for himself. But he flatly refused to be photographed - he either covered his face with a top hat, or made faces in every possible way. Therefore, he was rarely invited to social events.
Fact No. 11. The army of Chekhov fans was nicknamed “Antonovkas”
When Anton Chekhov moved to Yalta, his enthusiastic fans also moved to Crimea. They ran after him all over the city, studied his gait and costume, and tried to attract attention. In January 1902, the newspaper “News of the Day” wrote: “In Yalta, a whole army of stupid and unbearably ardent fans of his artistic talent, called here “Antonovkas,” was formed.
Fact No. 12.Mark Twain invented suspenders
He was no worse an inventor than Carroll. He holds patents for self-adjusting suspenders and a scrapbook with adhesive pages. Mark Twain also invented a notepad with tear-off leaves, a closet with sliding shelves, but his most ingenious invention was a tie-tying machine. Apparently it didn't get widespread...
Fact No. 13.Lewis Carroll - Jack the Ripper
Journalist Richard Wallis, author of Jack the Ripper, the Fickle Friend, claims that Jack the Ripper, who brutally murdered London prostitutes, is Lewis Carroll. And Carroll himself constantly repented of some sin in his diaries. But no one knew which one, because Carroll’s relatives destroyed all his diaries. Out of harm's way.
Fact No. 14. Boxing gloves helped Vladimir Nabokov emigrate
Nabokov became interested in boxing while in the army. When he emigrated to America in 1940, three customs officers at the border began to meticulously examine his luggage. But when they saw boxing gloves in the suitcase, they immediately put them on and began jokingly boxing with each other. In general, America and Nabokov liked each other.
Fact No. 15. Jack London is a millionaire
Jack London became the first American writer to earn a million dollars from his work. London lived only 41 years, but began working at the age of 9 – selling newspapers. After becoming a writer, London worked 15-17 hours a day and wrote about 40 books in his short life.
Fact No. 16. John Tolkien snored terribly
His snoring was so loud that he slept in the bathroom so as not to disturb his wife's sleep. And the author of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy bequeathed never, never to make films based on his books. But, apparently, the thirst for money prevailed over the wills of the brilliant father, and Tolkien’s children agreed to the film adaptation. Well, we all know what came of it.
Fact No. 17. Vladimir Mayakovsky - Puppy
Mayakovsky was terribly fond of various “cats and dogs,” as he called them. One day, while walking with Lilya Brik, they picked up a stray red puppy. They took him home and named him Puppy. Later, Lilya began to call Mayakovsky Puppy. And from then on he signed his letters and telegrams “Puppy” and always drew a puppy at the bottom.
Fact No. 18. Balzac drank 50 cups of coffee a day
And he wrote exclusively at night. He sat down to work at midnight, dressed in a white robe, he wrote for 15 hours straight, drinking up to 20 cups of strong Turkish coffee only at night or simply chewing coffee beans. So at night he wrote his 100 novels of the literary epic “The Human Comedy”.
Fact No. 19. The first kebab shop in France was opened by Alexandre Dumas
Yes, it was he who introduced kebab to France. Dumas first tried shish kebab while traveling through the Caucasus. He liked the dish so much that he included it in his “Big Cookbook.” Yes, Dumas had one like that. There are rumors that the writer even cooked crow kebab for the French. They praised.
Well, if you believe fact No. 2, then Alexander Pushkin was such an ardent lover fried meat on skewers...
Fact No. 20. Dickens slept with only his head to the north
And he sat down to write only when his face was turned to the north. And he couldn’t work at all if the chair and table in the office weren’t the way he wanted. Therefore, before starting to write, he always rearranged the furniture.
Illustrations by Katerina Karpenko
(except for the illustration to the fact about Vladimir Mayakovsky)