Feature piece in literary journal Rapportage.

1. W
hen writers become famous, their celebrity often leads
to a one-dimensional perception of their talent by
readers,students of literature,and the general public.As
with many famous figures, the authors become known for what is
only a small slice of their work and their lives. This phenomenon
has been magnified over recent years as marketing and branding
concepts grow increasingly intertwined with publishing and the
arts. Today, gaining the attention of a loyal audience or achieving
first publication forces many writers to present themselves as
producers of one genre or better yet, masters of a sub-genre. How
many creative people,however,are chained to one genre,or even to
one artistic medium?
The craft of creating a story and ordering language more
often leads to diverse work,and of this diverse work the writer may
view some pieces purely as diversion and some as essential to his
or her career. Dabbling in a variety of genres may for some be a
vacation of sorts from their usual writing habits.In other cases,the
author desires a stretching experience or a strengthening exercise,
laboring deliberately in an unfamiliar style to improve his routine
work.Producing gifts for family members or friends has long been
another motivator for authors to stray outside familiar writing
modes.Whatever their motivation,authors who have chosen to use
their hidden talents as well as their writing skills that have brought
them notoriety provide literature lovers with a fascinating subject
of study.
One of the more common instances in which authors work
outside their associated genre is that of adult authors creating
children’s books.This has long been a practice,and adult authors—
and many celebrities—have only continued to show strong interest
in writing for children or teens. The publishing world has cited a
significant increase in books written by famous adult novelists and
intended for juvenile or teen readers.While each writer has his or
her own personal reason for pursuing the children’s market, some
in the industry, such as Publisher’s Weekly writer Judith Rosen and
Guardian culture writer Jasper Rees,feel that the success of several
notable children’s series over the past decade has perpetuated this
trend.What could be more appealing to writers than to know that
young and old readers alike may find joy in their work? In addition,
authors who historically wrote for adults are often motivated by
personal or familial reasons to write for younger audiences. A
number of the writers mentioned here wrote books or stories for
a specific child,compositions that were subsequently published for
the reading public.
Exploring these somewhat secret sides of famous writers is
too large a topic to cover exhaustively in a single article, but the
appetite may be whet with this whirlwind tour of a selection of
well-known authors. Each of these writers possessed multiple
talentsorpublishedoutsideof hisorherassociatedgenre.Thougha
sampling,the group included here represents a broad range of eras
and genres.
Beginning chronologically with a famous early American
writer, one may be surprised to learn that a man known for his
sometimes bleak novels and stories about Puritan communities
wrote two children’s books. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
wrote A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls in 1852 and then produced
Tanglewood Tales a year later. In the Wonder Book, Hawthorne
rewrote six classics of mythology for young readers. He also
included a preface and a conclusion for each myth to help children
By Stacey Brownlie
The
Private Side of
Public FiguresHidden talents of famous writers
45VOLUME XII

2. understand the stories.It is intriguing to note Hawthorne’s remarks
in the opening pages, that his writing of this book was “one of the
most agreeable, of a literary kind, which [he] ever undertook” and
that he did not think that it was “necessary to write downward, in
order to meet the comprehension of children.”He felt that children
had more capacity to understand literature than people perceived
and that it was “the artificial and complex” that confused them
rather than high concepts or lofty themes. Because of the success
of A Wonder Book,Hawthorne followed this with Tanglewood Tales,
a second collection based on the same format: stories derived from
mythology and revised for children.
Another early American author and a friend of Nathaniel
Hawthorne,Herman Melville (1819-1891),famous today for novels
of the sea and struggle, also harbored a talent for writing poetry.A
sometimes misunderstood author—and a forgotten one at the time
of his death—Melville put aside fiction writing in the late 1850s
and wrote poetry, self-publishing four books of poetry in this later
period. Much of this work concentrated on the Civil War. The titles
of Melville’s four poetry collections are Battle-Pieces and Aspects of
the War: Civil War Poems (1866); Clarel: A Poem and a Pilgrimage
(1876); John Marr and Other Sailors (1888); and Timoleon (1891).
Melville wrote the title piece for his second poetry book in response
to his Holy Land visit in 1856 and 1857. The discovery of the
manuscript for the critically praised novella Billy Budd, Sailor after
Melville’s death hints that Melville’s poetic compositions eventually
led him to return one last time to prose.
Melville was certainly not the only famous novelist to publish
poetry. In fact, there was a group of notable female novelists who
also published a shared poetry collection, a book made more
obscure because it was written under male pen names and only
soldtwocopies.Thisvolumeof poetrywastheproductof theBrontë
sisters—Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848), and Anne
(1820-1849).Selected Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell was the
first published work for each of the Brontë sisters. Printed in 1846,
thevolumecontainspoemsthatexplorebothromanticandspiritual
themes. Some of the poems also make reference to the imaginary
worlds of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal, fantasy places that the
sisters (along with their brother, Branwell) had used in
make-believe play.Though the book was not successful at
the time of its limited-run printing,it has understandably
become a collector’s item. The Brontë sisters of course
each followed this first try at publishing with individual
and very successful novels. Selected Poems was reprinted
in the United States in 1848.
Turningfromwritersmostknownforbeingnovelists,
one finds in British author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
(1832-1898) a unique and little-known blend of talent.
Dodgsonistherealnameoffamouschildren’sauthorLewis
Carroll. Dodgson’s Alice in Wonderland: Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland is a classic enjoyed by adults and children
alike. Alice in Wonderland is but one of many books
written by Dodgson—titles published under the Carroll
pen name for children as well as those produced under his
given name for adults.Dodgson’s other works for children
were distinguished by his talent for nonsense poems and
riddles. His books for adults are surprisingly different—
mostly nonfiction titles on topics of mathematics, the
subject he taught for many years at Christ’s Church College
in Oxford. Dodgson also excelled in photography. He
produced thousands of photographs between 1856 and
1880,mostof themportraits.Agreatnumberof Dodgson’s
portrait subjects were children, including Alice Liddell
(who inspired Dodgson’s Alice inWonderland),but he also
Princeton University Library, Morris L.Parrish Collection. Department of Rare
Books and Special Collections.Princeton University Library.
46 RAPPORTAGE

3. photographed notable adults such
as Alfred, Lord Tennyson; William
Holman Hunt; and John Ruskin.
Beyond being an artist and a writer,
Dodgson could also go by the title of
inventor. He created several writing-
relatedgadgetsaswellassomegames
and a glue substitute.Dodgson was a
man of many interests; his writing
unified some of them, allowing
him to explore the imagination and
creativity of children’s minds as well
as the logic and precision of math
and science.
Though poetry seems an
unfamiliar genre for writers like
Melville and the Brontë sisters, the
form could not be more closely
linked to the name Robert Frost
(1874-1963). Frost’s name is also
one of the few belonging to a
poet that the average American
recognizes; his most famous pieces
have been memorized by countless
schoolchildren. Frost departed
from his well-known poems of New
England for his four children, Lesley,
Carol,Irma,and Marjorie.He created
bedtime stories, which he told to his
children and preserved in one of his
notebooks. He gave his children protagonist’s roles in the stories,
putting them in situations similar to their real lives with some
added touches of fantasy.Though Frost reportedly did not intend to
publish the stories, these private compositions became a children’s
book titled Stories for Lesley.Roger D.Sell with the University Press
of Virginia edited the collection of 18 stories taken from Frost’s
personal Derry notebook, which Frost wrote sometime between
1899 and 1906.
William Faulkner (1897-1962), another American author who
becameahouseholdname,alsopennedachildren’sbook.Faulkner’s
one composition of children’s fiction, The Wishing Tree, was a
birthday gift to his stepdaughterVictoria Franklin in 1927.Faulkner
created the entire book, typing and binding it himself. According
to the William Faulkner Encyclopedia, Faulkner created a second,
longer version of the story for another child, Margaret Brown, and
later gave several other copies as Christmas gifts in 1948. In 1964,
Random House formally published Faulkner’s story as a children’s
bookwithillustrationsbyDonBolognese.RandomHouseusedthe
original text from the first book created forVictoria.The story was
also reprinted in the April 8,1967,edition of the Saturday Evening
Post.The original handmade copy of The Wishing Tree,donated to
Southeast Missouri University by collector Louis Daniel Brodsky,
is now housed at the university’s Center for Faulkner Studies.
Faulkner departed from his novelist reputation in other ways as
well. He published several collections of poetry and he also wrote
and contributed to television screenplays and film scripts as a
more stable way of earning money.
One of the more well-known writers for adults who also
penned children’s books is E.B. White (1899-1985). White wrote
Printed with permission of A P Watt Ltd on behalf
of Trustees of the C L Dodgson Estate.
Lewis Carroll,whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson,is perhaps
best known for his classic children's book,Alice in Wonderland. But he also
excelled in photography,taking portraits of famous people including
George MacDonald (below) and Alfred,
Lord Tennyson (left).
47VOLUME XII

4. three children’s books,all extremely popular,though Charlotte’sWeb
(1952) and Stuart Little (1946) are the two long considered to be
classics. The Trumpet of the Swan, written decades later than his
first two children’s titles, is also a well-loved, if not as well-known,
juvenile title. White commented in an interview that he saw little
difference between writing for children or writing for adults, citing
“a very slight modification of vocabulary” and a change in the
writer’s “state of mind.” Stuart Little, White’s first children’s book,
was based on stories about a mouse.He had originally shared these
stories with his nieces and nephews. White followed Stuart Little
with Charlotte’s Web, a book he reportedly referred to as a “hymn
to the barn.”Children have now loved the animal characters of this
storyaboutapigformorethan50years,atalethatgentlyhelpsthem
learnaboutdifficultexperienceslike death andloss.Whitewastruly
a multitalented writer, finding great success in his primary role as
an essayist and major contributor to The New Yorker, and who not
onlycomposedthesepopularchildren’sbooksbutalsowrotepoetry
and drew sketches.White received many awards and honors for his
work,culminating with the 1971 National Medal for Literature.
Much less well-known are the two children’s books by a writer
who appears in distinct contrast to E.B.White. Sylvia Plath (1932-
1963) is known primarily as a poet and secondarily as a novelist, a
woman sadly also remembered for her struggle with mental illness
and her commission of suicide at only 30 years of age.Plath’s legacy
of complex poems and dark themes make it all the more interesting
that she also wrote two children’s books:The Bed Book,published in
the U.K.by Faber & Faber and first published in the U.S.by Harper
& Row (both in 1976), and The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit, published
in the U.S. by St. Martin’s Press in 1996 and in the U.K. in 1997 by
Faber & Faber.These titles offer readers a different side of Plath,the
happiness and lightness in their tone serving as strict antonyms to
her poetry and sole novel,The Bell Jar.The Bed Book is a whimsical
story about beds that serve various purposes outside of traditional
slumbering. Plath mentions working on The Bed Book story in one
of her journal entries. The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit, published after
Plath’s death after the manuscript’s discovery among her papers,
focuses on a character named Max Nix and his conspicuous yellow
suit. Both of these books are now difficult to find, though used
copiesareavailableinlimitedquantitiesthroughonlinebooksellers.
Plath is not the only complex poet to have written in a separate
genre. E.E. Cummings (1894-1962), known among other things
for eschewing formal capitalization and punctuation in his work,
wrote fairy tales as well as plays and also produced art outside
the written medium as a painter. Fairy Tales contains four stories
Cummings composed for his daughter,Nancy.Originally published
by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1965 with illustrations by John
Eaton, Fairy Tales was republished in hardcover by W.W Norton &
Company with new illustrations in 2004. There is another juvenile
book associated with Cummings titled Little Tree. This book was
only published in 1987 and is derived from Cummings’ Christmas
poem,“Little Tree.”Cummings’most well-known play was Him.The
play concerns a male character named“him”and a female character
named “me,”returning to familiar themes in Cummings’ poetry of
the man/woman relationship and love and union in the context of
a large,messy world.Cummings also created a travel memoir titled
Eimi (Greek for “I am”) following his trip to the Soviet Union in
1931.Like some other artists at the time,Cummings originally had
interest in the Communist form of government but quickly changed
his mind after experiencing Soviet society firsthand. Cummings’
visual artwork, which he formally exhibited numerous times, was
also featured in a book titled CIOPW in 1931.Cummings’paintings
are thought to reflect two major periods of his life: his abstract-,
cubist-, and dada-influenced works were primarily created during
his younger years, while he migrated to representational pieces in
48 RAPPORTAGE

5. the second half of his life. Since Cummings produced well over a
thousand paintings and painted consistently throughout his career,
one wonders if, to him, visual art and the art of language were
equally important pursuits,though his notoriety today is primarily
due to his poetry.
Poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), a contemporary of E.E.
Cummings, was also a prolific and multitalented writer. He is
rememberedforhisplainspokenpoemsaboutAmerica,particularly
his poems about the city of Chicago,and is almost always included
in high school and college American literature textbooks for this
reason. Yet he also wrote a biography of Abraham Lincoln that is
likely the most exhaustive ever produced, a book that took about
30 years to research and write. This enormous two-volume work
was originally supposed to be a juvenile biography, but Sandburg
became completely engrossed in his subject, and it evolved into a
true labor of love.In addition,Sandburg played the guitar; traveling
and performing in public, he played his instrument, sang folk
tunes, and recited his poetry. He also composed fairy tales for his
children, several of which he published (Rootabaga Stories in 1922,
Rootabaga Pigeons in 1923, Rootabaga Country in 1929, and Potato
Face in 1930).Two of Sandburg’s poetry collections,Early Moon and
Wind Song, were also intended for children. Some of Sandburg’s
previously unpublished stories for youth were gathered into another
book,More Rootabagas,by George Hendrick in 1993.Sandburg was
also a successful journalist who covered World War I, the Chicago
race riots, and World War II. A master of many genres, Sandburg
was that rare writer who enjoyed the fame and popularity that few
authors see during their lifetimes.
Ogden Nash (1902-1971), another 20th Century poet, is most
remembered for his humorous verses and silly couplets. Though
Nash’s lighter side sometimes failed to bring him serious critical
acclaim,hebecamequitepopularwithreadersandoftentouredand
lectured.Nash did write for the famously particular The NewYorker,
however, demonstrating his skill with more literary prose. Nash’s
little-known writings outside of his light verse included numerous
song lyrics, verses for a television production of Peter and the Wolf,
and several poem-stories for children. Nash also wrote screenplays
for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and though these were never produced,
he did have success in 1943 with a Broadway play, One Touch of
Venus. Venturing outside of writing in his middle years, Nash was
often a guest on television entertainment shows. The Adventures
of Isabel, a picture book just published in 2008, was created from
a piece that Nash wrote and named for his daughter. Nash had a
signature style of light verse that included invented words, puns,
irregular line lengths,and unexpected rhymes.
The final author in this tour of famous writers’ hidden talents
is one of the most recognizable in modern culture. For many,
it would not be difficult to name the character most associated
with writer Ian Fleming (1908-1964). The fictional James Bond
and his creator were and are nearly inseparable in the 007 legend.
Fleming was responsible for another famous character, however.
This character was not a human; it was an automobile. Fleming’s
children’s story Chitty Chitty Bang Bang:The Magical Car,originally
created for his son Caspar,was published in 1964.The popular tale
was subsequently made into a film in 1968 and,more recently,was
adapted into a London stage play in 2002 and a Broadway musical
in 2005.Just as with his Bond novels,Fleming’s children’s story was
successful during his lifetime and continues to be well-loved today.
Most writers toil in solitude. Many never become known
outside of a small circle, whether it be geographic or relational. A
few writers become published authors and with this exposure—in
rarecases—comeslong-lastingfame.Overtime,thisfameobscures
the multi-faceted work of notable authors. After these writers die,
their notoriety may become even narrower. The general public
sometimes remembers them for just that one book—perhaps even
just that one poem,character,or sentence.
Yet despite this narrowing effect, many of the creations
engendered by the hidden talents of writers have endured in
surprising ways.They have become favorite family movies,such as
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming.They have become favorite
games, like Scrabble, originally thought up by Lewis Carroll, to be
played on lazy Sunday afternoons.Although they are no longer, or
perhaps never were,publicly associated with their famous creators,
they are now famous in their own right.Children’s books like Stuart
Little and Charlotte’s Web have overshadowed the author’s primary
work and survived the passage of time by rebirth on television
and in film. Many people, if asked, would not recognize the name
E.B.White in any other context but as the author of these beloved
classics.
The authors who created these works most likely considered
them to be labors of love for family and friends or simple hobbies.
For example, Lewis Carroll said of his photography,“It is my one
recreation and I think it should be done well.” They probably did
not realize that these stories, games, and images would become,
in many cases, as much a lasting part of our culture as the novels,
essays, and poems they considered to be their primary work. The
fact some ‘secret’ talents have become successful is a testament to
the genius of their creators,a genius which would not allow itself to
be limited by the constraints of one creative outlet.
49VOLUME XII