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Many authors only gain fame for one or two works, often written later in their careers. It is less common to achieve immediate success, even in the case of the literary greats. This list explores the first works of eight classic authors, from those who published young, reached early fame and created one off masterpieces to those whose first attempts were not their finest.
Emily Brontë is best known for her one and only novel, Wuthering Heights. Writing of passion, obsession, jealousy and revenge, the novel is a masterful exploration of human behaviour. Though now considered a literary masterpiece, the manuscript faced several rejections before its eventual publication in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. Brontë died just a year later, aged thirty. The novel’s intense atmosphere and ‘amoral’ themes shocked its Victorian readers and only in later years did it receive enough acclaim to render it a classic.
Even the great Charles Dickens had to begin somewhere. He started his career as a journalist before the publication of The Pickwick Papers brought him literary success. The novel, with its wealthy protagonist Samuel Pickwick, Esquire., is a humorous sequence of adventures guided by many amusing characters. Still in his early twenties when it was published, Dickens was instantly popular with his readers. His works continued to captivate readers for decades and today he is considered one of the most famous English novelists of all time.
An exciting blend of romance and tragedy, The Sun also Rises is an excellent first novel. The story follows Jake Barnes, an American veteran living in Paris during the 1920s. Plagued by self-doubt and inadequacy, his desire is to love and be loved in a situation where neither seem possible. Upon its publication, Hemingway’s novel received mixed reviews, with some critics regarding him as a better short story writer. Yet as time went on, and as Hemingway became more popular with novels such as The Old Man and the Sea, his first work became increasingly significant as the one that began his novelist career.
D. H. Lawrence was a prolific English writer, known for writing a variety of works. He started out as a poet before penning his first novel, The White Peacock. A tale about mismatched marriages in a class driven, industrial world, it is both gritty and captivating. With clear autobiographical threads, erotic undertones and explorations of relationships, agriculture, nature and industry, this work offers an insight into a difficult yet fascinating existence. Like Hemingway, Lawrence’s debut novel was not his greatest masterpiece – this came later with Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Taught in schools and beloved by many, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel is a true masterpiece of American literature. Despite its varied reception, the novel became a sensation and its popularity has endured. Lee writes of innocence, kindness, cruelty, hatred and love, revealing her deep understanding of human behaviour and the destruction of innocence caused by social pressures and racial injustice.
George Orwell is best known for his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. His first novel, Down and Out in Paris and London was a fictional memoir all about his own experience of poverty. The story is harrowing, telling of starvation and struggle but it is also filled with fascinating insights into the lives of those who sought to maintain respectability and integrity while existing in dire conditions. Though it has never been labelled a ‘masterpiece’, it contains some sobering truths and offers an insight into Orwell’s early experiences and his literary mind.
During the post-war era, Salinger’s wild protagonist Holden Caulfield became a powerful role model for younger readers. Though his unrestricted independence was viewed as a threat by some, it was exactly this that attracted younger readers. Salinger’s exploration of adolescent alienation is in part a parody. He exposes the problems caused within the middle classes regarding the isolation of the younger generations. Although The Catcher in the Rye was only his first novel, it became his most famous and is still popular today.
Mary Shelley was just eighteen years old when she began writing Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus. Her creation of the graveyard plundering Victor Frankenstein and the horrifying monster he fashions from body parts was subject to mixed reviews. Despite its uncertain reception, the anonymously published novel swiftly grew in popularity. Considered one of the first ‘science fiction’ novels, today it is a known worldwide as a literary classic.
Classic authors are often perceived as those who achieved instant success. More accurately however, classic can be defined as the ability to write an enduring tale, the kind that survives decades or even centuries of political, social and economic change.
While authors like Dickens achieved immediate success, others became literary masters through continued dedication to their craft. This list of first and/or only works offer insights into their authors lives and minds prior to their everlasting success.
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