A list of some famous authors who were late-bloomers
Posted August 1, 2013 4:06 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Here is a look at some famous, late-blooming authors:
Raymond Chandler: He worked as an oil executive until age 44, but losing his job during the Great Depression caused him to change career paths. He took up his pen at age 44 and went on to become one of the most influential mystery writers of his day. Some of his novels and screenplays, including “The Big Sleep” and “Strangers on a Train,” became Hollywood classics as well.
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Zora Neale Hurston: This key figure of the Harlem Renaissance didn’t achieve fame as a novelist until after her 40th birthday. Hurston’s first book was published at age 43, and her seminal work, “Their Eyes were Watching God,” came out three years later.
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P.D. James: The grande dame of suspense fiction spent most of her working life as a civil servant for the British government, only writing in her off-hours. She didn’t publish the first in her iconic series about detective Adam Dalgliesh until she was 42 and had to wait 18 years longer for major commercial recognition. James is still writing today at age 93.
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Frank McCourt: Novel writing formed no part of McCourt’s early years, which were consumed with surviving an impoverished upbringing in Ireland, serving time in the U.S. army, holding odd jobs in New York and finally becoming a globe-trotting teacher. He parlayed these experiences into literary success starting at age 66 with a series of autobiographies, most notably “Angela’s Ashes.”
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Bram Stoker: This Irish-born author toiled in obscurity for decades before his name became synonymous with vampire lore. Stoker worked for years as a low-level administrator and wrote the odd unacclaimed novel, but finally made his name when he published “Dracula” at age 50.
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Mark Twain: His reputation as one of the finest American writers of all-time is based on many things, but not his early career success. Twain’s debut novel and one of his most well-known works, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” was not published until he was 41.
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Laura Ingalls Wilder: She is best known as a children’s author and the scribe behind “Little House on the Prairie” and its various sequels. But the novels that have come to be recognized as childhood literary classics were written after Ingalls Wilder turned 67.
