15 Mind-blowing Literary Facts You Should Know

From Williams Shakespeare to whoever may be last on the list, the Literary world has witnessed so many great writers and their works just as their names are forever written in history.

These writers have shaped human history, capturing some of the most important historical events and reflecting the culture of a changing world around us in a profound way.

It is rather necessary to know some interesting facts about their works and lives. 15 of these facts have been compiled below:

• The first novel ever written on a typewriter was Tom Sawyer.
  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an 1876 novel by Mark Twain about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River.

• Pride and Prejudice was originally titled First Impressions.
  Pride and Prejudice is an 1813 romantic novel of manners written by Jane Austen.

• All of the roles in Shakespeare’s plays were originally acted by men and boys. In England at that time, it wasn’t proper for females to appear on stage.

• Charles Dickens’ superstitious behaviour:
  Dickens believed that sleeping facing North, would improve his writing. He also carried a compass when travelling to make sure he was facing the right direction and he always touched things 3 times for luck.

• J.K. Rowling is not actually her name:
  Our favorite author who goes by initials actually doesn’t have a middle name. After a suggestion from her publisher, she chose her grandmother’s name, Kathleen.

• Longest book in the world:
  ‘A la recherche du temps perdu’ by Marcel Proust is the longest book in the world at 9,609,000 characters. Translated into Remembers of Things Past, the book tells the story of the narrator’s experiences growing up.

• To Kill a Mockingbird is Harper Lee’s only novel, even though it won a Pulitzer Prize and spent 88 weeks on the best seller list.

• Most expensive book ever purchased:
  Renowned billionaire Bill Gates bought ‘Codex Leicester’, one of Leonardo Di Vinci’s scientific journals for a whopping $30.8 million.

• ‘The Mouse Trap’ by Agatha Christie is the longest-running play in history.

• The name for Oz in the “Wizard of Oz” was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence “Oz.”.

• In the original story, Sleeping beauty was raped by the prince and gave birth to 2 children. She woke up when a kid sucked on her finger.

• Lewis Carroll’s book ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was banned in China as the book suggests animals can talk and write just like humans, which according to the governor of Hunan, China is “disastrous”.

• Ghosts appear only in 4 Shakespearean plays: Julius Caesar, Richard III, Hamlet and Macbeth.

• The Dr. Seuss classic Green Eggs and Ham was written as a bet. Seuss bet his publisher $50 that he could write a book in 50 words or less. The book contains exactly 50 words.

• The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, ‘Aladdin was a little Chinese boy.’

Written by Samiah Olabimpe