Walt Whitman. When, at the age of 36, the poet first self-published the collection for which he would become famous, it received just two reviews, both written by himself under a pseudonym, but otherwise fell stillborn from the press. Only now is Walt Whitman generally recognised as the artist who Read more…
Rev. Wilbert Awdry developed ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ from bedtime stories for his children. The Rev. Wilbert Awdry was a lifelong railway enthusiast who made up stories about trains for his son Christopher when he came down with measles. After making Christopher a model of the engine Edward from his Read more…
Anna Sewell published ‘Black Beauty’ during the last months of her life. Sewell’s mother was a children’s author, whom she helped edit many books over the years. Sewell began writing Black Beauty during the last decade of her life to bring attention to the need for kindness to animals, while Read more…
George Eliot didn’t publish ‘Middlemarch’ until she was 52. Mary Ann Evans, better known by her pen name George Eliot, is one of Victorian England’s most acclaimed novelists. Her first book, Adam Bede, was published when she was 40, and her seminal Middlemarch didn’t come out for another 12 years. Read more…
Laura Ingalls Wilder was a teacher before becoming a writer, Wilder was 65 when Little House on the Prairie was published. If you read the Little House on the Prairie books as a child, then you likely know the story of Wilder’s life. The daughter of a pioneer family in Read more…
Anthony Burgess published his first novel at 39. The man responsible for the controversial A Clockwork Orange came to writing very late. He served in the military, worked as a teacher, organized amateur theater productions of T.S. Eliot and later joined the British Colonial Service to teach in Malaya. It Read more…
Leslie Nielsen After acting in small roles for many years, Nielsen was 54 when he landed his breakthrough role in Airplane!, which has often been voted one of the funniest movies of all time. Richard Adams wasn’t published until his 50s. Adams served in World War II during his younger Read more…
Bram Stoker, famous for Dracula, didn’t pen his opus until he was 50 years old. He left the civil service after many years to help run London’s famous Lyceum Theatre, writing reviews for free on the side. Though Dracula wasn’t his first novel, it is proof that you can write Read more…
Betty White Before she was on Golden Girls, White earned an Emmy as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show when she was 51-years-old. Raymond Chandler published ‘The Big Sleep’ at 51. Chandler was inspired to write by the Great Depression: After losing his job in the oil Read more…