Fun Facts About

27 Interesting Facts about English Literature

Interesting facts about literature books

English literature has a deep and interesting history. From William Shakespear, Charles Dickens to JRR Tolkien and JK Rowling, the world has witnessed some great writers. But what are the most fascinating literary facts? Read all of them below:

Interesting facts about english literature.

  • Sherlock Holmes never said, “Elementary, my dear Watson”.
  • A Language dies every 14 days.
  • The first novel ever written on a typewriter was Tom Sawyer.
  • “I am.” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
  • There are only four words in the English language which end in ‘dous’: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
  • Ghosts appear only in 4 Shakespearean plays: Julius Caesar, Richard III, Hamlet and Macbeth.
  • Microsoft founder Bill Gates bought ‘Codex Leicester’, one of Leonardo Di Vinci’s scientific journals for a whopping $30.8 million in November 1994.
  • Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate factory, tested chocolates for Cadbury’s while he was at school.
  • Marcel Proust’s ‘Remembers of Things Past’ is the longest book in the world at 9,609,000 characters. The book is highly inspired by Proust’s personal experiences.
  • 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”.

Little known facts about English literature and language.

  • No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
  • The only 15 letter word that can be spelt without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
  • ‘SWIMS’ upside down still looks like ‘SWIMS’.
  • The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” uses every letter in the alphabet.
  • The town of Hamelin, Germany famous for the legend of the rat-catching Pied Piper has a Modern day Rat Problem due to the food left by tourists.
  • 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.”.
  • ‘Aloha’ is a Hawaiian word that means both hello and goodbye.
  • The longest English word without a vowel is – rhythm.
  • The Times (UK’s newspaper) of 22 August 1978 contained the most number of misprints – about 97. In one story about the Pope, he was called “the Pop” throughout the article.
  • ‘The Mouse Trap’ by Agatha Christie is the longest-running play in history.
  • 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.
  • ‘Dreamt’ is the only English word that ends in the letters ‘mt’.
  • The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, ‘Aladdin was a little Chinese boy.’.
  • John Milton used 8,000 different words in his poem ‘Paradise Lost.’.
  • 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.
  • Silent and Listen are spelt with the same letters.

Enjoyed these facts about literature? Share them with your friends!

Related posts, interesting facts about dreams, interesting history facts, interesting space facts, interesting man-made world facts, sign up for our newsletter and receive all the facts straight in your inbox., get facts in your inbox, trending facts for you, 20 interesting facts about facebook, 28 interesting facts about google, 20 interesting facts about mexico, 20 facts about left handed people, comics and cartoons facts.

150 Interesting Facts About Our Favorite Authors [Infographic]

In the course of researching for Books on the Wall poster designs and various blog posts and infographics, we come across some pretty neat stuff. When we find some interesting facts about literature, we make a scribble in the Books on the Wall notepad, bookmark the link…and move on.

Looking back on that notepad recently, though, we realized that we’ve collected quite a few random but really interesting facts about some of our favorite writer s— including their lives, backgrounds, habits, and interests.

To share the literary love, we compiled 10 of those facts into this brief infographic. Scroll down below the infographic to see the full list along with 140 bonus facts about interesting authors around the world. We hope you enjoy learning these surprising author facts as much as we enjoyed finding them!

Interesting Author Facts

Since making our 10-fact infographic, we’ve taken a deep dive into the world of author facts. We’ve augmented our original 10 facts with 140 more! Check out 150 facts about authors, both well-known and relatively unknown, below.

Jane Austen , one of England’s finest novelists , almost died at the age of seven. Both Jane and her sister Cassandra caught diphtheria while in Oxford. Thankfully, Jane’s cousin Jane Cooper sent a letter to Jane’s mother who rushed to her two daughters with an herbal remedy.

Alice in Wonderland  author  Lewis Carroll  was terrible at finances. Although he paid his debts on time, he would often overdraft upwards of £7,500. This is all the more ironic considering Carroll was a mathematics scholar at Oxford.

Mary Shelley started writing Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus when she was 18 years old. It was published only two years later.

Victor Hugo ‘s  Les Miserables  wasn’t only popular with 19th century Parisians. This massive novel was one of the most widely read books amongst American soldiers in the Civil War.

Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud once attended a lecture given by American icon  Mark Twain . The subject of Twain’s talk, however, had nothing to do with the intricacies of the human psyche. Twain’s central lecture topic was about a watermelon he stole as a child

Irish author  James Joyce  loved Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen’s plays so much that he learned basic Norwegian just to send Ibsen a fan lette r. In addition to Norwegian, Joyce was fluent in French, Italian, Latin, and German. He even uses words in more obscure languages like Old English, Gaelic, Provençal, and Swahili in his most difficult novel  Finnegan’s Wake.

Mark Twain was the next-door neighbor of Harriet Beecher Stowe in Hartford, Connecticut.

George Eliot was actually a woman. Mary Ann Evans wrote under this pen name because women authors were not as highly regarded as men. As George Eliot, Evans wrote several novels considered among the best of all time.

Not just a world-famous author, Vladimir Nabokov was also a serious lepidopterologist, or studier of butterflies. He was a Comparative Zoology research fellow at Harvard, where much of his butterfly collection remains today.

Before he made it as a writer, Salman Rushdie wrote copy for Ogilvy & Mather. He came up with several famous campaigns, including “naughty, but nice” and “irresistibubble!”

Virginia Woolf (author of To the Lighthouse , Mrs. Dalloway , and A Room of One’s Own ) was related by marriage to William Makepeace Thackeray, author of Vanity Fair . William’s daughter, Minie, was the first wife of Virginia’s father.

Cormac McCarthy wrote with the same typewriter for more than 50 years. When it broke, he auctioned it off to raise proceeds for the Sante Fe institute. It sold for over $250,000 in 2009.

Lord of the Rings  author  J. R. R. Tolkien  worked as both a scholar of languages and on the  Oxford English Dictionary  before writing his bestselling novels.He researched and explained the etymology of words starting with W. Known words of his include “waggle” and “walrus.” For a man of such erudition, it’s somewhat odd that he consistently told reporters “cellar door” was the most beautiful phrase in the English language. Who knows; perhaps it takes a PhD in Old Norse to understand.

William Shakespeare ‘s legacy survives not only in his many plays, but also in his contributions to the English language. Did you know these phrases originally came from Shakespeare?

dead as a doornail

all of a sudden

in a pickle

wear your heart on your sleeve

star-crossed lovers

off with his head

green-eyed monster

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , the inventor of the Sherlock Holmes series, had a very public friendship with master illusionist Harry Houdini. However, once Houdini heard that Doyle believed in spiritualism and thought Houdini had real magical powers, the friendship swiftly ended.

American author William Faulkner wrote the outline to one of his novels on the walls of his writing office in Oxford, Mississippi. Visitors to Faulkner’s  Rowan Oak can still see the author’s hand-written notes for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel  A Fable  on these walls.

Nathaniel Hawthorne , author of  The Scarlet Letter , helped start a  Transcendental commune  near Boston in 1841. However, Hawthorne left this commune a few months later after he found it difficult to write with all the blisters he got from cutting straw and shoveling manure. His lesser-known novel  The Blithedale Romance  recounts this experience.

Robinson Crusoe  author  Daniel Defoe   tried his hand at many unsuccessful business ventures before he became a well-known pamphleteer and novelist. One of the weirdest things he ever tried to sell was perfume made from the secretions of cats’ butts.

Boris Pasternak , the Russian writer behind  Doctor Zhivago , was the first author in history to refuse the Nobel Prize for Literature. A few months after Pasternak was awarded the prize in 1958, he formally refused the award fearing that it would cause the Soviet government to arrest him or his family. It wasn’t until 1989 that Pasternak’s son collected the award in Sweden for his father.

French novelist Stendhal has a clinically recognized disease named after him:  Stendhal syndrome . Symptoms of this disease include fainting, shortness of breath, and heart palpitations while viewing exquisite art. Stendhal’s name was chosen for this disease because he almost passed out after seeing Florence’s Basilica of Santa Croce.

Wuthering Heights   author Emily Brontë certainly had a faithful pooch! Her dog, named Keeper, actually followed Brontë’s coffin to her gravesite in 1848 and was said to whimper by Emily’s room for weeks after her burial.

Romantic poet  Percy Bysshe Shelley  was one of literature’s first prominent vegans. He was persuaded to start this diet after he read the work of Dr. William Lambe and John Frank Newton, both of whom wrote the first tracts in the English language advocating a vegan lifestyle. Shelley also wrote pamphlets of his own advocating  veganism.

Romantic legend  Lord Byron  always traveled with his dozens of animals. Just a few of the pets that made it from Byron’s English estate to Venice include ten horses, three monkeys, three peacocks, eight dogs, five cats, one crane, one falcon, one eagle, and one crow.

John Milton , author of  Paradise Lost , had a huge influence on America’s Founding Fathers. His political pamphlet  Areopagitica , which argued in favor of the freedom of the press, was a key influence on the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

Before Argentinian author  Jorge Luis Borges  was celebrated for his fiction, he earned a living by writing advertisements for yogurt. Hey, we’ve all got to start somewhere, right?

Victorian novelist  Elizabeth Gaskell  bought a home in Hampshire without telling her husband. Unfortunately, Gaskell had a severe heart attack and died in this house in November of 1865 while she was having tea with her daughters. Gaskell’s husband was doubly shocked: first that his wife had died and second that she bought a secret house.

When  Victor Hugo  was running behind on his deadline for  The   Hunchback of Notre Dame , he locked himself in his room with nothing but a shawl, paper, and a pen . He did this so he wouldn’t get distracted from finishing his work, despite the fact that it was freezing outside his home.

Emily Dickinson  was one of the most reclusive poets in American literary history. From the 1850s till her death, Dickinson mainly stayed within her Amherst family home and only went outside to tend to the garden. She didn’t even leave her upstairs bedroom to attend her father’s funeral downstairs.

19th century French short story writer  Guy de Maupassant  was one of many Parisian intellectuals who hated the Eiffel Tower . Maupassant often ate lunch inside the tower’s restaurant just to avoid seeing the Eiffel Tower’s profile.

Russian author  Vladimir Nabokov  wrote most of his major novels on index cards. Nabokov believed this method of writing helped him figure out the best way to structure his plots. He even kept a pack of cards under his pillows at night so he could quickly write down any ideas that came into his head.

Truman Capote , author of  In Cold Blood , only wrote while reclining on a sofa. He wrote in pencil with one hand and used his hand to smoke a cigarette, sip a cup of coffee, or pour a sherry.

Victorian writer  Thomas Carlyle  lent his first draft of  The French Revolution  to friend and fellow philosopher  John Stuart Mill  in 1835. When Carlyle returned to pick up his manuscript in London, Mill told Carlyle the document accidentally burned. Amazingly, Carlyle wrote the entire 800-page text again and published it to great acclaim in 1837.

Before  Louisa May Alcott  wrote  Little Women , she worked as a Civil War nurse in Washington, D.C. Alcott recorded her experiences tending to soldiers in her first bestselling work  Hospital Sketches  (1863). Unfortunately, Alcott contracted typhoid and was “treated” with mercury afterwards, which led to Alcott’s untimely death in 1888.

Although English poet  John Donne  was the great-nephew of Catholic martyr  Sir Thomas More , he became one of London’s most famous (and feared) Protestant ministers. Before he died in 1631, John Donne commissioned a statue of himself and had it placed in  Saint Paul’s Cathedral . This John Donne bust is the only original statue in St. Paul’s that survived the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Authors  Virginia Woolf  and  Edith Wharton   both hated James Joyce’s  Ulysses  with a passion .  After reading the work for the first time, Woolf said, “I don’t believe that [Joyce’s] method…means much more than cutting out the explanations and putting in the thoughts between dashes.” Wharton was even harsher in her denunciation of Joyce’s novel, calling it a “turgid welter of pornography.”

Famous Scottish novelist  Sir Walter Scott   wrote most of his epic poem  Marmion  while on horseback. Scott was a member of the Light Horse Volunteers, which were preparing for a possible French invasion of the British Isles. Most likely Scott drew inspiration from the horsemen he saw around him in  Marmion ‘s description of the 1513 Battle of Flodden.

The obscure German poet  Gottlob Wilhelm Burmann  (1737 – 1805) is better known today for his intense hatred of the letter “R” than his actual poetry. Burmann so hated the letter “R” that he refused to use it in his poetic work and in daily conversation.

Arnold Bennett , the  author  of  The Old Wives’ Tale  and  Clayhanger,  has an omelette named after him. The omelette, which consists of cream, Parmesan cheese, and smoked haddock, was invented at London’s  Savoy Hotel  where Bennett often stayed. You can still order an “Omelette Arnold Bennett” at the Savoy Hotel today.

When one Booker Prize judge finished Canadian author  Margaret Atwood ‘s  The Year Of The Flood , he hurled the novel across the room in a rage. Eyewitnesses say he threw the book so hard that it actually dented a wall. But don’t feel too bad for Atwood; she had already won the 2000  Booker Prize  for her novel  The Blind Assassin . 

When asked where she came up with the plots for her famous murder mysteries,  Agatha Christie  said she liked to think out her stories while eating apples and relaxing in a warm bath. As of today, Christie remains the bestselling murder mystery novelist of all time, so her method obviously worked!

18th century poet  Alexander Pope  has the most popular poetic quote according to Google Analytics. The award-winning quote, which has over 14.8 million hits on Google, comes from Pope’s  An Essay on Criticism : “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” Rounding out the top three are William Ernest Henley’s “I am the master of my fate,” and William Wordsworth’s “The child is father of the man.

While poet  Sylvia Plath  is better known for  Ariel  and  The Bell Jar , she also wrote a popular collection of children’s rhymes that were published posthumously as  The Bed Book . The original printed version of  The Bed Book  featured illustrations by Quentin Blake, the award-winning artist behind almost all the illustrations in Roald Dahl’s books.

Irish novelist  James Joyce  was one of world literature’s most famous astraphobics. In case you didn’t already know,  astrophobia  refers to an intense fear of thunder and lightning. Biographers believe Joyce developed this fear when his Catholic teachers told him thunder was a sign of God’s wrath.

Robert Louis Stevenson , author of  Treasure Island  and  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , formally gave away his birthday to an American girl while he was living in Samoa. The reason he did this was because the young girl, A. H. Ide, had her birthday on Christmas, so she didn’t get as many presents as her friends

Hanson Robotics created a life-size android of sci-fi author  Philip K. Dick  in 2005. The life-like robot has won numerous accolades in the tech industry. You can check out videos of this intelligent android-author on  YouTube .

Classical music lovers probably already know that novelist Aurore Dupin (better known as  George Sand ) was the lover of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin. In addition to Chopin, Sand had relationships with the playwright Alfred de Musset and the short story writer Prosper Mérimée. Before she embarked on these famous romantic relations, Sand was married to François Casimir Dudevant and bore him two children.

There are many eerie parallels between John Brunner ‘s 1964 novel  Stand on Zanzibar  and the current world. This novel, which is set in 2010, predicted the rise of China, the formation of the European Union, overpopulation, Viagra, and even had a president named Obomi!

Most novelists have some pretty odd ways of getting “inspired,” but British novelist  D. H. Lawrence ‘s method was pretty extreme…even for a writer. Lawrence would actually climb mulberry trees totally naked to help stimulate his imagination. Well, whatever works, right?

The  Anglican Church  honored Victorian poet Christian Rossetti with her very own Feast Day on the second Sunday of Easter. Rossetti is well known for her devotional verses, especially her Christmas poems. British composer  Gustav Holst  actually set Rossetti’s “ In The Bleak Midwinter ” to music.

American author  Ernest Hemingway   once stole a urinal from the bar  Sloppy Joe’s  and brought it to his Key West home. He argued that he had “pissed away” enough money in this bar that he deserved to own the urinal. Today, visitors can still see this famed urinal, which was soon transformed into a garden fountain.

Candide  author  Voltaire helped spread the story of Sir Isaac Newton getting hit on the head with an apple. Voltaire wasn’t the first to write about how Newton came up with his theory of gravity, but his account in 1727’s “Essay on Epic Poetry” is one of the most famous versions. Although Voltaire (real name François-Marie Arouet) greatly admired Newton’s work, the two great Enlightenment thinkers never met.

In 1886, science fiction legend  Jules Verne  was almost killed by his nephew Gaston. Only one of Gaston’s two bullets hit Verne in the left shin, which resulted in a lifelong limp. Police quickly arrested Gaston and locked him away in a mental institution.

American playwright  Eugene O’Neill   was born in a hotel room in New York and died in a hotel room in Boston. His famous  last words  were, “I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room – and God damn it – died in a hotel room.”

Many film critics believe sci-fi author Ursula K. Le Guin ‘s novels were the main sources of inspiration for the 2009 blockbuster  Avatar . In particular, critics see stark parallels between  Avatar  and Le Guin’s novella  The Word for World Is Forest .  Fans of James Cameron’s epic film should really give this short book a read-through.

Edgar Rice Burroughs , author of  Tarzan , worked as a pencil-sharpener salesman before he tried his hand at fiction. Indeed, Burroughs only started writing at the age of 36 to support his wife and two children.

Irish dramatist  Samuel Beckett  was close friends with the wrestler  André the Giant . André’s father, Boris Rousimoff, actually helped Beckett build his farm in northern Paris. In return for this favor, Beckett agreed to drive the young André into school every day.

The great Swiss-born writer  Jean-Jacques Rousseau   was a key contributor to  Denis Diderot ‘s first French Encyclopedia. Rousseau almost exclusively wrote entries on subjects related to music. Indeed, Rousseau was so fond of music that he actually composed his own opera,  The Village Soothsayer , in 1752.

DC Comics didn’t invent the nickname “Gotham City.” Believe it or not, “Rip Van Winkle” author  Washington Irving first used this term to describe New York in an 1807 periodical. Irving apparently stole the nickname from a village in Nottinghamshire, England

The city Pippa Passes in eastern Kentucky was named after Victorian poet  Robert Browning ‘s   verse drama  of the same name. Locals decided to change the city’s name from “Carney” to “Pippa Passes” after they received financial assistance from the Browning Society in the 1920s.

The Hound of Heaven  poet  Francis Thompson  is listed as a Jack the Ripper suspect. Although there’s no physical evidence to back up this strange claim, independent researchers say the imagery in Thompson’s poetry and his background in medical school are valid grounds for suspicion.

Charles Perrault , the French author behind classic fairy tales like  Cinderella , persuaded King Louis XIV to build 39 fountains in the  Gardens of Versailles  as a tribute to Aesop’s fables. It took workers only five years (1672 to 1677) to complete this remarkable feat of engineering. Besides  Cinderella , Perrault is responsible for tales like  Bluebeard ,  Little Red Riding Hood , and  Sleeping Beauty .

Although lesser known today, the temperance novel  Franklin Evans  was one of  Walt Whitman ‘s most commercially successful works during his lifetime. The great American poet wrote this novel at the start of his career strictly for cash. He later admitted that he penned this work in a drunken stupor over a period of three days.

Colin Dexter , author of the popular  Inspector Morse  novels, said the most common question he got from fans was about the meaning of the term “ boustrophedon ” in one of his novels. In case you were wondering, boustrophedon refers to an ancient style of writing in which the lines of text alternate from left to right and then from right to left. Dexter was a Classics major and loved filling his detective novels with Ancient Greek, Latin, and English literature.

Speaking of Colin Dexter, it’s impossible not to think of Oxford, which is affectionately known as “The City of Dreaming Spires.” Few people know that it was Victorian poet  Matthew Arnold  who coined this phrase to describe Oxford. Just like Dexter, Arnold studied Classics at the University of Oxford.

Japanese novelist  Haruki Murakami  said he was inspired to write fiction after attending a baseball game at  Jingu Stadium . Even though he had never written a novel before, Murakami intuitively knew he could write a great story as he watched Dave Hilton bat a double. He started writing  Hear the Wild Sing  that very night.

Before he seriously began writing, French author  Michel Houellebecq  studied to become a farmer…only to discover that he didn’t want to go into agriculture. Shortly after earning his agronomy degree, Houellebecq worked on computers for the French government. He only began to earn a living as a writer once  The Elementary Particles  was published in 1998.

After  Song of Solomon  author  Toni Morrison ‘s house burned down, she spent hours on the phone with fellow author  Maxine Hong Kingston  trying to process the loss. Kingston also lost one of her homes to a fire.

American author  Cormac McCarthy   admitted that he sent his first novel to Random House only because he didn’t know any other publishing houses. Amazingly, McCarthy has been able to sell all of his novels from the 1960s onwards without the help of an agent

As a souvenir from his trip to the Middle East, French author  Gustave Flaubert   brought home a mummy’s foot and kept it on his working desk. Historians note that it was actually quite common for wealthy 19th century travelers to bring body parts from mummies as souvenirs.

Beat author  William S. Burroughs ‘s novel  Naked Lunch  was supposed to be called  Naked Lust . Burroughs decided to change the novel’s title after fellow Beat Jack Kerouac mispronounced the original title.

Both American writers  Ernest Hemingway  and Hart Crane were born on the same day: July 21st, 1899. Unfortunately, both of these troubled artists also died by their own hands.

While he was writing  Invisible Man ,  Ralph Ellison  supported himself as a freelance photographer. He also earned some money repairing, building, and installing audio systems.

Although the Italian writer  Italo Calvino  is highly praised for his fantasy novels, his parents suppressed literary studies in favor of scientific learning. Both of Calvino’s parents were science professors. Indeed, Calvino’s father was a well-respected botanist who grew some Italy’s first avocados.

The influential  British authors C. S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley died on the same day: November 22nd, 1963. That was also the fateful day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. All three of these coincidental deaths inspired American author Peter Kreeft to write the novel  Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley .

Sci-fi author  H. G. Wells worked as a math teacher shortly before publishing his iconic  The Time Machine . Wells’s most famous student was none other than  Winnie The Pooh  author A. A. Milne . Milne’s father, John Milne, was the schoolmaster at the Henley House school and employed Wells between 1889 and 1890.

While we’re on the topic of important British writers educating future English authors, Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell ) was once the pupil of  Aldous Huxley . Huxley taught Orwell French at  Eton College  starting in 1917.

Medieval French poet  François Villon  murdered a priest and later stole from Paris’s Collège de Navarre. Although he was sentenced to be hanged for his criminal actions, it appears Villon’s sentence changed to exile. Some scholars believe Villon fled to England in his final years, but nobody actually knows what happened to him after 1463.

Wystan Hugh Auden  (often referred to as W. H. Auden ) drew a great deal from his father’s medical knowledge and his mother’s Anglican faith in his poetry. Indeed, Auden is credited with being the first serious English writer to use the language of clinical psychiatry in verse.

Literary scholars don’t know much about  The Faerie Queene   author  Edmund Spencer ‘s first wife  Machabyas Childe . All we know is that Spencer married Childe in 1579 in London’s St. Margaret’s Church and that Childe died before 1594. We do know a bit more about Spencer’s second wife Elizabeth Boyle.

Ender’s Game  author  Orson Scott Card  lists feeding local wildlife on his North Carolina patio as one of his hobbies. Besides birds, chipmunks, and squirrels, Card also likes to feed raccoons and possums.

British diarist  Samuel Pepys  was so relieved after his successful bladder stone surgery in 1658 that he decided to celebrate the occasion every single year. While the surgeon did remove a major bladder stone, Pepys suffered a few complications from the operation.

Catch-22   author Joseph Heller worked on many major screenplays in Hollywood to earn a living. A few major movies Heller worked on include  Sex and the Single Girl   and the first film adaptation of Ian Fleming’s  Casino Royale .

British war poet  Wilfred Owen   thought about enlisting in the French army at the start of World War I. Owen was working as a teacher in France when WWI broke out. Sadly, Owen died shortly before Armistice and was buried in the French town of  Ors .

Siegfried Sassoon , another famous British WWI poet, befriended Wilfred Owen as they were both recovering in a Scottish hospital. Sassoon had a huge impact on Owen and encouraged the young poet to write. For those who are interested, Pat Barker based her novel  Regeneration   on the friendship between Owen and Sassoon.

Canadian Lieutenant Colonel  John McCrae  was inspired to write his iconic WWI poem “ In Flanders Field ” after his friend was killed in Ypres, Belgium. A few days after his friend was buried, McCrae noticed poppies starting to bloom underneath the hundreds of unmarked graves. Inspired by this image, McCrae quickly composed his iconic poem the next day while riding in an ambulance.

Controversial American author  Charles Bukowski  was definitely a cat person. He actually wrote an entire book called  On Cats . In one section of this book, Bukowski says he only has to look at a cat to regain his courage.

English poet  William Blake   only spent three years of his life outside of London. During this time in the town of Felpham Blake worked hard on his famous  Jerusalem . Blake also got into a serious fight with the soldier John Schofield after he allegedly cursed the king and said soldiers were no better than slaves.

At the age of eleven, Japanese author  Shūsaku Endō ‘s aunt persuaded him to become a Catholic. After studying in Tokyo, Endō studied Catholic theology in Lyon, France. By the time of his death, authors around the world hailed Endō as “Japan’s Graham Greene.”

Sudanese author  Tayeb Salih ‘s classic novel  Season of Migrations to the North   was banned in his home country after it was published in 1989. The government banned the novel due to its frank depictions of sex rather than its political implications. Today, however, Salih’s novel is hailed around the world as a masterpiece of post-colonial literature.

Eighteenth-century Venetian author  Giacomo Casanova  started writing his epic autobiography  History of My Life  late in life out of sheer boredom. A Bohemian count in Duchcov, Czech Republic, protected Casanova from 1785 until Casanova’s death in 1798. In case you were wondering, Casanova claims to have slept with 122 women in his dazzling autobiography.

Victorian novelist  Anthony Trollope   had his servant wake him up every day at 5:30 AM with a hot cup of coffee. Trollope then spent three hours writing before he went to his day job at the post office. Most days, Trollope was able to write an incredible 250 words per 15 minutes.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) named asteroid  5696  in honor of Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen . Astronomers at San Diego’s Palomar Observatory discovered 5696 Ibsen in 1960.

After the first volume of Norwegian author  Karl Ove Knausgård ‘s  My Struggle  was published, numerous offices in Oslo banned workers from talking about the book on Fridays. Bosses in Oslo complained that their employees were spending far too much time talking about Knausgård’s text and not enough time doing their jobs.

American author  W. E. B. DuBois   moved to Ghana in 1960 when he was in his 90s. DuBois started work on an  Encyclopedia Africana , but he passed away in 1963. Visitors to the capital city Accra can visit the  W. E. B. DuBois Memorial Center  and see the room DuBois stayed in as well as his final resting place.

Gilded Age author  Edith Wharton  lived in Paris during World War I and was passionate about helping the French war effort. In addition to working with charities and visiting the Western Front, Wharton wrote numerous articles urging the USA to defend France. At the end of the Great War, the French government gave Wharton a Legion of Honor for her support.

English Romantic poet  Samuel Taylor Coleridge  is credited with the first printed use of the words “selfless,” “psychosomatic,” “bipolar,” and “bisexual.” Coleridge is also responsible for the now famous phrase “suspension of disbelief.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald ‘s classic short story “ Babylon Revisited ” sold to the  Saturday Evening Post  for $4,000 in 1931. Adjusting for inflation, that’s close to $50,000 today. Once he received the money for this story, Fitzgerald told Ernest Hemingway in a letter that he felt like an “old whore.”

It took Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata 12 years to complete his masterpiece  Snow Country . He especially struggled with choosing from dozens of possible conclusions. All that hard work definitely paid off for Kawabata; he went on to become Japan’s first Nobel Prize winner in the field of literature in 1968.

After  Fathers and Sons author  Ivan Turgenev died in 1818, Russian surgeons took out his brain and put it on a weight scale. They found that his brain weighed 2,021 grams (4.4 pounds), which was one of the heaviest to date on Russian records.

Although every student learns about iambic pentameter studying William Shakespeare’s verse,  Christopher Marlowe ‘s  Tamburlaine the Great  is the first official play totally in blank verse. Marlowe was a contemporary of Shakespeare, but he died at a younger age after he was stabbed at a dining-house.

With Christopher Marlowe in mind, it’s interesting (and sad) to note that he might have indirectly caused the death of another great English Renaissance playwright:  Thomas Kyd . Kyd, who’s most famous for his play  The Spanish Tragedy , was beaten up by government agents demanding to know whether his roommate Marlowe was an atheist or not. Thomas Kyd died in 1594, just one year after authorities gave him a good thrashing.

While he was working at the Royal Library in Stockholm, playwright  August Strindberg  learned how to read Chinese and organized the library’s Chinese manuscripts. Today, millions of  Chinese  are just starting to get interested in Strindberg’s outstanding  oeuvre .

When  Journey to the End of the Night  author  Louis-Ferdinand Céline  was a soldier in World War I, he agreed to carry a message for the French army and was shot in the arm in Ypres. For his service in WWI, Céline was awarded a  médaille militaire ; however, he was denounced by French authorities during WWII for his collaboration with the Nazis.

As  Anton Chekhov ‘s body was transported from Germany to Moscow, a crowd of mourners mistook General Keller’s funeral procession for Chekhov’s. Chekhov is now buried in Moscow’s famous  Novodevichy Cemetery  with fellow Russian icons such as Sergei Prokofiev and Nikolai Gogol.

Nineteenth-century Polish author  Henryk Sienkiewicz  was so beloved in his own time that his fellow countrymen came together to buy him a small castle in 1900. Sienkiewicz lived in this castle for a few years before World War I. Today, the Poznań castle serves as the Henryk Sienkiewicz Museum.

Chilean poet  Pablo Neruda  always wrote in green ink. For Neruda, green was a color of hope and abundance and (apparently) helped his creative process. Children’s authors Pam Muñoz Ryan and Peter Sís paid tribute to the great poet by publishing their 2010 book on Neruda’s childhood  The Dreamer  in green ink.

At the height of her critical acclaim, British author  Doris Lessing  sent two new novels to her publisher under the pen name Jane Somers. Her UK publisher rejected both of these novels ( The Diary of a Good Neighbor   and  If the Old Could ). Lessing used this experience to illustrate just how difficult it is for a new writer to get published.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn , author of the  Gulag Archipelago , spent over 20 years in Vermont after being expelled from the USSR in 1974. In all that time, Solzhenitsyn never learned to speak fluent English. Strangely, Solzhenitsyn did know how to read English and had read English literature ever since he was a teenager.

During WWII, Russian author  Ivan Bunin   lived in southern France and hid dozens of Jews from the Nazis. The Soviet Union welcomed Bunin back after the war, but Bunin chose to spend his final years in France. Bunin was the first Russian to ever win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1933.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman , the feminist author of  The Yellow Wallpaper , was related to  Uncle Tom’s Cabin  author  Harriet Beecher Stowe . Gilman’s father was Stowe’s nephew, and the Charlotte Perkins Gilman spent a fair amount of her childhood at Stowe’s Hartford residence.

There’s no evidence that President  Abraham Lincoln  said to Harriet Beecher Stowe , “So this is the little lady who started this great big war.” In fact, it’s not even clear whether President Lincoln actually met with Stowe during the Civil War. Historians say this popular rumor can be traced back to Stowe’s 1896 obituary.

Staying on the topic of Harriet Beecher Stowe, one of world literature’s greatest admirers of  Uncle Tom’s Cabin  was none other than  Leo Tolstoy . The author of  Anna Karenina  called  Uncle Tom’s Cabin  one of the prime “examples of the highest art flowing from love of God and man.” Strange as it may seem, Tolstoy had far kinder things to say about Stowe’s novel than Shakespeare’s  King Lear .

A few years after  Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz  was born in present-day Tepetlixpa, Mexico, she taught herself Latin, wrote a dramatic poem, and passed tests administered by scholars in Mexico City. In 1669, Juana decided to enter into a convent so she would have no worldly distractions to her intellectual pursuits.

French aristocrat  Alexis de Tocqueville  initially traveled to the USA in 1830 to study America’s prison system. At the end of his travels, de Tocqueville’s fellow traveler Gustave de Beaumont wrote the majority of the penal system study while de Tocqueville worked exclusively on his influential  Democracy in America .

Irish author and politician  Edmund Burke  had great difficulty with public speaking. Burke’s public speeches at the House of Commons were so boring that many MPs left the building once Burke took stood up.

British author Rudyard Kipling ‘s book  Kim  literally saved a French soldier’s life. French Legionnaire soldier  Maurice Hamonneau  was shot in Verdun in 1913. Luckily for Hamonneau, the bullet struck his copy of  Kim , which was in his left breast pocket, and stopped the bullet twenty pages away from his heart.

Stephen Crane   wrote the greatest Civil War novel,  The Red Badge of Courage , even though he was born five years after the war ended. When asked how he was able to write battle scenes with such accuracy, Crane said that he learned all he needed to know about war from football.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  is the only American poet to be honored with a bust in London’s Westminster Abbey. Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, in 1807, but his ancestry can be traced back to Yorkshire, England. During his lifetime, Longfellow was almost as popular a poet as Lord Tennyson in the UK.

Shortly after 19th century critic  William Hazlitt   passed away, his London landlady hid his corpse underneath a bed. So desperate was this Soho landlady for new tenants that she actually gave tours of the apartment while Hazlitt’s body was underneath the bed.

Although only one of her poems survives intact, artists have hailed the Ancient Greek poetess  Sappho  as on par with Homer. Sappho wrote at least nine volumes of poetry, but most of the poems that survive today are in fragments on papyrus scrolls.

Two great works by the Roman poet  Ovid  have been lost to the sands of time: the drama  Medea  and a poem in praise of King Augustus written in the now extinct Getic language. Luckily for literature lovers and mythologists, Ovid’s masterful  Metamorphoses  has survived to the present day.

Notorious English occultist  Aleister Crowley  invented quite a few alcoholic mixtures throughout his life. One of his most famous concoctions, “ Kubla Khan No. 2 ,” consists of gin, vermouth, and laudanum (a commonly available opioid painkiller back in the day)

Spanish artist Pablo Picasso inspired the Polish-Italian poet  Guillaume Apollinaire  to imitate Cubism in his poetry. Apollinaire literally followed Picasso’s advice in a few poems which he arranged in striking visual patterns. Many critics believe Apollinaire’s work was a major inspiration behind the Surrealist movement.

Shortly after Laurence Sterne died in 1768, grave robbers stole his body and sold it to be used in an anatomy demonstration. Once a Cambridge surgeon recognized Sterne’s face, however, he ordered the body be returned to its grave. The author of Tristram Shandy is now safely buried in Coxwold.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , author of The Little Prince , was a professional pilot. In 1944, Saint-Exupéry went on a flight to Corsica, but he never made it there. Cops discovered a pilot’s body in Marseilles shortly after he went missing, but experts can’t definitively say it was Saint-Exupéry’s.

Edgar Allan Poe thought of having an owl quote “nevermore” in his famous poem “ The Raven .” Some letters indicate Poe was even considering using a parrot. Thankfully for American literature, Poe decided the raven was “infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone” of his poem.

Aphra Behn wasn’t only a revolutionary Restoration writer; she also served as a spy under Charles II. In fact, “Aphra Behn” was her codename. Behn was actually born Eaffrey Johnson in 1640.

Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw invested a great deal of money and time into creating a new alphabet for the English language. His “ Shavian alphabet ” was intended to get rid of spelling issues in English by creating a new system of symbols that had a 1:1 relationship to their phonemes. Obviously Shaw’s alphabet hasn’t really caught on in the Anglosphere.

John Steinbeck ‘s dog ate his first manuscript of Of Mice and Men . Thankfully, Steinbeck was only halfway through the piece at the time his dog tore it to shreds. Steinbeck reportedly told a friend that this might’ve been a sign that his famous novella was in need of serious revisions.

While Samuel Richardson ‘s Pamela was a major success after it was released in 1740, not everyone enjoyed it. One of the most famous Pamela haters was none other than Henry Fielding , the author of Tom Jones. Fielding made his displeasure with Pamela widely known by consistently calling the novel Shamela .

William Makepeace Thackeray wasted his father’s inheritance of £20,000 on gambling and risky investments in the 1830s. It wasn’t until he published the first edition of his famous Vanity Fair in 1847 that he gained financial stability and prestige.

William Golding ‘s masterpiece Lord of the Flies really struck a chord with big name rock bands. U2 took the name of their song “Shadows and Tall Trees” from chapter seven of Golding’s novel, and Iron Maiden released a track called “Lord of the Flies.”

A study out of the University of Liverpool found that reading William Shakespeare in the original activates certain areas of the brain associated with memory and reappraisal. Researchers found that simple English “translations” of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan verse didn’t have as profound an effect on the brain.

Meiji Era author Ichiyō Higuchi wrote her greatest stories in her early twenties just before her death of tuberculosis. She was living in a poor area of Tokyo near the red light district at the time. Today, Japan honors Higuchi on the ¥5,000 note.

Famous French philosopher Henri Bergson married the famous French author Marcel Proust ‘s cousin Louise Neuburger. Interestingly, Bergson’s ideas about time had a profound influence on Proust’s long novel Remembrance of Things Past .

Although many readers don’t know him today, John Lydgate (1370-1451 AD) is credited with publishing the first epic poem in the English canon. Written in Middle English, the Troy Book is over 30,000 lines long and details the entire history of Troy.

French author Émile Zola died in 1902 from carbon monoxide poisoning resulting from a blocked chimney. There’s still a debate as to whether his death was an accident or if people who didn’t like his support of Alfred Dreyfus murdered Zola.

When the Italian writer Umberto Eco visited Paris for the first time, he would only walk down streets that had survived from the Middle Ages. He was studying medieval history at the University of Turin at the time and was obsessed with the era.

Although Renaissance writer Petrarch knew the poet Giovanni Boccaccio since 1361, he never read Boccaccio’s celebrated Decameron until shortly before his death in 1374. Petrarch also admitted to Boccaccio that he had never read Dante’s Divine Comedy .

Slaughterhouse-Five author Kurt Vonnegut was a huge fan of Cheers . Vonnegut once told reporters he would’ve rather written scripts for this TV show than all his bestselling novels.

Parisian dramatist Jean-Paul Sartre loved to play pranks in his schooldays. He actually convinced the French media that Charles Lindbergh was going to stop at his school and hired a lookalike to give interviews. Sartre’s schoolmaster, Gustave Lanson, was eventually fired due to Sartre’s shenanigans.

When English Romantic William Blake was only four years old he claimed to see God through a window. Throughout the rest of his life, Blake said he often communed with angels and he incorporated these visions into his art.

When the poet John Keats was a child, he was apparently quite adept at sports. Interestingly, many of Keats’s schoolmates believed he would have a great career in the art of war rather than the art of poetry.

After retiring from writing at the age of 19, Arthur Rimbaud traveled extensively throughout Europe and Africa. Records suggest the French poet was the first European to step foot in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia.

Gigi author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette could only write after she had plucked all the fleas off of her cat. She also said she couldn’t write with shoes and socks on.

The 16th-century poet Girolamo Fracastoro is only well-known today for one word: syphilis . That’s right, we get the word for this devastating STD from one of Fracastoro’s poems.

Every year on December 17th, a group of devotees perform a dervish celebration by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī ‘s tomb at Turkey’s Mevlana Museum. The Sufi mystic (commonly known as Rumi ) was born in 1207 and died in 1273.

While everyone knows that Shakespeare is the bestselling poet of all time, many people can’t guess the number two and three spots correctly. In case you’re wondering, the second bestselling poet is the Taoist sage Lao Tzu and third place goes to Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran .

Canadian-American author Saul Bellow didn’t know his own birthday. His parents had just arrived in Québec when he was born in 1915, and they forgot to record whether their son was born on June 10th or July 10th. Unfortunately for Bellow, the city hall that contained his official birth certificate burned down.

Poet Xu Zhimo has inspired millions of Chinese tourists to visit Cambridge University. His incredibly popular poem “Taking Leave of Cambridge Again” remains a staple in the Chinese reading curriculum. To commemorate the poet’s work, Cambridge University put inscriptions of the poem on white stones by the River Cam.

Whew! That’s it for our interesting author facts, at least for now. Are we missing any of your favorite literary trivia tidbits? Let us know in the comments below!

Receive the 8 Best Literary Stories, Every Week

Want the top bookish content from across the internet? Join our Weekly Literary Roundup to receive the most popular and relevant literary news every Tuesday at 10 am.

Leave a Reply

4 Comments on "150 Interesting Facts About Our Favorite Authors [Infographic]"

wow these are really cool facts!!!

Glad you enjoyed our list, Ashley! ?

This is indeed a treasure trove of information to our favorite, and even no-so-favorite authors. Thank you for this list! Please do post similar articles like these.

Thanks Enrique!

Recommended For You

The life and work of alice munro, “canada’s chekhov”, 16 huckleberry finn quotes everyone should know, five of the world’s most prolific authors.

37 Literary Facts That Will Make You Want To Pick Up A Book

Literature Facts talk about novels like 'Little Women' and 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.'

History of Literature

The scope of literature, literary composition, types of literature.

Literature has always fascinated the readers with its melange of genres and diverse plots.

It has the potential to control the instincts of the readers and provide them with different perspectives to look at the little things in life. The stories not only amuse the readers but also help them to expand their minds and think out of the box.

There are different types of literature. The most popular ones are poetry, nonfiction, prose, drama, and media. Each one comes with its own unique flavor and sets a distinct tone with creativity and wisdom.

The simplest definition of literature is the collection of written work with artistic merit or creativity. The stories allow us to travel back in time and learn about those who walked before us. The origin of literature dates back to 3400 BC when the ancient Sumerians first started to write.

Keep reading to learn more about the fascinating literary facts.

Deep and interesting history is associated with literature. Famous writers like Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, J K Rowling, and others have showered some of the best literary works that the whole world cherishes.

Literature has its roots in ancient times when writings were done by the early people, which were later discovered and translated by researchers. From these early works, we come to know about the life of the people in the ancient days.

The earliest example of literature is the 'Epic of Gilgamesh,' which was written in the Sumerian language in 2000 BCE.

The 'Egyptian Book of the Dead' was actually written in the Papyrus of Ani during 1250 BC.

The beginning of the Classic Antiquity stage was with the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey of Homer', which dates back to the eighth century BC.

The oldest Chinese poetry collection includes about 305 poems by anonymous poets. It is called the 'Shijing' or 'Collection of Poetry.'

The first writer of the Chinese language was Qu Yuan, who is regarded as the best romantic writer in Chinese classical literature.

Indian mythologies, the 'Ramayana' and the 'Mahabharata,' influenced countless writers from all over the world to pen down their work.

The longest word literature is 'Assemblywomen,' a play by Aristophanes, which contains about 171 Greek letters.

'The Histories of Virginia' by John Smith is the oldest American literature, published in the year 1608.

'The Book of One Thousand and One Nights' is the earliest Islamic compilation of ancient folk tales.

The primary scope of literature is binding us within humanitarian lines.

Literature has the power to touch the readers' souls and lead them to an unexplored pathway in life.

By going through a novel, readers achieve a moral up-gradation, which can completely change their way of dealing with life.

From the abundant wisdom of the novel, the minds become free of lust and greed.

More focus develops from reading the wise words of literature.

Literature always helps us to cope with our distress and misery and helps us to build a new path.

The wise words of literature prepare the human mind unconsciously to practice the positive codes of life, which have been set by humans since the dawn of civilization.

The dreams of humans are heightened by the artistic degree of literature, which makes us aware of the perfect life filled with prosperity. This, in turn, urges us to take the right steps in life.

Literature is diverse. It includes poems, novels, plays, theater, journalism, memoirs, librettos, biographies, diaries, reviews, an article, and more. Some of the popular literary works and the fun facts associated with them are given below.

The best-selling novel of all time is the Spanish novel ' Don Quixote ,' with more than 500 million copies sold worldwide.

'Tom Sawyer' was the first novel written on a typewriter.

'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll was banned in China since the book highlights talking animals and birds, which was disastrous, according to the Chinese Governor.

The longest book that was ever written was by Marcel Proust, which includes 9,609,000 characters. The name of the book is 'A la recherche du temps perdu'.

Charles Dickens believed in 'The Ghost Club' and explored the supernatural world.

The name Wyoming comes from a poem named 'Gertrude of Wyoming' of the year 1809, which was written by Thomas Campbell.

Cadbury's chocolates were actually tasted by Roald Dahl, who wrote 'Charlie and the Chocolate factory.'

The author of Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes, lived for 91 years and explained human life to be 'nasty, brutish and short.'

The first solution to the cosmological problem named, Olbers' paradox was put forth by Edgar Allan Poe.

The '90s children's TV show named 'Clarissa Explains It All' included the famous writer Suzanne Collins of the 'Hunger Games.'

The manuscript of the first novel of Stephen King was thrown away by him and was later retrieved by his wife.

There are hundreds of literature types with their own unique flavors. Let's dive into some of the fascinating literary facts in the following sections and understand the different types.

Dramas are stories composed in prose or verse and most often presented in a theatrical performance, where all the emotions are blatantly expressed.

Fantasy stories are published with the intent of delivering the tales of otherworldly characters and settings.

Authors write fiction with the hope of delivering their imagination through their work.

The horror genre evokes a feeling of terror or dread in the readers through the mysterious plots or the characters they talk about.

Novels, plays, and poetries are the most common types of literature.

The various literature types can also be classified into different groups based on their language, period, genre, origin, and subject.

Fairy tales narrate the magical creatures that attract children.

Apart from poetry, mythology, and others, literature types include biography, autobiography, essay, and even a speech.

Romance novels are the most popular genre of literature.

Q. What is the simple definition of literature?

A. Literature is defined as written works with artistic merit or creativity.

Q. When was literature invented?

A. The origin of literature dates back to 3400 BC when the ancient Sumerians first started to write.

Q. What makes literature interesting?

A. Literature allows us to travel back in time and learn about those who walked before us.

Q. How many types of literature are there?

A. Although there are countless genres available right now, there are five most common literature types: poetry, nonfiction, prose, drama, and media.

Q. What is the oldest writing in the world?

A. The oldest in the world are cuneiform scripts, which were used in 3400 BC.

Q. What was the first piece of literature?

A. The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh is thought to be the first piece of literature.

Q. What are the seven genres of literature?

A. The seven genres of literature are fable, drama, fantasy, fairy tale, fiction, folklore, and poetry.

Q. What is the main point of literature?

A. The main point of literature is the entertainment of the readers.

Q. Who is the father of literature?

A. Geoffrey Chaucer is the Father of Literature, and is famous for 'The Canterbury Tales.'

Q. What is the oldest book written in English?

A. The oldest book written in English is 'The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye.'

Pacific Time Zone (PST)

Location Name

Montecito, California, USA

Follow **** on Social Media

We want your photos, more for you, 35 bill bryson quotes, 70 matthew mcconaughey quotes.

Bachelor of Science specializing in Human Anatomy

Joan Agie Bachelor of Science specializing in Human Anatomy

With 3+ years of research and content writing experience across several niches, especially on education, technology, and business topics. Joan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Human Anatomy from the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria, and has worked as a researcher and writer for organizations across Nigeria, the US, the UK, and Germany. Joan enjoys meditation, watching movies, and learning new languages in her free time.

1) Kidadl is independent and to make our service free to you the reader we are supported by advertising. We hope you love our recommendations for products and services! What we suggest is selected independently by the Kidadl team. If you purchase using the Buy Now button we may earn a small commission. This does not influence our choices. Prices are correct and items are available at the time the article was published but we cannot guarantee that on the time of reading. Please note that Kidadl is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. We also link to other websites, but are not responsible for their content.

2) At Kidadl, we strive to recommend the very best activities and events. We will always aim to give you accurate information at the date of publication - however, information does change, so it’s important you do your own research, double-check and make the decision that is right for your family. We recognise that not all activities and ideas are appropriate for all children and families or in all circumstances. Our recommended activities are based on age but these are a guide. We recommend that these ideas are used as inspiration, that ideas are undertaken with appropriate adult supervision, and that each adult uses their own discretion and knowledge of their children to consider the safety and suitability. Kidadl cannot accept liability for the execution of these ideas, and parental supervision is advised at all times, as safety is paramount. Anyone using the information provided by Kidadl does so at their own risk and we can not accept liability if things go wrong.

3) Because we are an educational resource, we have quotes and facts about a range of historical and modern figures. We do not endorse the actions of or rhetoric of all the people included in these collections, but we think they are important for growing minds to learn about under the guidance of parents or guardians.

google form TBD

Kidadl is supported by you, the reader. When you buy through the links on our site we may earn a commission.

As an Amazon Associate, Kidadl earns from qualifying purchases.

UK

Magic for Learning and Revision

  • Knowledge Bank
  • Essential Facts About...

50 Essential Facts About Literature

The 50 facts that you MUST know on your way to becoming a Literature expert!

Contact Details

Education quizzes, customer service, here to help, our social circles.

Twitter

© Copyright 2016-2024 - Education Quizzes Work Innovate Ltd - Design | Development | Marketing

We use cookies to make your experience of our website better.

To comply with the new e-Privacy directive, we need to ask for your consent - I agree - No thanks - Find out more

Logo for University of West Florida Pressbooks

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Introduction to Literature: What? Why? How?

When is the last time you read a book or a story simply because it interested you? If you were to classify that book, would you call it fiction or literature? This is an interesting separation, with many possible reasons for it. One is that “fiction” and “literature” are regarded as quite different things. “Fiction,” for example, is what people read for enjoyment. “Literature” is what they read for school. Or “fiction” is what living people write and is about the present. “Literature” was written by people (often white males) who have since died and is about times and places that have nothing to do with us. Or “fiction” offers everyday pleasures, but “literature” is to be honored and respected, even though it is boring. Of course, when we put anything on a pedestal, we remove it from everyday life, so the corollary is that literature is to be honored and respected, but it is not to be read, certainly not by any normal person with normal interests.

Sadly, it is the guardians of literature, that is, of the classics, who have done so much to take the life out of literature, to put it on a pedestal and thereby to make it an irrelevant aspect of American life. People study literature because they love literature. They certainly don’t do it for the money. But what happens too often, especially in colleges, is that teachers forget what it was that first interested them in the study of literature. They forget the joy that they first felt (and perhaps still feel) as they read a new novel or a poem or as they reread a work and saw something new in it. Instead, they erect formidable walls around these literary works, giving the impression that the only access to a work is through deep learning and years of study. Such study is clearly important for scholars, but this kind of scholarship is not the only way, or even necessarily the best way, for most people to approach literature. Instead it makes the literature seem inaccessible. It makes the literature seem like the province of scholars. “Oh, you have to be smart to read that,” as though Shakespeare or Dickens or Woolf wrote only for English teachers, not for general readers.

What is Literature?

In short, literature evokes imaginative worlds through the conscious arrangement of words that tell a story. These stories are told through different genres, or types of literature, like novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and the essay. Each genre is associated with certain conventions. In this course, we will study poetry, short fiction, and drama (in the form of movies).

Some Misconceptions about Literature

Of course, there are a number of misconceptions about literature that have to be gotten out of the way before anyone can enjoy it. One misconception is that literature is full of  hidden meanings . There are certainly occasional works that contain hidden meanings. The biblical book of  Revelation , for example, was written in a kind of code, using images that had specific meanings for its early audience but that we can only recover with a great deal of difficulty. Most literary works, however, are not at all like that. Perhaps an analogy will illustrate this point. When I take my car to my mechanic because something is not working properly, he opens the hood and we both stand there looking at the engine. But after we have looked for a few minutes, he is likely to have seen what the problem is, while I could look for hours and never see it. We are looking at the same thing. The problem is not hidden, nor is it in some secret code. It is right there in the open, accessible to anyone who knows how to “read” it, which my mechanic does and I do not. He has been taught how to “read” automobile engines and he has practiced “reading” them. He is a good “close reader,” which is why I continue to take my car to him.

The same thing is true for readers of literature. Generally authors want to communicate with their readers, so they are not likely to hide or disguise what they are saying, but reading literature also requires some training and some practice. Good writers use language very carefully, and readers must learn how to be sensitive to that language, just as the mechanic must learn to be sensitive to the appearances and sounds of the engine. Everything that the writer wants to say, and much that the writer may not be aware of, is there in the words. We simply have to learn how to read them.

Another popular misconception is that a literary work has a  single “meaning”  (and that only English teachers know how to find that meaning). There is an easy way to dispel this misconception. Just go to a college library and find the section that holds books on Shakespeare. Choose one play,  Hamlet , for example, and see how many books there are about it, all by scholars who are educated, perceptive readers. Can it be the case that one of these books is correct and all the others are mistaken? And if the correct one has already been written, why would anyone need to write another book about the play? The answer is this:

Key Takeaways

There is no single correct way to read any piece of literature. 

Again, let me use an analogy to illustrate this point. Suppose that everyone at a meeting were asked to describe a person who was standing in the middle of the room. Imagine how many different descriptions there would be, depending on where the viewer sat in relation to the person. For example, an optometrist in the crowd might focus on the person’s glasses; a hair stylist might focus on the person’s haircut; someone who sells clothing might focus on the style of dress; a podiatrist might focus on the person’s feet. Would any of these descriptions be incorrect? Not necessarily, but they would be determined by the viewers’ perspectives. They might also be determined by such factors as the viewers’ ages, genders, or ability to move around the person being viewed, or by their previous acquaintance with the subject. So whose descriptions would be correct? Conceivably all of them, and if we put all of these correct descriptions together, we would be closer to having a full description of the person.

This is most emphatically NOT to say, however, that all descriptions are correct simply because each person is entitled to his or her opinion

If the podiatrist is of the opinion that the person is five feet, nine inches tall, the podiatrist could be mistaken. And even if the podiatrist actually measures the person, the measurement could be mistaken. Everyone who describes this person, therefore, must offer not only an opinion but also a basis for that opinion. “My feeling is that this person is a teacher” is not enough. “My feeling is that this person is a teacher because the person’s clothing is covered with chalk dust and because the person is carrying a stack of papers that look like they need grading” is far better, though even that statement might be mistaken.

So it is with literature. As we read, as we try to understand and interpret, we must deal with the text that is in front of us ; but we must also recognize (1) that language is slippery and (2) that each of us individually deals with it from a different set of perspectives. Not all of these perspectives are necessarily legitimate, and it is always possible that we might misread or misinterpret what we see. Furthermore, it is possible that contradictory readings of a single work will both be legitimate, because literary works can be as complex and multi-faceted as human beings. It is vital, therefore, that in reading literature we abandon both the idea that any individual’s reading of a work is the “correct” one and the idea that there is one simple way to read any work. Our interpretations may, and probably should, change according to the way we approach the work. If we read The Chronicles of Narnia as teenagers, then in middle age, and then in old age, we might be said to have read three different books. Thus, multiple interpretations, even contradictory interpretations, can work together to give us a fuller and possibly more interesting understanding of a work.

Why Reading Literature is Important

Reading literature can teach us new ways to read, think, imagine, feel, and make sense of our own experiences. Literature forces readers to confront the complexities of the world, to confront what it means to be a human being in this difficult and uncertain world, to confront other people who may be unlike them, and ultimately to confront themselves.

The relationship between the reader and the world of a work of literature is complex and fascinating. Frequently when we read a work, we become so involved in it that we may feel that we have become part of it. “I was really into that movie,” we might say, and in one sense that statement can be accurate. But in another sense it is clearly inaccurate, for actually we do not enter the movie or the story as IT enters US; the words enter our eyes in the form of squiggles on a page which are transformed into words, sentences, paragraphs, and meaningful concepts in our brains, in our imaginations, where scenes and characters are given “a local habitation and a name.” Thus, when we “get into” a book, we are actually “getting into” our own mental conceptions that have been produced by the book, which, incidentally, explains why so often readers are dissatisfied with cinematic or television adaptations of literary works.

In fact, though it may seem a trite thing to say, writers are close observers of the world who are capable of communicating their visions, and the more perspectives we have to draw on, the better able we should be to make sense of our lives. In these terms, it makes no difference whether we are reading a Homeric epic poem like The Odysse y, a twelfth-century Japanese novel like  The Tale of Genji , or a Victorian novel by Dickens, or even, in a sense, watching someone’s TikTok video (a video or movie is also a kind of text that can be “read” or analyzed for multiple meanings). The more different perspectives we get, the better. And it must be emphasized that we read such works not only to be well-rounded (whatever that means) or to be “educated” or for antiquarian interest. We read them because they have something to do with us, with our lives. Whatever culture produced them, whatever the gender or race or religion of their authors, they relate to us as human beings; and all of us can use as many insights into being human as we can get. Reading is itself a kind of experience, and while we may not have the time or the opportunity or  or physical possibility  to experience certain things in the world, we can experience them through reading. So literature allows us to broaden our experiences.

Reading also forces us to focus our thoughts. The world around us is so full of stimuli that we are easily distracted. Unless we are involved in a crisis that demands our full attention, we flit from subject to subject. But when we read a book, even a book that has a large number of characters and covers many years, the story and the writing help us to focus, to think about what they show us in a concentrated manner. When I hold a book, I often feel that I have in my hand another world that I can enter and that will help me to understand the everyday world that I inhabit.

Literature invites us to  meet interesting characters and to visit interesting places, to use our imagination and to think about things that might otherwise escape our notice, to see the world from perspectives that we would otherwise not have.

Watch this video for a discussion of why reading fiction matters.

How to Read Literature: The Basics

  • Read with a pen in hand! Yes, even if you’re reading an electronic text, in which case you may want to open a new document in which you can take notes. Jot down questions, highlight things you find significant, mark confusing passages, look up unfamiliar words/references, and record first impressions.
  • Think critically to form a response. Here are some things to be aware of and look for in the story that may help you form an idea of meaning.
  • Repetitions . You probably know from watching movies that if something is repeated, that means something. Stories are similar—if something occurs more than once, the story is calling attention to it, so notice it and consider why it is repeated. The repeated element can be a word or a phrase, an action, even a piece of clothing or gear.
  • Not Quite Right : If something that happens that seems Not Quite Right to you, that may also have some particular meaning. So, for example, if a violent act is committed against someone who’s done nothing wrong, that is unusual, unexpected, that is, Not Quite Right. And therefore, that act means something.
  • Address your own biases and compare your own experiences with those expressed in the piece.
  • Test your positions and thoughts about the piece with what others think (we’ll do some of this in class discussions).

While you will have your own individual connection to a piece based on your life experiences, interpreting literature is not a willy-nilly process. Each piece of writing has purpose, usually more than one purpose–you, as the reader, are meant to uncover purpose in the text. As the speaker notes in  the video you watched about how to read literature, you, as a reader, also have a role to play. Sometimes you may see something in the text that speaks to you; whether or not the author intended that piece to be there, it still matters to you.

For example, I’ve had a student who had life experiences that she was reminded of when reading “Chonguita, the Monkey Bride” and another student whose experience was mirrored in part of “The Frog King or Iron Heinrich.” I encourage you to honor these perceptions if they occur to you and possibly even to use them in your writing assignments. I can suggest ways to do this if you’re interested.

But remember that when we write about literature, our observations must also be supported by the text itself. Make sure you aren’t reading into the text something that isn’t there. Value the text for what is and appreciate the experience it provides, all while you attempt to create a connection with your experiences.

Attributions:

  • Content written by Dr. Karen Palmer and licensed  CC BY NC SA .
  • Content adapted from  Literature, the Humanities, and Humanity  by Theodore L. Steinberg and licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The Worry Free Writer  by Dr. Karen Palmer is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Introduction to Literature Copyright © by Judy Young is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

RSS

Ten Amazing Literary Facts You Should Know

in Books Comments Off on Ten Amazing Literary Facts You Should Know 91,653 views 30

1. Most expensive book ever purchased:

Everyone’s favorite billionaire Bill Gates bought ‘Codex Leicester’, one of Leonardo Di Vinci’s scientific journals for $30.8 million.

2. 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.

3. Roald Dahl’s interesting life experiences:

Dahl served in the Royal Air Force during World War II and also tested chocolates for Cadbury’s while he was at school. (I guess we know where his inspiration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory came from).

5. Victor Hugo’s 823 word long sentence:

In Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Miserables, you can find a sentence that is 823 words long. However, there may be other sentences that surpasses this length. But this one is worth knowing.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. Tolstoy owes War and Peace to his wife’s efforts:

The 1400 page novel was copied around 7 times by Leo Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia, by hand – that’s love.

9. The words F. Scott Fitzgerald created that you use everyday:

Oxford English Dictionary notes the earliest use of the word ‘wicked’ to mean good/cool to be from Fitzgerald’s novel ‘This Side of Paradise’. He is also thought to have used the word T-shirt for the first time.

10. The children’s story that China banned:

The Governor of Hunan Province in China banned Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland because he believed that animals should not be given the power to use the language of humans and to put animals and humans on the same level would be ‘disastrous’.

Tagged with: Alice in Wonderland Book books Charles Dickens English Book in Georgia f. scott fitzgerald For Students For Teachers Interesting Fact J.k. rowling Leo Tolstoy Leonardo Di Vinci Lewis Carroll Marcel Proust March 2015 roald dahl Victor Hugo

Related Articles

Bookshop- ის ბესტსელერი წიგნები – რას კითხულობს საქართველო

important literature facts

Interesting Literature Facts

important literature facts

Who was the first published author? What was the first published book? What mediums did people use to record writing? Let’s take a look at some interesting facts related to literature. Who knows, they might spark inspiration!

World’s first known author – Enheduanna (l. 2285-2250 BCE), is most frequently cited as the world’s first known author known by name, and is an influential Akkadian poet. Poetry, psalms, and prayers were accredited to her which were used throughout history, along with English translations of her works inspiring many literary adaptations and representations. She was also a high priestess of the moon god Nanna, and was appointed a leader of a religious cult in Ur, a Sumerian city-state, to help merge Akkadian and Sumerian religions. You can read more on her life and influence here .

First published book – Diamond Sutra (Sanskrit, Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra), roughly translated as the ‘diamond-cutting perfection of wisdom’, is currently the earliest known printed book. Discovered on a holy site called the Mogao (or ‘Peerless’) Caves or the ‘Caves of a Thousand Buddhas’, it is one of the most influential Mahayana scriptures in East Asia and was estimated to be published in China on May 11, 868. FuongGungPedia, Humanistic Buddhism Resources provides a summary of its contents ( here ) stating that ‘the four core teachings are to give without clinging to any notion, to liberate all beings with no notion of self, to live without abiding, and to cultivate without attainment. The essential teachings…are prajñā (wisdom) and emptiness’. You can discover more about the Diamond Sutra and its history here .

First children’s book author – John Amos Comenius (1592-1670), a teacher with a strong interest in educational theory and who wanted to create a text-book that would be accessible to all levels of ability, is commonly cited as the first children’s book author. In 1658, he published the informative illustrated book ‘Orbis’ or ‘Orbis Sensualium Pictus’ (or ‘Visible World in Pictures’) for children under six learning to read, and it is considered the first picture-book produced specifically for children. It has 150 illustrations and covers various things including animals, nature, the elements and religion.

However, English publisher, John Newbery (1713-1767) is also cited as the first person to create books specifically for children, with ‘A Little Pretty Pocket-Book’ (1744) as his first children’s book, consisting of simple rhymes for each of the letters of the alphabet, and his most famous work ‘The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes’ (1765) which currently holds the position of being the first children’s novel. His work reflected the changes in attitudes about children during the 18th century and aimed to present entertaining and educational materials catered to children’s reading levels and interests. You can read more on the origins of children’s literature here .

World’s first e-book – Michael S. Hart launched Project Gutenberg – the first provider of free electronic books, and digitized the U.S. Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1971), which became the first e-book in the world. Additionally, the first handheld e-readers, NuvoMedia’s Rocket e-Book (which uses a LCD screen and can store up to ten e-books) and the SoftBook reader (has a leather cover, is closer to the size of trade hardback, or a slim notebook computer, and weighs twice as much as a Rocket e-Book), came out in 1998, and others, like Mobipocket and the Sony Reader, followed shortly thereafter. Additionally, Amazon’s Kindle reader, currently one of the most popular choices for e-book reading, was first launched in 2007. You can learn more about the history of electronic books here .

First recorded film to be based on literature  – ‘Cinderella’ (based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault) and ‘King John’ (based on a play by William Shakespeare), both silent movies, were released in 1899, and are often cited as the earliest film adaptations of literature. ‘Cinderella’ was both directed and produced by Georges Méliès, and ‘King John’ was directed by Walter Pfeffer Dando, William K.L. Dickson and Herbert Beerbohm Tree.

Writing mediums – In Ancient Egypt, papyrus was used as a medium to write on. Papyrus is a material that acted similarly to thick paper, and was collected for its stalk or stem, whose inner substance was cut into thin strips, pressed together, and dried to form a smooth thin writing surface, then used to form books (scrolls which were sheets pasted together) and record sacred writing. The plant was once abundant in Nile Delta, which is a delta formed in Lower Egypt, one of the world’s largest river deltas. Furthermore, a calamus (sweet flag), the stem of a reed sharpened to a point, or bird feathers were used as a writing tool.

Today, the ability to record and store writing has expanded significantly, ranging from blackboards to paper and cardboard (made from forestry products, recycled materials, cotton and other natural fibres, which are turned into a pulp and dried), to electronic storage in the form of PDFs and e-books. We also now use tools like chalk, pens (usually involving a cap, barrel, and ink tube) and computers instead of the reed and feathers used in the past. You can read more on the evolution of writing and book mediums here .

What was your first piece of work? What or who inspired you to create? How would you like to be known and remembered? 

Keep an eye out on our social media pages, Facebook and Instagram , for more interesting information and facts related to literature!

Latest Reviews

important literature facts

Moonsleep and Other Stories

important literature facts

Luca: A Brotherhood MC Novel

important literature facts

On Moreton Waters

important literature facts

Vanishing Act

important literature facts

Stealing Glass

important literature facts

Flames of Eader

important literature facts

Common Clichés in Writing Across Various Genres & Tips on How to Avoid Them

important literature facts

How to Write Something Controversial

important literature facts

Books to Films: Successful Book-to-Film Adaptations

important literature facts

The Story of The Typewriter

  • Megaprojects
  • Expo City Dubai
  • UAE in Space
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Palestine-Israel
  • Arab Showcase
  • Australasia
  • The Americas
  • Cryptocurrencies
  • Travel and Tourism
  • Environment
  • Road to Net Zero
  • Fashion & Beauty
  • Home & Garden
  • Things to do
  • Art & Design
  • Film & TV
  • Music & On-stage
  • Pop Culture
  • Combat Sports
  • Horse Racing
  • Beyond the Headlines
  • Trending Middle East
  • Business Extra
  • Culture Bites
  • Year of Elections
  • Pocketful of Dirhams
  • Books of My Life
  • Iraq: 20 Years On

Ten little-known literary facts (including the famous line Sherlock Holmes never said)

The stories behind the stories, including what frankenstein's monster was really called and a children’s book that was almost entirely different.

Although it is attributed to the character, Sherlock Holmes never actually said: 'Elementary, my dear Watson.' Photo: Hartswood Films / BBC

Although it is attributed to the character, Sherlock Holmes never actually said: 'Elementary, my dear Watson.' Photo: Hartswood Films / BBC

Novels that have endured the test of time also come with their own lore, rumours and tales.

From Pride and Prejudice to Catcher in the Rye , there are plenty of hidden stories to be found within the pages of some of the world’s most famous books.

Here are 10 little-known literary facts.

1. Sherlock Holmes never said: ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’

It’s one of the most famous lines in film and TV adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebrated works, but Sherlock Holmes never actually said it.

There are only seven instances of the famous detective saying “elementary” across 56 short stories and four novels.

The famous phrase actually originated in PG Wodehouse’s 1915 novel Psmith, Journalist : “I fancy,” said Psmith, “that this is one of those moments when it is necessary for me to unlimber my Sherlock Holmes system… 'Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary'.”

2. Aladdin from ‘1001 Arabian Nights’ is Chinese

In Disney's version of 'Aladdin', the young Chinese boy from the original stories is given a Middle Eastern makeover. Photo: Walt Disney Pictures

The character of Aladdin is so entrenched in popular culture it has almost been forgotten he was originally from the Far East.

The original book about Aladdin begins: “Aladdin was a little Chinese boy”, and the tale was set in China, centred around a lazy little boy who lived at home with his mother.

The original tales do feature many Middle Eastern elements, and Disney’s 1992 animated film drew inspiration from the city of Baghdad to create the magical metropolis of Agrabah.

3. Professor Digory Kirke in ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ is based on JRR Tolkien

The Chronicles of Narnia author, CS Lewis based the Pegasus-riding professor who appears in four of the Narnia books on Lord of the Rings writer, JRR Tolkien .

The pair became close friends after meeting at Oxford University in the 1920s, where they were both members of the English faculty.

They bonded over their experiences in the First World War, and joined the celebrated Oxford literary group The Inklings.

4. The monster is not called Frankenstein

A big faux pas in literature is referring to the monster as Frankenstein, when in fact Victor Frankenstein was the creator of the cobbled together "wretch".

In Mary Shelley’s classic 1818 novel, also known as The Modern Prometheus , the monster created in Frankenstein’s lab is never given a name.

However, when speaking to his creator, he refers to himself as the “Adam of your labours", a reference to Adam in the story of the Garden of Eden.

5. ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ turned author JD Salinger into a recluse

JD Salinger's debut novel about schoolboy Holden Caulfield caused controversy when it was published, and was banned in a number of countries. Photo: Penguin Random House; Getty Images

Creating the ultimate literary symbol for disenchanted youth in Holden Caulfield took its toll on New York-born writer JD Salinger, who became a recluse soon after its 1951 release.

The novel, which follows 16-year-old Caulfield’s experiences in New York City after he is expelled from school, was banned in several countries and achieved notoriety when it was revealed John Lennon’s killer Mark Chapman called the book his “statement” before murdering the Beatle.

Salinger retreated to seclusion in Cornish, New Hampshire, never allowing the book to be turned into a film.

6. ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was originally called ‘First Impressions’

One of history's most beloved books underwent significant rewrites and a title change to become Austen’s masterpiece.

The English novelist wrote the first draft of First Impressions between October 1796 and August 1797, but it was rejected by the London publisher.

Austen went back to the drawing board, changing the book from a series of letters into a third-person novel called Pride and Prejudice , and the rest is history.

7. ‘Alice's Adventures in Wonderland’ was banned in China

Lewis Carroll's children's classic 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' was banned in China because it featured talking animals. Photo: Penguin UK

While many books over the years have been banned in many different countries, Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , wasn’t blocked because of political or religious beliefs.

Rather the book, which follows a young girl called Alice down a rabbit hole into a fantasy land, was deemed offensive in China due to the animals being able to talk and behave like humans. The Governor of the Hunan province dubbed the behaviour an “insult” to people.

8. ‘Don Quixote’ is the bestselling novel of all time

While works such as The Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter have sold in their millions, the bestselling novel in history is widely believed to be Don Quixote, the Spanish epic by Miguel de Cervantes, published in two parts in 1605 and 1615.

Thought to have sold more than 500 million copies, it is one of the most-translated books, following the adventures of erstwhile chivalric knight Don Quixote and his droll sidekick Sancho Panza.

9. The Things in ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ were originally horses

Author and illustrator Maurice Sendak's book 'Where the Wild Things Are' was first called 'Where the Wild Horses Are' before he admitted he couldn't draw horses. Photo HarperCollins; Getty Images

Having long cemented its status as one of the most popular and beloved children’s books, Where the Wild Things Are has sold millions worldwide.

Created by US author and illustrator Maurice Sendak and published in 1963, the titular “Things” started out life as horses, when Sendak pitched a book called Where the Wild Horses Are .

Later admitting to his publisher that he couldn’t draw horses, when asked what he could sketch he replied “Things”. The “Things” were based on Sendak's relatives.

10. Ghosts appear in only four Shakespeare plays

The Bard’s plays have a reputation for being filled with the supernatural. And, while fairies abound in the likes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream , only four of William Shakespeare’s plays feature ghosts.

In Julius Caesar Caesar’s ghost appears to Brutus; in Richard III no fewer than 11 spectres turn up to haunt the king; Hamlet is terrorised by the ghost of his father; and Macbeth by Banquo.

The Arts Edit

A guide to arts and culture, from a Middle Eastern perspective

The Arts Edit

For Reading Addicts

15 Fun and Fascinating Facts about Literature

Books are brilliant, they teach us so many things we may not have otherwise learned. Sometimes however it is books themselves and the people who write them that are just as interesting. Here are a few fun facts for your perusal.

important literature facts

Dr Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham after being challenged to write a book using fewer than fifty separate words!

Green Eggs and Ham US Green Eggs and Ham UK

The first ever book written on a typewriter? Not a definite fact this one but something that is generally agreed upon, it’s Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer US The Adventures of Tom Sawyer UK

important literature facts

The M6 Toll Road (A Motorway in England) was built upon 2.5 million pulped copies of Mills and Boon romance novels.

Sting wrote the song ‘Every Breath You Take’ at the same desk which Ian Fleming used to write his James Bond novels . It may have helped that the desk was situated in the ‘Fleming Villa’ at GoldenEye on the island of Jamaica

Casino Royale US Casino Royale UK

important literature facts

The world’s most avid readers? Those from India spending an average of 10.7 hours each week reading.

Bilbo Baggins was born on September 22nd 1290.

LOTR US LOTR UK

important literature facts

Frank Baum named Oz after a filing cabinet that was kept in his office. One cabinet was labeled “A to N,” and the second was labeled “O to Z.”

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz US The Wonderful Wizard of Oz UK

All the proceeds earned from James M. Barrie’s book Peter Pan  were bequeathed to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for the Sick Children in London. I wonder if Disney has done the same?

Peter Pan US Peter Pan UK

important literature facts

As a schoolboy, Roald Dahl was a taste-tester for Cadbury’s chocolate, I wonder if that was the inspiration for his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? I wonder if Cadbury has Oompa Loompas?

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory US Charlie and the Chocolate Factory UK

The first book bought on Amazon was called Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. A nice bit of light reading there.

Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies US Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies UK

important literature facts

The first public library in America was opened in Charleston, South Carolina , in 1698.

Murasaki Shikibu wrote the world’s first novel, The Tale of the Genji , in around 1008.

The Tale of the Genji US The Tale of the Genji UK

important literature facts

The first book printed in English, in 1475, was The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye . by Englishman William Caxton .

The longest sentence (piece of work without a full stop) ever printed in a novel? It is a horrifyingly breath stealing 823 words long and is to be found in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables .

Les Miserables US Les Miserables UK

important literature facts

And finally the Top 3 most read books in the world are?

The Holy Bible, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and Harry Potter.

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung US Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung UK

I had no idea of any of the above. It just goes to show you that fact is very often, stranger than fiction.

important literature facts

Strange things found in books includes a centuries-old butterfly

important literature facts

UK Readers Have Almost Doubled the Amount of Time They Spend Reading Since Lockdown Began

important literature facts

15 times the ‘Don’t Have A Bookmark?’ meme went too far

important literature facts

Silent Book Clubs For Introverted Readers

important literature facts

The UK Chooses its Top 50 Books

important literature facts

Which book topped the New York Times Bestseller list the year you were born?

important literature facts

Data Reveals the Most Popular Books are Written by Men

Leave your vote.

Enter your email address:

Recent Posts

  • Word of the Day – Ailurophile
  • Quiz – WH Auden Funeral Blues – Missing Words
  • Word of the Day – Flâneur
  • Word of the Day – Oblique
  • Word of the Day – Taradiddle
  • Adaptations
  • Children's Literature
  • Competitions and Giveaways
  • Cwts Club Book Club
  • Discussion and Recommendations
  • Find That Book
  • Guest Blogs
  • Hit of the Lits!
  • Inspired by Literature
  • Literary Awards
  • Literary Events
  • Literary Places
  • New Quizzes
  • New Releases
  • Reading Excerpts
  • Reading Formats
  • Reading Habits
  • The Book Bus
  • The Classics
  • Uncategorized
  • Word of the Day
  • Your Photos

Previous Post Word of the Day - Holophrastic

Next post halloween costumes for bookworms, one comment.

important literature facts

Péter Esterházy, Hungarian novelist, wrote a novel consisting of one single sentence. The title is Függő. (I don’t think it has been translated.) It’s 185 pages long. I’m pretty sure it’s longer than Hugo’s sentence.

© 2024 For Reading Addicts.

  • Our Contributors
  • Authors A – D
  • Authors E – H
  • Authors I – L
  • Authors M – P
  • Authors Q – T
  • Authors U – Z
  • Action and Adventure
  • Comics and Graphic Novels
  • Contemporary
  • Humour and Satire
  • Romance and Chick-Lit
  • Science Fiction
  • Non-Fiction
  • Children/Young Adult
  • Recommended Reading
  • Submit A Book Review
  • Author Spotlight
  • Featured Bookshops – Australia
  • Featured Bookshops – Canada
  • Featured Bookshops Portugal
  • Featured Bookshops UK
  • Featured Bookshops USA
  • Literary Art
  • Literary Insult of the Week
  • Thought of the Day
  • Submit a Bookshop/Library
  • Literary Shop
  • Merchandise
  • Submit a Book Review
  • Submit a Bookshop
  • Submit a Picture
  • Advertise With Us

Add to Collection

Public collection title

Private collection title

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.

Ebook Friendly logo

Ebook Friendly

50 most interesting facts about books, libraries, and reading.

Which president read at least one book per day? How old is the oldest library in the world? Which country reads the most? These and many other fun facts are guaranteed to surprise you.

From news articles to Instagram captions, work emails to text messages – we flip through tons of bite-size chunks of writing in our daily lives without even realizing it.

Chances are that by now, you’ve already skimmed through your co-worker’s excruciatingly long email or quickly scrolled through a fun fact list like this one, followed a ten-tweet-long juicy Twitter feud between your friends or caught up on all the new breaking news – but have you read something today?

Not skimmed through, scrolled through, or swiped through something – but actually committed to reading a book?

The “no-strings-attached” reading approach is slowly starting to dominate our daily lives, and we find ourselves having less and less time to commit to a weighty novel – and would rather spend that time skimming through quick reads that do not require much focus or care.

Reading has so much to offer – and if we’re looking for a casual, easily-digestible read, we always have short stories – and the world of books is much more fascinating than you think.

In this list, you’ll find lots of fun facts that are guaranteed to make you re-appreciate books all over again. Some of them are illustrated to make it even easier for you to share with friends and promote reading.

Best facts about books libraries reading

50 surprising fun facts about books, libraries, and reading

First Harry Potter ever - fun facts about books

The first-ever “Harry Potter” was a short story published in communist Poland in 1972.

The boy who lived has, in fact, lived ever since 19 March 1972, when literary magazine Życie Literackie published a short story titled “Harry Potter”. The author – Jan Rostworowski – was a Polish writer and poet who, as a soldier of the Polish Army, spent twenty-eight years in Great Britain.

Rostworowski’s text tells a story of a seventeen-year-old Harry whose life is much more muggle-like than that of his namesake. In fact, his life is rather ordinary – as a shopkeeper, he delivers the original Cracovian sausage and pickles. And in the end – he suddenly vanishes. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

In the Harvard Library, there are three books suspected to be bound in human skin.

One of Harvard Library’s books, Des destinées de l’ame, is 99.9% certain to have been bound in human skin. It has been sitting in Harvard’s Houghton Library since the 1930s.

The practice of binding books in human skin was not at all uncommon in the 15th century, and was done to commemorate the dead, among other reasons. ⇢ More info .

According to the Guinness World Records, the largest book in the world weighs over 3,000 lb and measures 16.40 ft x 26.44 ft.

Unveiled by Mshahed International Group in Dubai, UAE on 27 February 2012, the largest non-published book to date is titled This the Prophet Mohamed and is a compilation of stories highlighting the lifetime achievements of Islam’s Prophet. Over 50 people took part in the construction of the text. ⇢ More info .

The largest book ever published - facts about books

The largest book ever published – “The Little Prince” – is almost 7 feet high and 10 feet wide.

The record is held by an edition of “The Little Prince” by a Brazilian publishing company Ediouro Publicações. First presented at the XIII Biannual Book Fair of Rio de Janeiro on 13 September 2007, “The Little Prince” measures 2.01 m (6.6 ft) high and 3.08 m (10.1 ft) wide and contains 128 pages. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

The first bookmobile in the world was launched in 1857. It was a horse-drawn wagon created to “diffuse good literature among the rural population.”

Launched by philanthropist George Moore, the first-ever bookmobile started operating in Great Britain in the 19th century. The horse-drawn wagon served books from bookshelves mounted on the outside and traveled between eight villages in the Cumbria County, in North West England. ⇢ More info .

The longest-ever book title consists of over 3,700 words.

Written by Vityala Yethindra and released on 20 March 2019, the title of The Historical Development of the Heart… is made up of a whopping 26,000 characters.

It is so long mainly because the author decided to enlist all the different species the book mentions, as well as ask over 50 different questions the book provides answers to, and include both in the title. ⇢ More info .

The oldest library in the world - facts about libraries

This monastery in Egypt is home to the oldest continually operating library in the world, established in AD 565.

The library at Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai is the oldest currently operating in the world, and has the second largest collection of ancient manuscripts and codices, just after Vatican City.

It houses several unique texts, including the Syriac Sinaiticus and, until 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest known complete Bible dating back to around 345 CE. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

Warsaw is the city with the biggest number of libraries per capita – with a whopping 11.5 libraries per 100,000 citizens.

Poland’s capital Warsaw is the ultimate heaven for book lovers. Seoul and Brussels follow close behind, with 11 and 10 libraries per 100,000 inhabitants on average, accordingly. The city that loaned the most books on average was Tokyo, with 111.9 million book loans in just one year. ⇢ More info .

The word library comes from Latin liber – the inner bark of trees – and was first used in written form in the 14th century.

In Old English – the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in the early Middle Ages – “book hoards” (from Old English bōchord ) were what we know as libraries or collections of books today. ⇢ More info .

The world’s largest fine for an overdue library book stands at $345.14, the amount owed at two cents a day.

Poetry book Days and Deeds was checked out of Kewanee Public Library in April 1955 by Emily Canellos-Simms to be returned on 19 April. Having found the book at her mother’s house 47 years later, Emily gave the book back, with an overdue fine of over $345. ⇢ More info .

Joanina Library bats - fun facts about libraries

Portuguese Library Biblioteca Joanina is home to a swarm of bats that feed on book-eating insects every night.

Biblioteca Joanina has a rather unlikely cleaning crew – in this grand old Portuguese library, bats act as pest control. Swarms of bats hide behind the rococo bookcases during the day, while at night they feast on book-damaging insects, helping preserve the over 300-year-old building and its rich cultural heritage.

Human bookworms are safe, though. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

Morioka Shoten Ginza, a unique bookstore in Tokyo, offers only one book every week and organizes events to discuss it every evening.

The concept of a “single room with a single book” was invented by Yoshiyuki Morioka to increase focus on a single book. Through that, Morioka argues, a reader’s relationship with a book would become much more personal and because of that their pleasure of reading would also be elevated.

For six continuous days, Morioka’s bookstore offers one title and encourages buyers to attend group discussions to connect the author with its readers. ⇢ More info .

Portuguese bookshop Bertrand Chiado is officially the oldest operating bookshop in the world, founded in 1732.

Today, Bertrand has developed into a network of 52 shops scattered across Portugal and has been frequented by numerous famous authors, including Alexandre Herculano, Fernando Pessoa, Eca de Queiros, and Aquilino Ribeiro. The latter was such a frequent visitor that a special room was dedicated to the writer and called “Corner of Aquilino”. ⇢ More info .

The longest novel ever written is À la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust, first published in 1912. It has an estimated 1,267,069 words.

Also known as Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time , the 13-volume-long masterpiece was published in 20th-century France. It is roughly 4,215 pages long and is comprised of an estimated 9,609,000 characters including spaces. An average reader who reads at 300 words per minute would have to spend at least 70 hours to finish this great novel. ⇢ More info .

The youngest published author - top facts about books and authors

Dorothy Straight wrote her book How the World Began when she was 4 years and 3 months old, making her the youngest person in the world to write a published book.

Dorothy wrote the book all in one evening in response to her mother’s question of “Who made the world?”, and her parents loved it so much that they sent it to Pantheon Books. It was published 2 years later. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

Written in AD 123, Chariton’s Chaereas & Callirhoe is the oldest existing novel in the world.

This ancient Greek prose romance narrates the adventures of a just-married couple, overwhelmingly beautiful Callirhoe and handsome Chaereas, whose relationship is put to a test when Callirhoe’s former suitors plot a scheme to rip the lovers apart. ⇢ More info .

James Patterson, the author of Alex Cross and Women’s Murder Club series, was the first-ever writer to exceed one million sales in ebooks.

James Patterson achieved the one million mark in July 2010. Later that month, Amazon announced that Patterson’s competitor – Stieg Larsson – has also sold over one million digital copies in his Millennium trilogy, making him the first one to sell more than 1 million paid Kindle books and enter Amazon’s exclusive Kindle Million Club. ⇢ More info .

The first generation Kindle, released on 19 November 2007, was sold out in only 5 1/2 hours.

The first-ever Kindle cost $399, and after it was sold out it remained out of stock for five months until late April 2008. With its 250 MB of internal storage, it could hold approximately two hundred non-illustrated titles at a time. It also had a speaker and a headphone jack for listening to audio files. ⇢ More info .

The first ebook in the world - best facts about books

The first ebook in the world is The Declaration of Independence, released in 1971.

In 1971, passionate technologist and futurist Michael Stern Hart was given access to a Xerox Sigma V mainframe at the University of Illinois. Inspired by a free printed copy of the Declaration of Independence, he decided to transcribe it into the computer.

He made the file available to other users of the computer network, with the annotation that it was free to use and distribute – marking the beginning of the legendary Project Gutenberg, an initiative dedicated to making books freely available in digital format.

The first ebook in the world is still available at Project Gutenberg . ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

Stephen King’s Riding the Bullet was the world’s first mass-market ebook, available to download for just $2.50.

The book, published by Simon & Schuster, sold over 400,000 copies in just 24 hours after the release, causing the SoftLock server to jam. Some Stephen King fans waited for hours for the book to download, and the encryption caused countless computers to crash. ⇢ More info .

J.K. Rowling’s original Harry Potter pitch was rejected by 12 different publishers before Bloomsbury accepted it.

But her struggles did not end here – she had to adopt the nom de plume J. K. Rowling, because, as her publisher argued, the title sounded like a boys’ book to him, and he believed boys preferred books by male authors.

“Over a period of nearly a year, the book was turned down by more or less every major publishing house in the UK”, Rowling’s first agent, Christopher Little, revealed.

Read the original synopsis here . ⇢ More info .

Theodore Rosevelt read one book a day - top facts about books

Former American President Theodore Roosevelt read at least one book per day.

26th President Theodore Roosevelt might be one of the most well-read men in all history – every day, he would read a book before breakfast, and depending on his schedule, another two or three in the evening (even during his presidency!).

Roosevelt loved exploring various genres – from Dickensian fiction to Greek history – and was a firm believer that one’s reading preferences changed with time and mood. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

The word “robot” was invented by Czech painter Josef Čapek and first used in his brother’s sci-fi play R.U.R in 1920.

The frequently used international word “robot” first originated in Karel Čapek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots . It derives from the Slavic word robota , which means labor (especially forced labor), and was used to denote humanoid, mass-produced, completely emotionless workers incapable of original thinking and indifferent to self-preservation.

Čapek himself did not coin the word – in a letter to the Oxford English Dictionary , he credits his brother, the painter and writer Josef Čapek, as its actual originator. ⇢ More info .

The Japanese language has a word to denote letting reading materials pile up in one’s home and never read them – tsundoku .

The term originated in the Meiji era as Japanese slang and is a combination of two words – tsunde-oku (to pile things up ready for later) and dokusho (reading books).

There’s also an English word that can be used to describe loving the smell of old books – bibliosma, and one to express fear of running out of reading material – abibliophobia . ⇢ More info .

India is the country that reads the most, with an average Indian reading 10.7 hours every week.

According to the 2005 BOP World Culture Score Index, an average Indian dedicates over 10 hours every week to reading. Thailand and China come second and third, with 9.24 and 8 hours per week respectively. In comparison, Americans read half as much, with only a little over 5 hours a week.

On the other hand, individuals in Korea, Japan and Taiwan fall to the bottom of the list – at just 3.1, 4.1, and 5 hours dedicated to reading per week, respectively. ⇢ More info .

Mechanical Encyclopedia predecessor of the ebook - facts about books

Enciclopedia Mecánica , a Spanish invention from 1949, is widely considered a predecessor of the ebook. It uses mechanics, electrics, and air pressure to display text and images.

Patented in 1949 by a Spanish writer and teacher Ángela Ruiz Robles, this incredible device operated through using pressurized air. It also had a zoom function, making it possible for the readers to focus on specific parts of the text. The inventor had also planned on adding a reading light, a calculator, and sound, to the following prototypes.

The Mechanical Encyclopedia is currently exhibited in the National Museum of Science and Technology in La Coruña, Spain. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

The titular raven in Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic classic was initially supposed to be… a parrot.

Poe wondered how he could have his one-word refrain, “nevermore”, continuously repeated throughout the poem – and the first thing that came to his mind was a parrot.

The bird’s flamboyance, however, did not fit well with the grim nature of the work, and in the end, Poe decided to replace it with a raven. ⇢ More info .

Fifty Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fan-fiction.

Originally titled Master of the Universe and published episodically on fan-fiction websites, the work featured characters named after Stephanie Meyer’s Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. E. L. James later rewrote the story and extended it into three parts: Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed .

Fans of Twilight will notice some striking similarities between characters: both Christian and Edward are rich, possessive, and intense, while Anastasia and Bella – clumsy and completely dazzled by their partner. ⇢ More info .

Book that purifies water - best facts about books

A book that purifies water, The Drinkable Book, is printed on filter paper capable of killing deadly waterborne bacteria.

A book that purifies water was created by non-profit organization WATERisLIFE to raise awareness on proper sanitation and hygiene. Each page is coated with silver nanoparticles that instantly kill waterborne bacteria that cause diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and E. coli.

But apart from being a cleaning filter, the book teaches the importance of proper sanitation and hygiene. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

Truman Capote considered himself a “completely horizontal author” because he couldn’t think and write unless he was lying down.

Some writers find lying down in bed the best way to get their creativity going. Successful authors who are known to have practiced this technique are Mark Twain, George Orwell, and Woody Allen.

In contrast, writers like Hemingway, Dickens and Woolf wrote their works at standing desks. ⇢ More info .

Vladimir Nabokov would compose all works on index cards which he kept in slim boxes.

This method enabled him to easily re-arrange the plot of his books any time he wanted – he would shuffle these cards daily, what allowed him to see the story unfold in different ways.

He also stored some of the cards underneath his pillow, so that when an idea popped into his head at night, he could quickly write it down. ⇢ More info .

Dan Brown finds hanging upside down the ultimate cure for writer’s block.

According to the author of The Da Vinci Code , the so-called inversion therapy makes you relax and concentrate better. He also has an hourglass on his writing desk which reminds him to do some push-ups, sit-ups and stretches every hour. ⇢ More info .

John Steinbeck dog - fun facts about books

John Steinbeck’s dog ate the original manuscript for Of Mice and Men .

Steinbeck’s beloved Irish setter named Toby was the first to consume Of Mice and Men . The dog, quite literally, chewed up half of the only manuscript of the classic.

In a letter to his agent, the dog-loving author was quite forgiving: “The poor little fellow may have been acting critically,” he explained. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

When Victor Hugo was facing a tight schedule for The Hunchback of Notre Dame , he asked his valet to confiscate his clothes so that he wouldn’t leave the house.

During cold days, Hugo would wrap himself in a blanket while writing. According to his wife, while writing The Hunchback of Notre Dame , he even purchased a “huge grey knitted shawl which swathed him from head to foot, locked his formal clothes away so that he would not be tempted to go out and entered his novel as if it were a prison.”

It took Hugo over half a year of nonstop work to finish the three-volume novel. ⇢ More info .

Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester was sold to Bill Gates for the equivalent of today’s $50.2 million.

Written in 1510, The Codex Leicester is a 72-page linen manuscript of Leonardo’s thoughts, theories and observations of the world. It came into Bill Gates’s possession in 1994, who then had it digitally scanned, and released some of the images as screen savers and wallpapers for Windows 98 Plus. ⇢ More info .

There are “human libraries” around the world where you can check-out humans as a living book and listen to their unique life stories.

Started in Copenhagen in 2000 and now active in over 80 countries, The Human Library is an international organization focused on addressing people’s prejudices by helping them to talk to those they would not normally meet.

Many of the people you can “lend” are those who the society tends to stigmatize the most – and they often prove that you truly cannot judge a book by its cover. ⇢ More info .

In some libraries you can check out animal skeletons, Santa suits, prom dresses, and dogs, among many others.

Your local library might be offering much more than just books, audiobooks, or ebooks. Quite a lot of libraries lend home improvement, maintenance and gardening tools (to discover a tool lending library near you, click here), as well as various board games and toys. ⇢ More info .

The library of Alexandria - fun facts about books and libraries

In ancient Egypt, all ships visiting Alexandria were obliged to surrender their books to the Royal Library and be copied. The original would be kept in the library and the copy given back to the owner.

The impressive collection of the Great Library of Alexandria did not appear out of thin air – all ships entering the city were instantly stripped of all their books, and while in theory the government was obliged to reimburse the original owners, it would only do so sometimes and rarely adequately. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

There are more public libraries than McDonald’s restaurants in the United States.

There are exactly 121,000 libraries (including 16,766 public libraries) in the US, compared to 14,157 McDonald’s restaurants. The Library of Congress in Washington, D. C. is the largest in the world, with over 158 million items collected.

The smallest book in the library is Old King Cole , measuring just 1/25 of an inch square – about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. ⇢ More info .

Roald Dahl was buried with some of his favorite items: a bottle of Burgundy, his snooker cues, HB pencils, a power saw and some chocolate.

He was buried in November 1990 in Oxford, England, and according to his granddaughter, the family gave him a “sort of Viking funeral”. Today, children continue to leave toys and flowers by his grave. ⇢ More info .

As a struggling young writer, Harper Lee once got a year’s wages as a gift from her friends so that she could quit her job and devote more time to writing. She wrote To Kill a Mockingbird .

The book became an immediate success, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. Harper Lee, however, decided not to publish another book for 55 years after. ⇢ More info .

In a while, fair play, all of a sudden, night owl and star-crossed lovers are all phrases Shakespeare is thought to have introduced to the English language.

The Bard was also known to love the prefix un– , having created or given meaning to over 300 words that begin with it, such as unaware, uncomfortable, unreal, and undress . ⇢ More info .

Thomas Edison library hand font - top facts about libraries

Librarians were once taught a special rounded style of handwriting to ensure uniformity and legibility in catalogs.

The handwriting style, called the “library hand,” was developed by Thomas Alva Edison in 1885. Based on Edison’s own handwriting, the style was especially perfected to allow librarians to “take legibly from the wire, longhand, forty-seven and even fifty-four words a minute”.

Doctors, take note. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

The M6 toll road in the UK was built on two and a half million copies of pulped fiction to prevent it from cracking.

The damaged and end-of-the-line Mills & Boon novels were shredded at a recycling firm in south Wales and later added to the paste. According to materials suppliers Tarmac, the pulp prevents cracks and helps absorb sound. ⇢ More info .

Currently, the world’s fastest reader is Maria Teresa Calderon from the Philippines. She is able to read 80,000 words per minute with 100% comprehension.

“In the time it takes for most people to read the label on a cereal box, fifteen-year-old Maria Teresa Calderon could read half a book, or more – if she didn’t have to turn the pages”, the Associated Press reported in 1968. At University, she read a three page long college-level essay of 3,135 words in just 3.5 seconds.

In comparison, an average person reads around 250-300 words per minute, with around 70% comprehension. ⇢ More info .

Book that can be read six ways - interesting facts about books

A German 16th-century religious book can be read in six different ways because of how it’s bound.

This unique volume is a completely different take on dos-à-dos binding: it can be opened (and read) in six different ways. Cleverly hidden inside a single binding, this volume contains in fact six different books – each one bound separately and closed with its own clasp.

The book was printed in Germany and contains religious devotional texts, including Martin Luther’s Der Kleine Catechismus . It’s a part of the collection of the Rogge Library in Strängnäs, Sweden. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

The London tube introduced vending machines that print out random short stories of a selected genre on receipt-like scrolls. The commuters can choose between one-, three- and five-minute-long stories.

Scattered around the busy financial area Canary Wharf, the machines print out bite-sized short stories at the touch of a button. They are completely free of charge and printed on eco-friendly papyrus in just a couple of seconds.

Small and taking up virtually no space, these brilliant inventions are ideal for short commutes and easy to read (even when squashed by someone’s elbow on a busy Monday morning). ⇢ More info .

People who read a lot are more likely to become successful.

Reading improves focus, expands the vocabulary and increases memory. In fact, when Warren Buffett was once asked about the key to success, he pointed to a stack of books laying nearby and said, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest.” A study of 1,200 wealthy people found that they all have reading as a pastime in common.

And while Warren Buffett might take the habit of reading to a bit of an extreme (he devotes around 80 percent of his time each day to reading), other top entrepreneurs – such as Mark Cuban, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk – all make reading a major part of their day. ⇢ More info .

In Iraq, booksellers leave books outside at night because “the reader does not steal and the thief does not read.”

The Mutanabbi Street in the center of Baghdad, near the old quarter at Al Rasheed Street, is home to a stunning book market, often referred to as ‘the heart and soul of Baghdad’s literacy and intellectual community.’ At night, it is completely unattended. ⇢ More info .

Reading reduces stress - facts about books

Reading for just 6 minutes each day can help reduce stress by up to 68%, study finds.

A 2009 study at the University of Sussex found that reading can reduce stress by up two thirds – making it a much more efficient relaxation method than listening to music, drinking a hot cup of tea, or even taking a walk.

Participants who engaged in just six minutes of reading for pleasure were found to have a significantly slower heart rate and reduced muscle tension. ⇢ More info . ⇢ Photo credit .

Keep exploring. Here are other popular lists and tips:

  • Free ebooks for Christmas 2023: here are the top 20 downloads Just like a year ago, we are presenting the list of ebooks that were most downloaded from Project Gutenberg in […]
  • 12 best personalized gifts for librarians and library supporters These library-themed gifts are extremely easy to personalize. All you have to do is add your own text!
  • Here are the 12 best iPhone case covers for book lovers In this updated overview, you’ll see gorgeous iPhone covers that will remind you of the joy of reading books anywhere, […]
  • 12 best metal accessories and home decor for book lovers Explore some of the best home decor items for book lovers that are handmade from metal: steel, brass, copper, bolts, […]

If you don’t want to miss future updates, make sure to enable email notifications in the comment box below. We are also waiting for you on WordPress Reader , Mastodon , Tumblr , and Facebook . You can also add us to your Google News channels.

If you buy an item via this post, we may get a small affiliate fee ( details ). We only use the cookies that are necessary to run this site properly ( details ).

Share this:

  • Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

8 responses to “50 most interesting facts about books, libraries, and reading”

[…] Tip: Here are other facts about books and libraries. […]

[…] oldest continually operating library in the world was established in the 565 CE in Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt, and has the […]

[…] a skill of escaping into the world of books any time they had a few minutes of spare time. Reading for just 6 minutes can help reduce stress by up to 68%. Just like books helped you survive the lockdown, they can be helpful when you come back to the new […]

[…] Kendall Jenner claims that reading books helps her deal with anxiety. Kim Jisoo, a member of a South Korean girl group Blackpink, reads to relieve stress. It’s no surprise – a study at the University of Sussex found that reading for just 6 minutes can reduce stress by up two thirds. […]

[…] missing – the 10th effective way to get focused – is reading a book. As most of you know, reading for just 6 minutes can reduce stress by as much as 68%. The stress is something that frustrates the most, resulting in an overwhelming state of […]

[…] For quotes and fun facts, I used our own lists, including most interesting facts about books and libraries. […]

[…] oldest continually operating library in the world was established in the 565 CE in Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt, and has the second-largest […]

[…] A 2009 study at the University of Sussex found that reading for just 6 minutes can reduce stress by up to 68%. […]

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Popular posts.

Free ebooks for Christmas 2023: here are the top 20 downloads

Free ebooks for Christmas 2023: here are the top 20 downloads

Just like a year ago, we are presenting the list of ebooks that were most downloaded from Project Gutenberg in the last 30 days.

Ebooks may be a gateway to a harmful surveillance

Ebooks may be a gateway to a harmful surveillance

The fact that you don’t reveal your reading activity to the public doesn’t mean your sensitive data is 100% protected.

All your print and digital Amazon books are now in one place – except the sideloaded ones

All your print and digital Amazon books are now in one place – except the sideloaded ones

Amazon has just launched Your Books, a personalized space with all your print, Kindle, and Audible books. However, the service doesn’t include your sideloaded ebooks.

Turn your Kindle lockscreen into a custom composition notebook cover

Turn your Kindle lockscreen into a custom composition notebook cover

This simple guide will let you use an iconic composition notebook design as a Kindle screensaver image.

Audiobook listening in 2023, according to Spotify

Audiobook listening in 2023, according to Spotify

Spotify’s announcement of the introduction of audiobooks in the U.S. comes with an infographic about audiobook listening habits.

Almost 1,100 Kindle ebooks are on sale for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2023

Almost 1,100 Kindle ebooks are on sale for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2023

This shopping season, forget about the Kindle, and get Kindle books instead. In three combines deals, well over 1,000 books are featured – and Cyber Monday hasn't started yet.

Start Reading

Big magic: creative living beyond fear.

by ELIZABETH GILBERT

Once upon a time, there was a man named Jack Gilbert, who was not related to me – unfortunately for me. 

Jack Gilbert was a great poet, but if you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. He never much cared about being known. But I knew about him, and I loved him dearly from a respectful distance, so let me tell you about him.

Jack Gilbert was born in Pittsburgh in 1925 and grew up in the midst of that city’s smoke, noise, and industry. He worked in factories and steel mills as a young man, but was called from an early age to write poetry. He answered the call without hesitation. He became a poet the way other men become monks: as a devotional practice, as an act of love, and as a lifelong commitment to the search for grace and transcendence. I think this is probably a very good way to become a poet. Or to become anything, really, that calls to your heart and brings you to life.

176 words read ...

New at Reader Updated

  • Study: reading on paper improves comprehension even 8 times more than digital
  • Christmas reading challenge (cartoon)
  • Discover the positive side of life through illustrations by Elise Gravel
  • Gen Z vs. Millennials – how they read books and use libraries (report)
  • Goodreads Choice Awards 2023: the winners are here!
  • The current book reading habits in the U.S. (survey and infographic)
  • What if Wes Anderson visited a library and made a movie about it? (video)
  • Britannica has released Encyclopedia Infographica – a perfect bookish gift this holiday season

important literature facts

Funny Coffee Machine Learning Expert T-Shirt – This minimal-style text says: “machine learning expert” with a funny handwritten note suggesting that it only applies to learning how to operate a coffee machine.

Ebook lover's friendly companion

No ads, no pop-ups, just cookies. By continuing to explore our website, you agree to their use.  Details

Discover more from Ebook Friendly

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

Allvipp

'The Rifleman': 10 Interesting Facts About The Western Series

Posted: February 19, 2024 | Last updated: February 20, 2024

<p>'The Rifleman' was one of the first hit series to deal with the relationship of a father and son.</p>

'The Rifleman'

'The Rifleman' was one of the first hit series to deal with the relationship of a father and son.

<p>The series was a funny anachronism since "Lucas McCain" uses an 1892 Winchester rifle and the series is set in the 1880s.</p>

The series was a funny anachronism since "Lucas McCain" uses an 1892 Winchester rifle and the series is set in the 1880s.

<p>'The Rifleman' was developed by the great Western filmmaker Sam Peckinpah although he wasn't credited. His raw and often violent style wasn't always well received by the production and Sam decided to move on to his own projects becoming an icon of the genre.</p>

'The Rifleman' was developed by the great Western filmmaker Sam Peckinpah although he wasn't credited. His raw and often violent style wasn't always well received by the production and Sam decided to move on to his own projects becoming an icon of the genre.

<p>Although many thought 'The Rifleman' was a historical drama series, it is set in the fictional town of North Folk, New Mexico.</p>

Although many thought 'The Rifleman' was a historical drama series, it is set in the fictional town of North Folk, New Mexico.

<p>During the five years of the series, over 500 top guest actors surprised the audience!</p>

During the five years of the series, over 500 top guest actors surprised the audience!

<p>Although "Lucas McCaine's" rifle was definitely a protagonist of the show and it did appear on every single episode, it wasn't always fired.</p>

Although "Lucas McCaine's" rifle was definitely a protagonist of the show and it did appear on every single episode, it wasn't always fired.

<p>In the pilot "Lucas" was named "John McCaine"; he wasn't a widower and didn't have a son. It started with him being seriously shot. </p>

In the pilot "Lucas" was named "John McCaine"; he wasn't a widower and didn't have a son. It started with him being seriously shot. 

<p>The rifle "Lucas McCain" uses in the series is the same John Wayne used in the classic film 'Stagecoach'.</p>

The rifle "Lucas McCain" uses in the series is the same John Wayne used in the classic film 'Stagecoach'.

<p>"Lucs McCain" appeared in TV Guide's list of "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" in 2004!</p>

"Lucs McCain" appeared in TV Guide's list of "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" in 2004!

<p>The set of "Lucas" and "Mark McCain's" house appears in other iconic Westerns! We could see it in 'Wanted: Dead or Alive" starring Steve McQueen!</p>

The set of "Lucas" and "Mark McCain's" house appears in other iconic Westerns! We could see it in 'Wanted: Dead or Alive" starring Steve McQueen!

More for You

Trump/James

Letitia James Wants to Block Trump From Leaving New York

Gary Ross - Courtesy Gary Ross

Opinion: The biggest potential danger from the Hur report is one no one’s talking about

R. Donahue Peebles, chairman and chief executive officer of Peebles Corp., speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., on Monday, May 1, 2017. The conference is a unique setting that convenes individuals with the capital, power and influence to move the world forward meet face-to-face with those whose expertise and creativity are reinventing industry, philanthropy and media. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Former Obama fundraiser tells Dems to 'turn the page' on Biden, says law was 'weaponized' against Trump

Putin’s top crony has crazy plans for US state to separate from country

Putin’s top crony has crazy plans for US state to separate from country

Company Forced to Pay Woman $105,000 in Damages after Firing Her for Refusing to Retire at 65

Company Forced to Pay Woman $105,000 in Damages after Firing Her for Refusing to Retire at 65

Joakim Noah shares why he no longer recognizes NBA basketball:

Joakim Noah shares why he no longer recognizes NBA basketball: "You can't even compare the eras, the physicality"

Alina Habba

Alina Habba Fires Back After Being Told Trump Appeal Won't Succeed

3 things to never do at work, according to an HR professional with 10 years' worth of experience

3 things to never do at work, according to an HR professional with 10 years' worth of experience

Trump International Hotel In Washington, DC To Become Waldorf Astoria After Sale

Former Trump Hotel in Washington Gets $75 Million in Capital

Russia’s last independent pollster tells me how Putin does it

Russia’s last independent pollster tells me how Putin does it

FILE - Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, Dec. 13, 2023. An FBI informant has been charged with lying to his handler about ties between Joe Biden and son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company. Prosecutors said Thursday that Alexander Smirnov falsely told FBI agents in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5 million each in 2015 and 2016.(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana. File)

Ex-FBI source accused of lying about Bidens and having Russian contacts is returned to US custody

Hill Harper Draws On Hollywood Support As He Faces A Daunting U.S. Senate Primary Race In Michigan Against Front Runner Elissa Slotkin

Hill Harper Draws On Hollywood Support As He Faces A Daunting U.S. Senate Primary Race In Michigan Against Front Runner Elissa Slotkin

Greg Abbott

Texas Newspaper Turns on Greg Abbott: 'Spewing Lies'

Indiana Attorney General Sets Up Website for Snitching on ‘Socialist' Teachers

Indiana Attorney General Sets Up Website for Snitching on ‘Socialist' Teachers

Sophie Riegel, 23, built a six-figure side hustle selling clothes out of her Duke University dorm room.

23-year-old was 'so bored' at home—she started a side hustle that brings in $10,300 a month: 'It doesn't feel like work to me'

A man with his hands bound urged a Gaza hospital to evacuate. Hours later, he was shot dead.

A man with his hands bound urged a Gaza hospital to evacuate. Hours later, he was shot dead.

FILE PHOTO: Trump participates in a Fox News town hall with Laura Ingraham in Greenville

Trump moves to dismiss charges accusing him of mishandling classified documents

17 Things You Should Never Leave Your Children When You Die

17 Things You Should Never Leave Your Children When You Die

VITT victims

COVID Vaccine Maker Sued Over Deaths

Maddow Blog | Why Speaker Johnson’s ‘sermon’ to GOP members reportedly fell flat

Maddow Blog | Why Speaker Johnson’s ‘sermon’ to GOP members reportedly fell flat

Watch CBS News

We may receive commissions from some links to products on this page. Promotions are subject to availability and retailer terms.

5 important facts to know about debt settlement, according to experts

By Tim Maxwell

Edited By Matt Richardson

February 20, 2024 / 11:54 AM EST / CBS News

gettyimages-1153055629.jpg

Getting into debt is easy and can happen in the blink of an eye. Common reasons for going into debt are paying for an unexpected expense, losing income or making poor spending choices.

If you're carrying more debt than you're comfortable with, you're not alone. According to a Northwestern Mutual study , 35% of Americans are either carrying their highest level of debt or close to it. The average level of personal debt, not including mortgages, is $21,000. 

While getting into debt is easy, getting out of debt can be challenging and even overwhelming. Debt consolidation loans , 0% APR balance transfer credit cards , credit counseling and debt management plans are options you might consider if you're facing insurmountable debt.

Debt settlement is another option to consider if you're exploring ways to manage your debt. There are a lot of misconceptions about how debt settlement works, but it's important to know the facts before proceeding so you can make an educated decision.

Start exploring your debt relief options here today to learn more .

We reached out to debt experts to learn more about this approach. Here's what they said borrowers should know:

Settlement lowers your debt

Debt settlement is when you work with a debt relief company to resolve your debts, potentially lowering your debt by as much as 20% to 50%. These companies typically advise you to stop making debt payments and deposit it into a savings account they establish for you. Once you've built up sufficient savings, the debt relief company may negotiate with your creditors to make a lump-sum payment, usually for less than your debt amount.

"The biggest benefit of debt settlement is that it can significantly reduce the total amount of debt you owe," says Leslie Tayne, a financial attorney and author of Life & Debt. "Rather than spending years straining to keep up on debt payments, which means your other bills and financial obligations may be pushed to the wayside, debt settlement allows you to satisfy your debt once and for all."

Learn more about debt relief here .

Settling debts could harm your credit

As you might imagine, missing payments could negatively affect your credit, as payment history is a critical factor with major credit scoring models. Missing or late payments stay on your credit report for seven years from the first overdue date.

Tayne cautions debtors there may be additional impact on their credit. "If you reach an agreement, your credit report will note 'settled in full' once you've satisfied the settlement. This is viewed less favorably than 'paid in full' and may also ding your score."

Because of the potential for damage to your credit score , debt settlement is often pursued as a last resort alternative to bankruptcy, which could severely impair your credit for up to 10 years.

Settlement may change your account terms

Still, debt settlement may provide relief for those who've been unable to climb out of overwhelming debt. "By reducing the interest rate, the principal amount, or extending the term of the loan to spread the payments out in more manageable amounts, people who fell into an unforeseen financial hardship—such as an illness or a sudden job loss—can buy time to work their way out of their debts," notes Daniel Gielchinsky, a founding partner at DGIM Law who represents debtors, creditors and other parties.

Debt settlement companies charge fees

Be aware the debt settlement process comes with costs , including fees ranging from 15% to 25% of the settled amount. Additional costs could include fees to administer the savings account used to save for settlement funds.

Also, remember the IRS considers forgiven debts as taxable income. "If substantial amounts are forgiven there will be a tax bill on that amount," says Michael Sullivan, a personal financial consultant with Take Charge America. "The actual cash benefit may not be enough to justify the impact on a consumer's credit rating."

Debt settlement may help you avoid bankruptcy

If you've exhausted your options and are still drowning in debt , pursuing debt settlement could make sense. "A consumer with an above average income and a great deal of unsecured debt might find that the risk of debt settlement is warranted," says Sullivan.

"Consumers should always seek legal advice before making bankruptcy decisions, but some may be told that a Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing could result in such a difficult repayment scenario that it would be worth trying debt settlement."

The bottom line

Consider consulting your tax accountant or financial advisor when making important financial decisions, including debt settlements. If you decide to proceed with debt relief , make sure to work with reputable companies. Read reviews on Trustpilot and the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to get a feel for how a company treats its clients. Bear in mind, legitimate debt settlement companies will never ask you for money upfront or guarantee all your debt will be forgiven.

More from CBS News

Why you shouldn't wait to buy long-term care insurance, according to experts

6 smart ways to tackle expensive debt in retirement

Why high-yield savings accounts are worth it with inflation cooling

Here's how the price of gold may rise in the next decade, according to experts

Celebrate Presidents Day by learning fun, interesting facts about US presidents

important literature facts

Presidents Day is here. It's a day to commemorate the nation's 46 chief executives dating back to the face of the one-dollar bill.

Did you know Presidents Day , a federal holiday, is originally meant to celebrate the first U.S. president George Washington and was just called "Washington's Birthday" when established in 1879? In fact, the federal government still uses its former name, according to the Department of State .

There's a lot to know about the first president from his successful liquor distiller business to only being a scholar in name because he never attended college.

But he's not the only U.S. president with information many are unaware of. Here are some lesser-known fun and interesting facts about U.S. presidents.

'National treasure': FBI searching for stolen 200-year old George Washington painting

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4

Second president John Adams and Thomas Jefferson , the third president, died just within hours of each other.

What made the coincidence even more odd was that the two died on July 4, 1826, just 50 years after the original American Independence Day.

James Madison was the shortest president

Before there were " short kings " there was James Madison . America's fourth president was also the shortest standing at 5’4” and weighing just over 100 pounds.

John Quincy Adams went skinny-dipping daily

Sixth president John Quincy Adams used to go skinny-dipping in the Potomac River . The activity was part of his morning routine for years. 

Martin Van Buren was the first president born in the US

Unlike Washington, Martin Van Buren , the eighth president, was the first president to be born in the U.S. The previous seven were born as Britain subjects.

John Tyler was a father to 15 children

John Tyler not only ran a country but a village. The 10th president fathered 15 children, more than any other. From 1815 to 1860 he welcomed eight sons and seven daughters before his death in 1862.

Abraham Lincoln may have had Marfan Syndrome

Sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln was considered to be the tallest president. His 6'4 height could be explained by him possibly having Marfan Syndrome , a genetic disorder that affects connective tissue from the fibers that support organs to other body structures.

Andrew Johnson befriended mice at the White House

The rumors that Andrew Johnson did not officially have any pets isn't entirely true. The 17th president apparently befriended a family of white mice during his impeachment.

Johnson was also the first president to ever be impeached when the House of Representatives voted to do so after he removed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton from the cabinet, breaching the Tenure of Office Act. The Senate acquitted in a 35-19 vote - just one vote short of the two-thirds required to convict him.

Benjamin Harrison was afraid of touching light switches

President Benjamin Harrison was the first president to live in an electrified White House. The 23rd president and his wife Caroline Harrison both refused to touch light switches out of fear of an electric shock as electricity was very new in the U.S. at the time.

White House staff took on the extra task of turning on and off light switches to avoid taking any chances of electrocution.

Presidents Day: Promotions include sandwich, food and drink specials

William McKinley was on discontinued $500 bill

William McKinley , the 25th president, had his face and likeness featured on the $500 bill.

The Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury discontinued the bill in 1969. The bill is now worth more than just $500, with some collectors willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars under the right conditions.

Racoons lived at the White House during Calvin Coolidge's term

It was quite common to find raccoons around the White House when Calvin Coolidge lived there. The 30th president grew up surrounded by wildlife when he lived on a secluded farm in Plymouth Notch, Vermont and he took his affinity for raccoons when he moved to the Oval Office.

In November 1926, a "cohort of well-intentioned admirers" shipped him a live racoon to roast for Thanksgiving dinner. The Coolidge family refused to eat their friend and a few weeks later the racoon appeared for Christmas in a red ribbon along with the title "Rebecca Raccoon of the White House."

According to a book on Calvin Coolidge , Rebecca even had a presidential diet during his tenure where she ate chicken, eggs, persimmons, green shrimp and cream. She even made public appearances at summer parties and Easter egg rolls.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was a movie buff

Becoming president doesn't mean the end of having hobbies. In addition to being the only president to ever serve more than two terms, Franklin D. Roosevelt was known for his love of cinema. The 32nd president found movies to be an escape from the responsibilities of being president during the Great Depression and World War II.

"He especially liked comedies, particularly the work of the 1930s and 1940s comedy team Abbott and Costello. He even invited them to perform at the White House several times while he was President," the FRD Library and Museum website reads.

Gerald Ford used to be a model before president

There's no denying that appearances often matter for voters in presidential elections . It might have helped that Gerald Ford , the 38th president, had some modeling experience before his term.

After graduating from Yale in 1941, Ford earned extra cash as a model. After joining the Navy in 1942, he even appeared on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine in his uniform, though he never received official credit. He eventually served in World War II until its end in 1945.

Interesting Literature

11 Important and Interesting Facts about Langston Hughes

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Langston Hughes (1901-67) was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance in New York in the 1920s. A prolific writer, he was a novelist, playwright, social activist, and journalist, among many other things (he even wrote a musical).

In his poetry, he took his inspiration from Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Carl Sandburg (whom he referred to as ‘my guiding star’). Some of his short stories, such as the brief piece ‘ Thank You, Ma’am ’, are widely studied in schools and colleges in the US.

Below, we have gathered together some of the most interesting key facts concerning Langston Hughes’ life and work.

1. In 2018, it was revealed that Langston Hughes was a year older than previously thought.

Although biographers agreed that Hughes was born on 1 February, 1902, in 2018 that all changed, and new evidence came to light showing that Hughes had been born a whole year earlier .

The American poet Eric McHenry told the New York Times that he was trawling through digitised local newspaper archives when he spotted a note on the society page of the African American weekly newspaper, the Topeka Plaindealer , which mentioned a ‘Little Langston Hughes’ who had been ill but was ‘improving’. That article was published on 20 December 1901, around six weeks before Hughes was supposed to have been born!

Further digging in the archives confirmed that Hughes was indeed born on 1 February 1901 – not 1902.

2. Hughes’ mother was also a poet.

Langston’s mother, Carrie Langston Hughes, also wrote poetry and was an amateur actress. Hughes later recalled how his mother took him to see all of the plays that were put on in Topeka, Kansas, where he spent some time growing up. He and his mother shared a love of plays – and books. Hughes’ parents separated when he was small, and his father emigrated to Mexico.

3. He began publishing poetry at a young age.

The precocious Hughes, influenced by – among others – the African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and the nineteenth-century free-verse pioneer Walt Whitman, began publishing poems and short stories while still in high school. These early works appeared in Central High Monthly Magazine and the Belfry Owl .

4. He had an itinerant childhood, living in a number of US states.

Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri and raised in a number of states: Missouri, but also Kansas, Illinois, and Ohio. He even lived in Mexico with his father in 1919, and again in 1920-21, before he enrolled at university to study engineering.

5. He attended Columbia University for a year in 1921-22, but left because of racial prejudice.

Hughes tried hard to fit in at Columbia, which was still overwhelmingly white and middle-class at the time. He published poetry in the Columbia Daily Spectator under a pen name. But he ended up leaving the university in 1922 because of racial prejudice from students and teachers. He was even denied a room on campus because he was black.

6. He travelled extensively.

After he left Columbia without a degree, Hughes travelled around South America and Europe. In the early 1920s, following his departure from Columbia, he worked at a range of odd jobs, including kitchen worker, delivery boy, vegetable farmer, mess boy on a ship on the Hudson River, and even a crew member on a merchant steamer bound for Africa.

He returned to the US and settled in Washington, D. C. in 1925, but later moved to New York.

7. However, he spent relatively little time living in New York.

Despite being a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes spent just a couple of years living in New York, between 1928 and 1930 (in addition to his year at Columbia University).

He wrote well about Harlem in his fiction and poetry, and one of his most famous poems is simply titled ‘ Harlem ’. In his 1940 autobiographical work The Big Sea , he recorded his impressions of the Harlem Renaissance.

8. He wrote one of his best-known poems in Italy, while waiting for a ship home.

He wrote his short lyric poem ‘ I, Too ’ following his experiences trying to gain passage aboard a ship from Italy back to the United States in 1924; he was repeatedly passed over for a place on board numerous ships while white sailors were welcomed aboard. Racial inequality, then, is obviously a key theme in Hughes’ poem.

In this poem, with its an allusive nod to Walt Whitman’s poem ‘I Hear America Singing’, Hughes – describing himself as the ‘darker brother’ – highlights the plight of African Americans at the time, having to eat separately from everyone else in the kitchen when guests arrive, but determined to strive and succeed in the ‘Land of the Free’.

9. Another of his best-known poems was composed on a train ride when he was still a teenager.

Hughes wrote ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’, one of his finest and deepest poems, while crossing the Mississippi river by train on his way to Mexico to stay with his father. This poem was published in the influential journal the Crisis , and Langston Hughes’ literary career was launched. He was just nineteen when he wrote the poem.

This is another poem that bears the influence of Whitman, though Hughes does something very different with the expansive free verse style he learned from that nineteenth-century American verse pioneer.

10. He was called to testify before Senator Joseph McCarthy during the McCarthy ‘witch hunts’ of the 1950s.

Langston Hughes had written a number of journalistic pieces in support of the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. He also expressed sympathy for American Communists, and wrote a poem, ‘Good Morning Revolution’ (1932), in support of Communist revolution in the US.

So in 1953, Hughes found himself testifying before Senator Joseph McCarthy’s committee investigating ‘Un-American’ activities. This can hardly have come as a shock to Hughes, especially after one of his most divisive political poems, ‘Goodbye Christ’, had been published (without his permission) in the Saturday Evening Post .

This poem dismisses Jesus Christ as an obsolete figure whose message had been subverted and distorted by money-grubbing churchmen. Instead, people should follow a ‘real’ person, such as Lenin, Stalin, or even the poet himself.

11. As well as his numerous poems, short stories, and longer prose works, Hughes also wrote a musical.

Simply Heavenly was a musical comedy based on one of Hughes’ novels, Simple Takes A Wife . Hughes wrote the book (the dialogue) and the lyrics to the songs, with David Martin providing the music. The musical premiered in 1957.

Discover more from Interesting Literature

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

18 little-known facts about Voldemort even die-hard 'Harry Potter' fans may have missed

  • Voldemort is one of the most complex characters in the "Harry Potter" series.
  • A real person inspired the name Tom Riddle, and the name Voldemort has a deeper meaning. 
  • Voldemort made Harry Potter the "chosen one," but it could have been another Hogwarts student. 

The names Tom Marvolo Riddle and Voldemort have significant meaning.

important literature facts

Names often have deeper meanings in the "Harry Potter" universe, and Voldemort is no exception. The phrase "vol de mort" means "theft of death" or "flight of death" in French, which is an apt description of his main goals throughout the series. 

The villain's name remains "Voldemort" in the different translations of the books, but since the letters of his given name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, must rearrange to spell the phrase "I am Lord Voldemort" to fulfill a major plot point, his name varies throughout the translations.

In the French translation , his given name is Tom Elvis Jedusor to rearrange to "Je suis Voldemort," — which means "I am Voldemort."

Tom Riddle's name was based on a real person.

important literature facts

Authors often use the world as inspiration for characters and plot points. One such source of inspiration for "Harry Potter" was a cemetery in Edinburgh, Scotland .

The BBC reported the names of characters, including Minerva McGonagall, Alastor Moody, and Riddle, were inspired by headstones in Greyfriars Kirk graveyard.

He wanted to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts.

important literature facts

Riddle applied for the professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts position twice — once when Armando Dippet was headmaster of Hogwarts and once when Albus Dumbledore took over.

Dippet turned him down due to his young age, and when he asked Dumbledore several years later, the headmaster could see his evil intentions. 

After being passed over the second time, Voldemort placed a jinx on the position, preventing any teacher from holding the job for more than a year.

The Riddles and the Potters are distantly related.

important literature facts

Many readers probably remember that Harry Potter is a descendant of the Peverells, a family famous for possessing the three Deathly Hallows.

In the seventh book, we learn that Harry is a descendant of Ignotus Peverell when he discovers the true origins of the invisibility cloak his father passed down to him. 

But fans may not have caught that Riddle is also a direct descendent of that same family. The Gaunt family on his mother's side can be traced back to Cadmus Peverell.

Cadmus was the original owner of the resurrection stone, which was eventually passed down in ring form to Riddle's grandfather, Marvolo Gaunt, and his uncle, Morfin Gaunt, before Riddle stole it. The later generations of the family did not know that the ring contained the stone.

More than one actor played Voldemort in the films.

important literature facts

Though Ralph Fiennes is the actor most commonly associated with Lord Voldemort, he didn't take on the role until "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." 

In "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" viewers see Voldemort, who Richard Bremmer played, attached to the back of Professor Quirrell's head. The actor is credited as "He Who Must Not Be Named" in the first film.

Voldemort's parents never really loved each other, which may have eventually led to his demise.

important literature facts

Riddle's mother, Merope Gaunt, lived a life of tragedy and abuse.

Dumbledore said she became so desperate to leave that life behind that she put a wealthy muggle, Tom Riddle Sr., under a love spell so he could take her away from her father and brother. Under that spell, Tom Sr. married Merope, and Tom Jr. — Voldemort — was conceived. 

When the potion's effects wore off, Tom Sr. left her , and she felt she had no choice but to leave their child at a Muggle orphanage.

Love conquering all is a major theme of the series, and this backstory makes it clear that there was never love in the villain's life.

As a boy, he tested his powers on other children at the orphanage.

important literature facts

Riddle's evil nature was apparent from a young age.

In "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," we learn through Dumbledore's memory in the Pensieve that Riddle was testing spells on unsuspecting children at the orphanage where he was raised.

The book references one specific event during which he took two children into a cave and did something so terrible they could never speak of it again. The cave evidently left a lasting impression on Voldemort, as it also became a Horcrux hiding place.

Albania was an important place to Voldemort before he hid there in the wake of the First Wizarding War.

important literature facts

Most fans probably remember that the bodiless remains of Voldemort hid in an Albanian forest to regain strength after baby Harry defeated him in the First Wizarding War.

He also returned to the same forest after his host body, Quirrell, was killed in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

Though it is never exactly revealed why Voldemort chose that location as a hiding place, it does hold a certain significance to him. The first time he visited Albania, his mission was to retrieve the lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw — which her daughter Helena had revealed to be hidden in a forest there — to create one of his seven Horcruxes. 

A Horcrux is a powerful, dark object that contains a piece of a witch or wizard's soul and keeps that soul fragment alive regardless of the body's fate.

Voldemort made his first Horcrux by killing Moaning Myrtle while he was a student at Hogwarts.

important literature facts

Making a Horcrux is a dark form of magic that requires a witch or wizard to take another's life.

Riddle created his first Horcrux by killing his fellow Hogwarts student, Myrtle Warren, better known as "Moaning Myrtle." 

After the murder, the part of his soul that split entered a diary that eventually possessed Ginny Weasley and made her reopen the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts during Harry's second year.

Nagini was integral to Voldemort's return to power.

important literature facts

Nagini was the longtime serpent companion of Voldemort.

Though the exact date and location of their meeting are unknown, we know she was with him when he was regaining strength in Albania. Her venom was also part of a potion Peter Pettigrew brewed that helped sustain his bodiless form.

Eventually, the snake became Voldemort's final Horcrux after the murder of Bertha Jorkins.

He created an army of corpses by murdering Muggles.

important literature facts

The books reveal that an Inferius is a corpse reanimated by dark magic.

Fans may recall the scene in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" when a swarm of Inferi surrounds Dumbledore and Harry in the cave as they try to retrieve the locket Horcrux. 

What they may not know is that Voldemort created the majority of his army of Inferi by murdering vulnerable Muggles and reanimating their corpses.

Voldemort ultimately decided that Harry Potter was 'the chosen one.'

important literature facts

As we learn in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," Sybill Trelawney made a prophecy that only a child "born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies" would have the power to vanquish Lord Voldemort. But the identity of that child was not always clear. 

Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom fit that description, but Voldemort ultimately decided to go after Harry, a half-blood like himself, cementing Harry's fate as "the chosen one."

He had a daughter with Bellatrix Lestrange.

important literature facts

In the stage play , "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" — which became part of the "Harry Potter" canon in 2016 — we learn that Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange had a daughter together named Delphini.

The exact date of Delphini's birth is still a mystery, but she must have been born sometime between Bellatrix's escape from Azkaban in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and the Battle of Hogwarts in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" — during which both Voldemort and Bellatrix died.

The Death Eaters were almost called the 'Knights of Walpurgis.'

important literature facts

During his school years, Riddle formed a group of friends he could manipulate to do his bidding. Many of these friends became members of his loyal band of Death Eaters during the First Wizarding War and beyond. 

In a 2003 interview with the BBC , Rowling said she'd originally planned to call the group the "Knights of Walpurgis." After all these years, she's even kept a scrap of paper referencing that name in case she ever decides to use it.

Riddle was a brilliant student.

important literature facts

There may not be many positive things you can say of Riddle/Lord Voldemort, but he was a very gifted student.

He was skilled at Legilimency and Occlumency, received top marks in his class, earned a Medal for Magical Merit, and was even made head boy in his seventh year.

He probably could've gotten a job at the Ministry of Magic.

important literature facts

As one of the top students in his class, Riddle was bound to have many opportunities after finishing at Hogwarts.

In his final year, Professor Slughorn offered to set him up with job interviews using his connections at the Ministry of Magic.

Instead, after getting rejected for the professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts, Riddle went to work at Borgin and Burkes antique shop. This job allowed him to acquire both Salazar Slytherin's locket and Helga Hufflepuff's cup, which he turned into Horcruxes.

It's significant that his wand was made from a yew tree.

important literature facts

Wands can be made from several different woods and materials, but it's fitting that Voldemort's is made from the bark of a yew tree. 

Yew trees were once considered sacred in druid traditions, but their toxic needles led them to eventually symbolize death in Celtic culture. They're also known for living for a very long time.

For various  myths and reasons , yew trees also became popular in cemeteries. 

Since Voldemort is a wizard obsessed with death and immortality, the symbolism of his yew wand isn't lost.

His greatest fear was his own death.

important literature facts

Boggarts are magical shape-shifters that transform into whatever a witch or wizard fears the most.

In a 2005 interview with the fan site MuggleNet, Rowling said that Voldemort's greatest fear is "ignominious death," and if he ever encountered a boggart, he'd probably see his own lifeless body.

Even without this insight, it is clear that Voldemort does everything in his power — including fragmenting his soul seven times — throughout the series to live up to his name and beat death. 

This story was originally published on August 1, 2020, and most recently updated on August 2, 2023.

  • 28 major 'Harry Potter' movie deaths, ranked from least to most heartbreaking
  • Every single 'Harry Potter' and 'Fantastic Beasts' movie, ranked by fans
  • 20 little-known facts about the 'Harry Potter' series
  • 10 films to watch if you love the 'Harry Potter' movies

important literature facts

  • Main content

IMAGES

  1. Infographic: Fourteen Amazing Shakespeare Facts (Including a False One

    important literature facts

  2. 15 Reasons Why Literature Is Important

    important literature facts

  3. 150 Interesting Facts About Our Favorite Authors [Infographic]

    important literature facts

  4. 15 Reasons Why Literature Is Important

    important literature facts

  5. 27 Interesting Facts About English Literature

    important literature facts

  6. 27 Interesting Facts About English Literature

    important literature facts

VIDEO

  1. Fun facts about literature that you probably didn’t know about📖

  2. Literature Fact

  3. Literature facts p3 #youtubeshorts

  4. Expensive Literature Facts: Value Contributing Factors #@funablefacts-et5ky

  5. Important Literature Awards 2023 #currentaffairs

  6. What is literature??

COMMENTS

  1. 100 Interesting Facts about Famous Authors

    Alexandre Dumas fought his first duel at age 23. During the course of the duel, his trousers fell down. Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge joined the army under the name Silas Tomkyn Cumberbatch. Before settling on the pen name Mark Twain, Samuel Langhorne Clemens signed his writings with the pseudonym 'Josh'.

  2. 27 Interesting Facts about English Literature

    Read all of them below: Interesting Facts about English Literature Sherlock Holmes never said, "Elementary, my dear Watson". A Language dies every 14 days. The first novel ever written on a typewriter was Tom Sawyer. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

  3. 25 Interesting Facts about American Literature

    J. D. Salinger fought at D-Day. In his backpack were six chapters of an early draft of The Catcher in the Rye. Benjamin Franklin invented an extension arm for removing books from high shelves. Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) wrote while leaning over a refrigerator because he was so tall. Hunter S. Thompson's novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ...

  4. 150 Interesting Facts About Our Favorite Authors [Infographic]

    George Eliot was actually a woman. Mary Ann Evans wrote under this pen name because women authors were not as highly regarded as men. As George Eliot, Evans wrote several novels considered among the best of all time. Not just a world-famous author, Vladimir Nabokov was also a serious lepidopterologist, or studier of butterflies.

  5. English literature

    The term "English literature" refers to the body of written works produced in the English language by inhabitants of the British Isles from the 7th century to the present, ranging from drama, poetry, and fiction to autobiography and historical writing. Landmark writers range from William Shakespeare and Arundhati Roy to Jane Austen and Kazuo Ishiguro.

  6. Literature

    literature, a body of written works.The name has traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution. Literature may be classified according to a variety of systems, including language, national origin, historical period, genre, and subject matter.

  7. American literature

    Key People: Ada Limón Laurence Yep Neal Shusterman Dominick Dunne Carol Ryrie Brink Related Topics: African American literature poet laureate muckraker National Book Awards

  8. 30 Interesting Facts about Books

    The most expensive book in the world costs (in theory) 153 million Euros and is only 13 pages long. The word 'shrine' comes from the Latin scrinium meaning 'chest for books'. The word 'boghandler' is the Danish word for 'bookseller'. The Norwegian translation of the Mr Men book Mr Bump is called Herr Dumpidump.

  9. 37 Literary Facts That Will Make You Want To Pick Up A Book

    37 Literary Facts FOR AGES 3 YEARS TO 18 YEARS 37 Literary Facts That Will Make You Want To Pick Up A Book Written by Moumita Dutta on 21 March 2022 ; Updated on 12 October 2023 Sub-edited by Pete Anderson ; Fact-checked by Sonali Rawat 7 mins to read Share this article

  10. 50 essential facts about English literature

    50 Essential Facts About Literature The 50 facts that you MUST know on your way to becoming a Literature expert! If you like to read then you'll love these essential facts about literature. It tells you the record holders and history . Things every bookworm should know

  11. Introduction to Literature: What? Why? How?

    One is that "fiction" and "literature" are regarded as quite different things. "Fiction," for example, is what people read for enjoyment. "Literature" is what they read for school. Or "fiction" is what living people write and is about the present. "Literature" was written by people (often white males) who have since died ...

  12. Ten Amazing Literary Facts You Should Know

    1. Most expensive book ever purchased: Everyone's favorite billionaire Bill Gates bought 'Codex Leicester', one of Leonardo Di Vinci's scientific journals for $30.8 million. 2. 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.

  13. 12 Fascinating Facts About Famous Literature

    1. In 1910, Virginia Woolf and her friends dressed up in costumes and donned fake beards in order to convince the Royal Navy they were a group of Abyssinian princes. And thus they pulled off what became known in newspapers as the 'Dreadnought Hoax,' earning a 40-minute guided tour of the ship. More information can be found in this Guardian article.

  14. Interesting Literature Facts

    What or who inspired you to create? How would you like to be known and remembered? Keep an eye out on our social media pages, Facebook and Instagram, for more interesting information and facts related to literature! Who was the first published author?

  15. Ten little-known literary facts (including the famous line Sherlock

    Here are 10 little-known literary facts. 1. Sherlock Holmes never said: 'Elementary, my dear Watson'. It's one of the most famous lines in film and TV adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's celebrated works, but Sherlock Holmes never actually said it. There are only seven instances of the famous detective saying "elementary" across ...

  16. Literary Trivia: 40 Fun Facts About Your Favorite Books and Authors

    4. What color of ink did poet Pablo Neruda exclusively write in? A. Green B. Blue C. Black 5. What famous Sherlock Holme's quote is actually a misquote? A. "You see, but you do not observe." B. "The game is afoot." C. "Elementary, my dear Watson."

  17. About

    Welcome to Interesting Literature, an online library of all that is most interesting and captivating about literature. Here you'll find fun facts, interesting research into writers and their work, and blog posts which seek to capture the most fascinating facets of the literary world. So pull up a chair at this virtual library of literary wonder,…

  18. Roman Literature

    The first of the three was Plautus (254 - 184 BCE). Of his more than 130 plays, only 20 complete works survived. According to ancient sources, he was born in Umbria and began his career as a stage carpenter. He did not begin to write anything until middle age, adapting Greek comedies into Latin.

  19. 15 Fun and Fascinating Facts about Literature

    5 Books are brilliant, they teach us so many things we may not have otherwise learned. Sometimes however it is books themselves and the people who write them that are just as interesting. Here are a few fun facts for your perusal. Dr Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham after being challenged to write a book using fewer than fifty separate words!

  20. 50 most interesting facts about books, libraries, and reading

    1 The first-ever "Harry Potter" was a short story published in communist Poland in 1972. The boy who lived has, in fact, lived ever since 19 March 1972, when literary magazine Życie Literackie published a short story titled "Harry Potter".

  21. Literary Facts Only True Bookworms Would Know

    Literary Facts 44. Words to Know. If you are a true bookworm, chances are you've been called a bibliophile. A bibliophile is a book-lover, and the word first appeared in print in 1824. The word bookworm dates back to 1580, and was used by Ben Johnson in his satirical play Cynthia's Revels, or The Fountain of Self-Love.

  22. 'The Rifleman': 10 Interesting Facts About The Western Series

    'The Rifleman' was a successful western series that aired from 1958 to 1963. It tells the story of "Lucas McCain", a veteran soldier from the Union in the American Civil War who has lost his wife ...

  23. Facts

    Walt Whitman (1819-92) is one of the few great nineteenth-century American poets. With his innovative free verse and celebration of the American landscape, he made his poetry a sort of literary declaration of independence, his long, sprawling lines having an almost prophetic quality. Read more

  24. 5 important facts to know about debt settlement, according to experts

    Settlement lowers your debt. Debt settlement is when you work with a debt relief company to resolve your debts, potentially lowering your debt by as much as 20% to 50%. These companies typically ...

  25. Celebrate Presidents Day by learning fun, interesting facts about US

    Here are some lesser-known fun and interesting facts about U.S. presidents. 'National treasure': FBI searching for stolen 200-year old George Washington painting

  26. 11 Important and Interesting Facts about Langston Hughes

    1. In 2018, it was revealed that Langston Hughes was a year older than previously thought. Although biographers agreed that Hughes was born on 1 February, 1902, in 2018 that all changed, and new evidence came to light showing that Hughes had been born a whole year earlier.

  27. 'Harry Potter': Interesting Things to Know About Voldemort

    Feb 22, 2024, 10:50 AM PST. Voldemort is the main villain from the "Harry Potter" series. Warner Bros. Voldemort is one of the most complex characters in the "Harry Potter" series. The name Tom ...