Trivia

Trawling through a few books of literary trivia I found out that Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela was a bestseller in its time. It, like Clarissa, is an epistolary novel. Richardson got lots of letter writing practice as a boy. At the age of 13 he regularly wrote love letters for three young women who didn't know what to write about to their lovers! I can only imagine what those letters must have been like. Richardson was also one of many authors placed on the Catholic Church's Index. Quite a surprise given the solid virtue of his heroines. Moving on to Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was the first American lecturer known to have received a fee. He got $5 for himself and oats for his horse. And here are some things to make you feel both old and dumb:

Blaise Pacal invented his own geometry by age 11

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote a novel before he was 13 and started college when he was 16

William Holmes McGuffey of McGuffey Reader fame, became a teacher at the age of 13

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was composing blank verse by the time he was 8 and by 14 he'd written two plays a lots of poems

John Stuart Mill learned Greek by age 3 and was teaching his brothers Latin, Euclid and algebra by the time he was 8

Jean Arthur Rimbaud wrote one of his most famous poems, "Le Bateau Ivre," when he was only 16

These tidbits have been culled from The Literary Life and Other Curiosities and Literature Lover's Book of Lists