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The world is full of literature. So who has been the most influential in the industry? In this blog post, I’m going to be talking about my favorite authors, and why I think they’re influential.

The first author I’m going to be talking about is someone who has been featured on my blog quite a lot. Mary Shelley. I truly adore this woman, if you haven’t been able to tell. She suffered quite a bit in her life, yet somehow she managed to stay strong and live a long life. And during this life, she wrote the first piece of science fiction of all time, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. She invented a whole genre while facing depression and an array of hardships. I not only admire her for her writing but for her strength as a woman.

The second author I want to talk about is Jane Austen. I admire Jane for writing such beautiful love stories. However, it’s not just the love that I admire. Austen’s love stories were always ahead of their time in the consideration that she wrote about women who took control of their love lives. They married for love and they never settle for men that won’t treat them the way they want. These stories were so ahead of their time and I adore them for that.

Next, I’d like to talk about Edgar Allan Poe. It’s no secret that I love him with my entire heart, but it’s for good reason. I mean, he’s the reason we have a lot of gothic themes today. Edgar Allan Poe was the original goth. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have the modern gothic themed novel. To me, that’s pretty influential.

Next, is John Green. I know, I know, he’s not one of the usual classic authors from the 1800’s I post about, but he’s still influential. His writing is so poetic. Every time I read a book by him, I feel like I’m reading poetry the whole time. Not only is he influential, but he is my idol. When I grow up, I want to be able to write just like him.

Lastly, but not least, Agatha Christie. The modern mystery novel would not exist without her. Agatha Christie even went missing for ten days just to spite her husband. She’s an icon, not only in her writing but in her life.

All of these authors are great and did amazing things in their lives. Or are doing great things in their lives in the case of John Green. I think they all have had an influence in the literary community and deserve more recognition.

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The death of Edgar Allan Poe is a mystery to everyone. The man was found wandering the streets in a drunken state, in another person’s clothes. He was confused and didn’t know where he was. He was calling out for a man named Reynolds.

There are many theories surrounding his death. Some people think he died from suicide. Some people think it was murder. There’s a theory about him dying from alcoholism. There are even theories that include rabies, rare brain diseases, brain tumor, diabetes, enzyme deficiencies, syphilis, apoplexy, delirium tremens, epilepsy, meningeal inflammation, heart disease, lead poisoning, mercury poisoning, cholera, or that he was a victim of cooping.

Cooping was an event that took place around election days. It was a ballot-box-stuffing scam in which victims were shanghaied, drugged, and used as a pawn to vote for a political party at multiple locations.

In my personal opinion, I believe Edgar was murdered or went through the cooping process. There’s not enough evidence to show the cause either way, but if he was murdered I think someone was jealous of him. I feel like someone was jealous of his success and wanted to take that away from him. If he was not murdered, then I suspect cooping. I just can’t believe that Edgar, who had been so in control of his drinking, died of alcoholism. Maybe it was natural causes, but it doesn’t fit well with the delirium.

Sadly, we will most likely never know how Edgar Allan Poe died, but it doesn’t stop us from making theories.

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Agatha Christie, a woman whose life was filled to the brim with mystery and a woman I truly look up to. She was born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller on September 15, 1890, to a wealthy family in Torquay, Devon. Agatha was the youngest of three children. Agatha has described her childhood as “very happy.” She was always surrounded by strong and independent women. Also, she spent a lot of time between Devon, her grandmother and aunt’s house in Ealing, and parts of Southern Europe where her family spent holiday. Christie was raised with esoteric beliefs and she believed that her mother was a psychic that had the ability of second sight. Agatha’s mother insisted that she received home education. In her education, she learned reading, writing, basic math, and she learned to play the piano and mandolin. Agatha was a lover of reading from a very young age and in April 1901, she wrote her first poem “The Cowslip” at age ten. Agatha’s father was often sick and suffered from a series of heart attacks. In November of 1901, he passed at age 55. His death left the family in a very uncertain economic situation. In 1902, Agatha was sent to get a formal education at Miss Guyer’s Girls School in Torquay. However, she found it difficult to adjust. In 1905, she was sent to Paris where she was educated in three pensions - Mademoiselle Cabernet's, Les Marroniers, and then Miss Dryden's.

In 1910, Agatha returned to England to find that her mother was ill. They decided to spend three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel in Cairo. While in Cairo, Christie attended many social functions in search of a husband. When she returned to England she continued her social outings as well as writing and performing amateur theatricals. It was during this time that she wrote some poetry and music, however, even though some pieces were published, she decided against focusing on writing for future professions. Christie wrote her first short story, “The House of Beauty”, (later published as “The House of Dreams”) while recovering in bed from an undisclosed illness. “The Call of Wings” and “The Little Lonely God” followed. Magazines rejected all of her early submissions, made under pseudonyms, however, some were revised and published later.

Christie then set her first novel, “Snow Upon the Desert,” in Cairo and drew upon her experiences in that city. She wrote this under the pseudonym Monosyllaba. All the publishers that Agatha contacted declined her novel. Her mother suggested inquiring with a family friend, Eden Philpotts, who obliged and encouraged Christie’s writing. He even sent an introduction to his personal literary agent, Hughes Massie, who also rejected “Snow Upon the Desert,” but suggested a second novel.

It was also during this time that Agatha entered into several short-lived relationships and got engaged to another. Then she met Archibald Christie at a dance that was given by Lord and Lady Clifford at Ugbrooke. Archie was born in India, he was an army officer who was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in April 1913. The two fell in love quickly, but when he learned he would be stationed in Farnborough, Archie proposed and Agatha accepted. With the outbreak of World War One, Archie was sent to France to fight the Germans. The couple married on Christmas Eve in 1914 at Emmanuel Church in Clifton, Bristol. In 1918, Archie was placed back in Britain as a colonel in the Air Ministry. During his time in the military, Agatha involved herself in the war effort. In 1914, she joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment where she tended to wounded soldiers at a hospital in Torquay as an unpaid nurse. She completed 3,400 hours of unpaid work between October 1914 and December 1916. She worked as an apothecaries assistant in 1917 as a dispenser where she earned 16 euros a year until the end of her service in 1918. After the war, the Christie couple settled into an apartment in northwest London.

Christie had been a fan of detective novels for a while and wrote her own titled “The Mysterious Affair at Styles.” The inspiration for some characters in this novel came from real Belgian refugees who lived in Torquay as well as Belgian soldiers she had helped during her time as a volunteer nurse. She began work on the novel in 1916, writing most of it in Dartmoor. The original manuscript was rejected by publishing companies, but after keeping the manuscript for several months, John Lane at The Bodley Head offered to accept it, only if Christie changed the ending. She did so and signed a contract. The novel was published in 1920.

Meanwhile, Agatha had fallen into married life. She gave birth to her only child, Rosalind Margaret Hicks, in 1919. Archie left the Air Force at the end of the war and started working in the city financial sector. Agatha’s second novel was published in 1922 by The Bodley Head, was titled “The Secret Adversary.” “Murder on the Links” was her third novel and was published in 1923. She also wrote a few short stories that were commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor of The Sketch magazine. Archie and Agatha left their daughter with Agatha’s mother and sister while they toured the world promoting the British Empire Exhibition. They toured in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. The couple learned to surf in South Africa, and then in Waikiki, they were some of the first Britons to surf standing up.

Late in 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce since he had fallen in love with Nancy Neele, a friend of Major Belcher. Major Belcher was the director of the British Empire Mission. Archie had fallen for Nancy on the promotional tour. In December 1926, the couple got into an argument that ended with Archie leaving the home to spend the weekend with his mistress in Godalming, Surrey. The same evening Agatha left a note for her secretary saying she was going to Yorkshire. At 9:45, she left their home and later her car was found at Newlands Corner, parked above a chalk quarry with expired driving license and clothes.

The public was in an outcry. Over a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers, and several airplanes searched the landscape for her. Her disappearance was featured on the front page of The New York Times. Agatha was not found for ten days, even though there was an ongoing search. On December 14, 1926, she was found at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire where she was registered as Mrs. Teresa Neele from Cape Town.

In 1928, Archie and Agatha divorced and Archie married Nancy Neele. Agatha retained custody of their daughter and the name Christie for her writing. Later that year, Agatha left England for Istanbul and then Baghdad on the Orient Express. It was during this trip in which she met a young archaeologist named Max Mallowan. Max was thirteen years younger than her, but they married in September 1930. This marriage was a happy one and lasted until Agatha’s death in 1976. Agatha often joined Max on his archaeological expeditions in which she gained a lot of inspiration for several of her novels that are set in the Middle East. For example, her 1934 novel, “Murder on the Orient Express,” was written in the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey.

During the Second World War, Christie work in the pharmacy at University College Hospital in London where she gained knowledge of poisons. This knowledge came in handy when she wrote her post-war crime novel. In 1934, she and Max purchased a home in Winterbrook. This was the couples main residence for the rest of their lives and where Christie did most of her writing.

Around 1941-1942, the British intelligence agency investigated Christie after a character called Major Bletchley appeared in her novel “N or M?” The government was afraid that Christie had a spy in the top-secret code-breaking center.

To honor her many works, Agatha was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire, then the following year she became the President of the Detection Club. In 1971, she was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, three years after her husband had been knighted for his archeological work in 1968.

Beginning in 1971 until 1974, Her health began to fail, although she continued to write. She died on January 12, 1976, at age 85 from natural causes in her home at Winterbrook. While her life was full of excitement and mystery, so were her novels. Agatha Christie, to this day, holds the title as one of the most influential mystery writers of all time.

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Let’s talk about women. Specifically, women in writing. For centuries, writing has been seen as something that only men are allowed to do. Why? Why are men given this title as well? I thought it was their job to provide for families? Now I’m not saying that men shouldn’t be allowed to write. There are a lot of authors who are male that did great things! Even now, my favorite author is male. John Green, I’m looking at you. I’m just posing the question as to why more women don’t get the recognition they deserve?

Let’s look at Mary Shelley. The woman invented science fiction as we know it today, but back when she wrote Frankenstein, every publisher was trying to put her husbands' name on the piece. How is that fair in the slightest? All of the pain that inspired that piece came from Percy Shelley, so why should his name be on it? What about Jane Austen? All of her novels were published anonymously. I mean it’s very obvious that the books are written from a woman's perspective, so why not put Jane’s name on the work? If we want to get modern, let’s talk about J. K. Rowling. The publishers literally made her publish the books with the initials instead of her actual name: Joanne Rowling.

Throughout history, women have been given the shorthand of the literary world. We have classes dedicated to William Shakespeare. We spend semesters talking about all the great things men have done for literature, but not even a day talking about a woman in literature. I think it’s time for a revolution. I think we need to bring more woman to the forefront. We need classes dedicated to Mary Shelley and Jane Austen. We need units of courses dedicated to studying Wuthering Heights and And Then There Were None. It’s time for women to get some attention in literature.

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On February 2, 1882, James Joyce was born in Dublin, Ireland. James was the eldest of ten surviving children, two had died of typhoid. In 1887, James’ father had been appointed as a rate collector by Dublin Corporation and therefore moved his family to Bray, 12 miles outside Dublin. In 1891, James wrote a poem about the death of Charles Stewart Parnell. Due to all of the political disrupt surrounding Parnell, the Home Rule left a lasting impression on James. The poem was sent to a part of the Vatican Library. In 1893, John Joyce, James’ father, was dismissed from work with a pension. This started the family’s slide into poverty, aided by John’s drinking and mismanagement of finances. James had started his education at Clongowes Wood College, a boarding school, but had to leave in 1892 since his father could no longer pay for the fees. He then studied at home and for a short period at Christian Brothers O’Connell School. In 1895, at age 13, James was selected to join Sodality of Our Lady.

In 1898, James enrolled at the University College Dublin where he studied English, French, and Italian. He was very active in theatrical and literary circles during this time. In 1900, his review of Henrik Ibsen’s “When We Dead Awaken” was published in The Fortnightly Review. This was his first publication. James wrote a multitude of other articles as well as two plays during this period. In November 1901, James was introduced to the Irish public by Arthur Griffith through his newspaper, United Irishman. Joyce had written an article about the Irish Literary Theatre that his college newspaper refused to publish. Therefore, James printed and distributed it locally. This caused Griffith to write a piece about the censorship of Joyce.

After his graduation in 1902, James left to go to Paris to study medicine. This was soon abandoned. However, James stayed in Paris for a while until his father sent a telegram expressing that his mother had been diagnosed with cancer. His mother passed into a coma and died on August 13. James and his brother, Stanislaus, refused to kneel and pray at her bedside. After his mother's death, James began drinking heavily and conditions at home became appalling. James barely got a living wage from reviewing books, teaching, and singing.

In 1904 James tried to published “A Portrait of the Artist” as an essay-story dealing with aesthetics. However, it was rejected and he later revised it into a novel he called Stephen Hero. James did not like the revision and abandoned it. Later on, though, he completely rewrote the piece as “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Also in 1904, James met Nora Barnacle, a young woman from Galway. At the time she was working as a chambermaid. In June they had their first outing together where they walked to Ringsend where Nora masturbated him. This event was commemorated in the date of the action of Ulysses. James remained in Dublin where he was drinking heavily. After a drinking binge, James got into a fight and was picked up by an acquaintance of his father, Alfred Hunter. Alfred took James to his home where he stayed for a few days until he got into an altercation with another student he was living with. James walked eight miles back to Dublin where he stayed with some relatives for the night. The next day he sent a friend to retrieve his belongings, and afterwards, James and Nora left to live in self-imposed exile, beginning in Zurich, Switzerland. It was here that James taught English at the Berlitz Language School. Later, the director of the school sent James to Trieste where he found there was no teaching position for him. However, he did find a position in Pola where he taught English to Austro-Hungarian naval officers until March 1905. In March 1905 the Austrians began to expel all ‘aliens.’ Joyce moved back to Trieste and began teaching there. He stayed here for ten years.

In late 1905, Nora gave birth to their first child, George. James persuaded his brother to join him in Trieste. James sought to secure his family's meager income along with his brother's earnings. During the time of his brother living in Trieste, there are reports that James and Stanislaus had a strained relationship because of James’ drinking habits and frivolity with money. In 1906, James moved to Rome where he was employed at a bank clerk. However, he disliked Rome, so he moved back to Trieste in 1907. His daughter, Lucia, was born later that year.

In 1909, James took George and they went to visit his father as well as to work on getting his book, “Dubliners”, published. He also visited Nora’s family in Galway. During his preparations to return to Trieste, he decided to take his sister, Eva, back with him to help Nora run their home. James spent a month in Trieste before returning to Dublin as a representative of cinema owners and businessmen. He launched Ireland’s first cinema, Volta Cinematograph, which sadly fell apart when James left. In 1910, James returned to Trieste with his sister Eileen. James returned once more to Dublin for a brief period in 1912 during his fight with the Dublin publisher, George Roberts, over the publication of “Dubliners.” It was on the return home that he wrote, “Gas from a Burner,” an invective poem against George Roberts. After this, he never returned to Dublin.

While living in Trieste James suffered from many eye problems that required over a dozen surgical operations. It was during this time that he came up with a number of money-making schemes, including an attempt to become a cinema magnate in Dublin. He also toyed with the idea of importing Irish tweed to Trieste. In 1915, many of his students were conscripted to fight in World War One, so James moved to Zurich. It was during this time that James took an active interest in socialism. He attended many socialist meetings back in Dublin, and described his politics as “those of a socialist artist.” However, in 1918, he declared himself “against every state” and found truth in the individualist philosophies of Oscar Wilde and Benjamin Tucker.

James set himself up to finish “Ulysses” in Paris, excited to know he was gaining fame as an avant-garde writer. He received a grant from Harriet Shaw Weaver which aided him in being able to write full-time once more It was also during this time when his vision was getting worse and he often wore an eyepatch. He continued to go through surgeries all throughout the 1930s. Also, he sought after treatments for his daughter, Lucia, who suffered from schizophrenia. Lucia was analyzed by Carl Jung, who stated that her father also was schizophrenic, however, James was “diving and Lucia was sinking.” In Paris, Maria and Eugene Jolas nursed James during his writing of “Finnegans Wake.” If not for their help, there is a high possibility that James never would have finished his books. In 1940, James returned to Zurich to flee the Nazi occupation of France. He used his contacts to help around sixteen Jews escape Nazi persecution.

On January 11, 1941, James went under surgery in Zurich for a perforated duodenal ulcer. He fell into a coma and woke up on January 13, 1941, when he asked a nurse to call his wife and son before he lost consciousness again. He died fifteen minutes later, a month away from his 59th birthday.

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On October 27, 1932, Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts. On April 27, 1935, Sylvia’s brother, Warren, was born. In 1936, the Plath family moved to Winthrop, Massachusetts. While living in Winthrop, Sylvia published her first poem in the Boston Herald’s children section at the age of eight. Over the next few years, Sylvia published an array of poems in different magazines and newspapers of the region. Sylvia started keeping a journal around the age of eleven. In 1947, she won an award from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for paintings. Plath was highly skilled in writing and the arts. She also had an IQ of around 160.

In November of 1940, Sylvia’s father, Otto, died. After a visit to her father's grave, Sylvia wrote the poem “Electra on Azalea Path.” Also, after Otto died, Sylvia’s mother moved the family to Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1942. It was in Wellesley that Plath attended Bradford Senior High School. She graduated in 1950. After graduating, Sylvia had her first national publication in the Christian Science Monitor.

Starting in 1950, Sylvia started attending Smith College, which is a private, woman’s liberal art college in Massachusetts. Plath was academically gifted and therefore excelled in school. In her third year of college, Plath was given a position as a guest editor at Mademoiselle magazine. During this time she also spent a month in New York City. However, the experience was not all that she expected it to be and quite a few of the events that took place during this time inspired her novel ‘The Bell Jar.’

Also during this time, there was a meeting being held with the poet, Dylan Thomas. Plath nearly idolized Dylan Thomas, so much so that she hung out around the White Horse Tavern and the Chelsea Hotel for two days in hopes to meet him. However, by this time he was already on the way home. A few weeks later, Plath slashed her legs to see if she had enough ‘courage’ to commit suicide. It was also at this time when she was refused admission to the Harvard writing seminar. On August 24, 1953, she had her first medically documented suicide attempt, by crawling under her house and taking her mother’s sleeping pills. Plath survived this suicide attempt after lying in a crawl space for three days. The next six months she spent in psychiatric care where she received electric and insulin shock treatment. She seemed to make a good recovery and she returned to college. Plath graduated from Smith with highest honors and then obtained a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Newnham College. Here she continued to write poetry and publishing work in the student newspaper, Varsity.

In 1956, Plath met Ted Hughes at a Cambridge party. She described him as “a story-teller, lion, and world-wanderer” with “a voice like the thunder of God.” The couple got married in June 1956 at St George the Martyr, Holborn and spent their honeymoon in Paris and Benidorm. Afterward, Plath returned to Newnham to begin her second year. It was during this time that Plath, along with Ted, became interested in astrology, the supernatural, and Ouija boards.

In 1957, the couple moved to the United States where Plath began teaching at Smith College. It was then that she found it difficult to teach and have enough time to write, so in the middle of 1958, the couple moved to Boston where Plath took a job as a receptionist in the psychiatric unit of the Massachusetts General Hospital. It was in the evening when she sat in on the creative writing seminars of Robert Lowell. Also in attendance of these meetings were Anne Sexton and George Starbuck. Both Lowell and Sexton encouraged Plath to write her from experience, so she openly began discussing her depression with Lowell and her suicide attempts with Sexton. This led her to write more from a female perspective and she began to see herself as a more serious and focused poet and short story author. Plath resumed psychoanalytic treatment in December, working with Ruth Beuscher.

In late 1959, Plath and her husband traveled across Canada and the US. In Saratoga Springs, New York, the couple stayed at the Yaddo artist colony. It was here that Plath says she learned to be true to her weirdness, however she remained anxious about confessional writing. In December 1959 the couple moved back to England and lived in London. On April 1, 1960, their daughter, Frieda was born; in October 1960 Plath published her first collection of poetry titled ‘The Colossus.’ In 1961, her second pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. This event is immortalized in several of her poems, including “Parliament Hill Fields.” Also, in a letter to her therapist, Sylvia wrote that Hughes beat her two days before the miscarriage. In August, she finished her novel, “The Bell Jar” and immediately after this, the family moved to North Tawton, in Devon. In January, their son, Nicholas, was born and in mid-1962 Hughes began to keep bees. The bees later became the subject of many of Plath’s poems.

In 1961, the couple met Assia and David Wevill. Hughes was taken with Assia, and she returned the feelings. In June 1962, Plath got into a car accident, which she later said was one of many suicide attempts. In July 1962, she discovered that Hughes had been having an affair with Assia Wevill and in September, Plath and Hughes separated. In 1962, Plath got a great burst of creativity which caused her to write most of the poems that she is now known for. In December she returned to London with her children. During the 1962-1963 winter, the children were often very sick and the house was very cold and had no telephone. During this time, Plath’s depression returned, but she completed the rest of her poetry.

In January 1963, Plath described her current depressive episode and how it had been ongoing for six to seven months. For most of the time she had been able to continue working, but her depression had become severe. This was marked by constant agitation, suicidal thoughts, and inability to cope with daily life. She also struggled with insomnia and lost 20 pounds. Her doctor, John Horder, prescribed her an antidepressant a few days before her suicide. Since he knew she was at risk and also alone with two young children, Horder visited her daily and made many efforts to have her admitted to a hospital. When his attempts failed, he arranged for a live-in nurse. When the nurse arrived she could not get into the apartment, but eventually was let in by a workman. This is when they found Sylvia Plath, dead from carbon monoxide poisoning and her head in the oven. She had sealed the rooms between that of her and her sleeping children with tape, towels, and cloths. It was at around 4:30 in the morning when she placed her head in the oven with the gas turned on. She was 30 years old.

While her life ended tragically, Plath’s legacy lives on in her poetry and novel. Thousands of people know her name, her works, and her legacy.

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Emily Bronte was born on July 30,1818 in the village of Thornton, on the outskirts of Bradford in England. Her parents were Maria Branwell and Patrick Bronte, an Irishman. Emily is the younger sister to the famous Charlotte Bronte and the fifth of six children. In 1820, after the birth of Emily’s younger sister Anne, the family moved eight miles away to a village called Haworth. On September 15, 1821, Maria Branwell passed away and Emily’s three older sisters, Maria, Elizabeth, and Charlotte, were sent to the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. It was at this school where the girls encountered abuse and privations that Charlotte later drew upon in Jane Eyre. When she turned six, Emily joined her sisters at the school for a short period until a typhoid epidemic swept through the school. Maria and Elizabeth caught it. Maria was sent home where she later died. The rest of the girls were removed from the school and soon after their return home, Elizabeth passed away as well. The remaining sisters along with their brother Patrick Branwell were then educated at home by their father and aunt, Elizabeth Branwell. Emily was very close to her siblings and was known as an animal lover and noted for befriending stray dogs she found wandering in the countryside. Even though they were not formally educated, the children had access to a wide range of literature including Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Blackwood’s Magazine.

Inspired by a box of toy soldiers Branwell had received as a gift, the children began to write stories where they set the characters in imaginary worlds with soldiers and heroes the Duke of Wellington and his sons. Only a little bit of the work Emily created survived the time. At the beginning of their writings, the children created stories about a world called Angria, however, when she was 13, Emily stopped writing about Angria and began a new world called Gondal. Gondal as a fictional island whose myths were there to preoccupy Emily and Anne during their lives. Most of the pieces written about Gondal were not preserved. However, from diary pages that were saved, we do know that the heroes of Gondal resemble the image of the Scottish Highlander, also known as a ‘noble savage.’ They were romantic outlaws capable of more nobility, passion, and bravery. These themes stretch through a lot of Bronte’s work, including Wuthering Heights.

At the age of seventeen, Emily started studying at Roe Head Girls’ School, where her sister, Charlotte, was a teacher. However, Emily suffered great homesickness and left the school after only a few months. After Emily returned home, Anne took her place at the school. The girls objective was to obtain a sufficient education in order to open a school of their own. At age twenty, Emily became a teacher at Law Hill School in Halifax at the beginning of September in 1838. In April 1839, Emily returned home due to poor health from stress of 17-hour work days. At home, she tended to the cooking and cleaning. She also taught herself German from books and practiced the piano. In 1842, Emily joined her sister Charlotte to Heger Pensionnat in Brussels, where they attended the girls' academy in hopes of perfecting their French and German before opening their school. By the end of the term, the two had become so competent in French that Madame Heger asked that they both stay another half-year. They almost did stay and become teachers, however, the death of their aunt sent them to return to their father. Later, in 1844, the sisters attempted to open a school in their house but had trouble finding students to the remote area.

Also in 1844, Emily began going through her poems and recopied them into two notebooks. One was labeled “Gondal Poems” and the other was unlabelled. In 1845, Charlotte discovered the notebooks and insisted that they be published. Emily at first refused to have them published but relented when Anne brought out her own manuscripts to reveal to Charlotte that she had been writing in secret as well. In 1846, the sister published their poems in one volume, “Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.” The sisters had adopted pseudonyms for the publication that preserved their initials. In this publication, Charlotte contributed 19 poems, and Emily and Anne each contributed 21. The publication only sold two copies.

To this day, Emily Bronte remains a mysterious person due to the sparse information about her. This is because of her solitary and reclusive nature. Except for a couple of people from Brussels, Emily did not seem to have made many friends outside her family. Her closest friend was Anne. In 1845, Anne took Emily to visit some of the places she had fallen in love with in the five years she had spent as a governess. To this day, Charlotte Bronte’s recountings of her sister are all we really have on Emily, however, Charlotte spent a lot of time trying to present Emily as someone whose love of the beauties of nature had become exaggerated because of her shy nature. She portrayed her as ‘too fond of the Yorkshire moors’ and as homesick whenever she was away. It has been reported many times that Emily was unsociable and extremely shy. Some descriptions said that her ‘warm, human aspect’ was only ‘revealed in her love of nature and animals.’ Emily Brontë has often been characterized as a devout if somewhat unorthodox Christian, a heretic and a visionary "mystic of the moors."

Wuthering Heights was first published in London in 1847, appearing as the first two volumes of a three-volume set that included Anne Bronte’s ‘Agnes Gray.’ The authors were printed as being Ellis and Acton Bell; Emily’s real name did not appear until 1850. The violence and passion within the story lead the Victorian public and reviewers to believe that it had been written by a man. The novel received many mixed reviews when it first came out and was often condemned for the portrayal of ‘amoral’ passion. However, the book still became an English literary classic.

Due to the harsh local climate, unsanitary conditions at home, and the only water source being contaminated by runoff from the church’s graveyard, Emily’s health faltered. Branwell died suddenly in September of 1848, and at his funeral, Emily caught a severe cold that quickly turned into inflammation of the lungs, and later, tuberculosis. Emily refused all help that was offered to her, and in the afternoon of December 19, 1848, Emily said to her sister, “If you will send for a doctor, I will see him now.” However, it was too late. She had died.

Emily Bronte lived a good life, mainly in solitude, and wrote one of the most famous pieces of English literature of all time.

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On January 22, 1788, one of the most infamous poets of all time was born in England. Lord Byron, born as George Gordon Byron, was notorious for sexual escapades and being quite the asshole around town.

In his early years, Lord Byron faced many challenges. His father abandoned him at a very young age. His mother was schizophrenic. And his nurse abused him. Byron never had much of any discipline and he lacked a sense of moderation. As we all know, these traits followed him into his later life. In 1798, at age ten, George inherited the title of his uncle, William Byron, and from then on was called Lord Byron. At age 12, Byron began studying at Harrow School in London where he experienced the first, of many, sexual encounters with males and females. In 1803, Byron fell in love with a distant cousin, where the love was not requinted. From this, Byron wrote poems such as "Hills of Annesley" and "The Adieu." From 1805 to 1808, Byron studied at Trinity College, where he engaged in many sexual escapades as well as fell into deep debt. When he was not engaging in unspeakable acts, Byron enjoyed boxing, horse riding, and, you guessed it, gambling.

While he was not in school, Byron stayed with his mother in Nottinghamshire, where he spent a lot of time writing poems. At one point he had written a collection titled ‘Fugitive Pieces’ the later was burned at the advice of a close friend, because of the ‘amorous’ contents of some of the poems. Later, Byron produced ‘Hours of Idleness’ which contained many of the previous poems along with some newer pieces. This collection received great criticism which later prompted Byron to write his first satire piece, ‘English Bards and Scottish Reviewers.’ After some time and when he returned from traveling, Byron trusted R. C. Dallas as his literary agent and asked him to publish his poem ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.’ Byron thought this poem as something not so great, however, it was received with acclaim. In his success, he published four other poems: Oriental Tales, The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, and Lara. It is also during this time in which he began an intimacy with his future biographer, Thomas Moore.

From 1809 to 1811, Byron spent time on the Grand Tour where he traveled with Hobhouse for the first year and his entourage of servants. This entourage included Byron’s trusted valet, William Fletcher. Since the Napoleonic Wars were in their midst, Byron was forced to avoid traveling to most of Europe. Instead, Byron went to the Mediterranean. This journey provided Byron with the chance to get away from creditors. Historians have also found that in letters from Byron’s friend, Charles Skinner Matthews, another motive for heading to the Mediterranean was in pursuit of homosexual experiences. Byron began the trip to Portugal, then to Lisbon. From Lisbon, he traveled to Seville, Jerez de la Frontera, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta, and Greece. During his time in Greece, in Athens, Byron met a 14-year-old named Nicolo Giraud who he became quite close with. It’s suggested that the two were intimate and had a sexual affair. Byron sent Giraud to school at a monastery in Malta and gave him 7,000 euros. However, later this was canceled because Byron stated he was tired of ‘coitum plenum et optabilem.’ This translates to ‘complete intercourse to one’s heart desire.’ In 1810, Byron wrote ‘Maid of Athens, ere we part’ for a 12-year-old girl named Teresa Makri. Byron reportedly offered 500 euros for her, but the offer was not accepted. Later, Byron made his way to Smyrna where he and Hobhouse got a ride to Constantinople. While waiting for their ship to dock, Byron and one of the ships Marines, swam the Hellespont. This is commemorated in the second canto of Don Juan.

Due to his publication of ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,’ Byron became quite the celebrity. “He rapidly became the most brilliant star in the dazzling world of Regency London. He was sought after at every society venue, elected to several exclusive clubs, and frequented the most fashionable London drawing-rooms.” Byron produced many works during this time, including The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, Parisina, The Siege of Corinth, and Hebrew Melodies. At this time, Byron was also involved in an affair with Lady Caroline Lamb, amongst others. He also acquired debt and was seeking marriage. One consideration for marriage was Annabella Milbanke, however, in 1813, he met his half-sister Augusta Leigh. There sparked many rumors of incest and Augusta’s daughter, Medora, was also suspected to belong to Byron. However, Annabella and Byron married on January 2, 1815, and their daughter Ada was born in December the next year. The marriage was miserable due to Byron’s incessant cheating and obsession with his half-sister. Annabella even considered Byron insane, and in January 1816 she left him and took their daughter. The scandal of separation along with the rumors of Augusta and an ever-increasing debt caused Byron to flee England in April 1816. He never returned.

After fleeing England, Byron journeyed through Belgium and moved up the Rhine river. In the summer of 1816, Byron settled at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. With him was his personal physician, John William Polidori. It was in Geneva that Byron found friendship in Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, and Claire Clairmont, with whom he had had an affair with in London. Because of “incessant rain” the group was kept indoors at the Villa Diodati for three days in June. During this time the five turned to reading and soon started planning their own stories. This is where Mary started Frankenstein. John Polidori wrote a piece titled ‘The Vampyre’ inspired by one of Byron’s stories. Later in the year, Byron spent his winter in Venice, only pausing his travels when he fell in love with Marianna Segati, a woman who’s house Byron was staying. Later this love was replaced by that of a 22-year-old named Margarita Cogni. Both women were married. Cogni could not read or write and she left her husband to move into Byron’s Venice house. They fought quite a bit which often cause Byron to spend the night in his gondola. Later, when Byron asked Cogni to leave the house, she threw herself into the Venetian canal. Byron spent quite some time in Italy and later in Greece. In Greece, Byron got himself into a bit of political trouble with Souliots, who demanded that Byron owned them money.

On February 15, 1824, Byron fell ill and bloodletting only weakened him. He partially recovered, but then fell ill once more in early April. Therapeutic bleeding insisted on by his doctors, only worsened his cold. It is believed that because of this treatment, Byron caught sepsis. He later caught a fever and soon after passed on April 19th.

Byron’s life was full of chaos and the man is still infamous to this day. Granted, we got quite the number of poems from him though. Poems that are still studied and admired today.

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Our story starts on the Island of Lesbos with a woman named Sappho, between 630 and 570 BC. Truthfully, very little is known about Sappho, but what we do know is fascinating. Life on Lesbos was very liberal and women were treated very well. A lot of people suggest that Sappho was a teacher on the island, but there is no concrete evidence. The women on the island could have been friends, pupils, or members of a cult that honored Aphrodite. However, even in these ancient times, rumors spread about Sappho and her life, work, and especially, her sexual orientation.

Sappho is described as petite, dark, and she has a sensational appetite for sex. The one thing we know for sure, though, is that she was a lyrical woman. People built statues in her honor and Plato even called her the ‘tenth muse.’ Even in 1798, Friedrich Schlegel, a German writer, said, “If we had the complete works of Sappho, it is quite possible that we would never remember Homer.” Quite the quote, don’t you think? Sappho’s works ranged from religious hymns, wedding songs, and love songs. All of her writings were compiled into nine books. Sappho even developed a new lyrical meter known as the Sapphic stanza. Today, only 200 fragments of her poetry remain, a mere seven-hundredths of her true complete works. Only four poems have been reconstructed.

Sappho was well-known for celebrating women. Most of her pieces contain much intimacy and passion. So much so that many people believe her to be a clear-cut lesbian. However, the only contemporary source of her life is her poems, therefore, many academics say to not read her poems as autobiographical. These poems could have been written to be read aloud to an audience entirely male. The sexual identity of Sappho is still not entirely clear, and there is even a legend that she jumped off a cliff because of a failed love with a ferryman. Again, this could have just been an invention of people at the time to present Sappho as heterosexual.

Even so, the term lesbian does date back to Sappho’s erotic poetry. There is even the term, “doing it like the ladies of Lesbos,” that ancient Greeks used as a way to refer to blow jobs, which, as you can infer, the inhabitants of Lesbos could get their heads around. The first clear link between lesbianism and the Island of Lesbos comes from the second century AD. In France the labels ‘lesbian’ and ‘sapphist’ turned up for the first time.

In later Greek history, Sappho’s poetry was frowned upon. If someone expressed sensations with the passion and commitment of Sappho, that person was seen as immoral. Also, the early church banned Sappho’s poetry and wrote her off as a sex-hungry whore who sang about her own sluttishness. In the Victorian era, it was common for Sappho to be portrayed as the leader of a seminary. All of these were attempts to give ‘innocent’ explanation to Sappho’s preference of women.

While much of her life is still a mystery, it is no doubt that Sappho is an icon. And if you ask me, probably the very first lesbian.

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This blog post is going to be a bit more of an opinion piece, however, as always, it is about literature. Or is it? I’m talking about Shakespeare. Many people may disagree with me on the front of Shakespeare, but I think it’s an important point that needs to be heard. Shakespeare is overrated.

Wait! Hear me out. Yes, Shakespeare is an iconic playwright who made history with his works. However, so many other authors also made history. I walk into my school’s library and there are two entire rows dedicated to the works of Shakespeare alongside analysis’ of his works. I walk in there to find something about Jane Austen or Mary Shelley, and I’d be lucky if I could find a shelf or two.

What is so great about the work Shakespeare produced in comparison to authors like Edgar Allan Poe or Oscar Wilde? Yeah, Shakespeare had a lot of themes related to homosexuality, but Oscar Wilde was gay. Yeah, Shakespeare has plays about murder and love, but Edgar Allan Poe’s entire repertoire is about love and murder and death. Yet, we don’t have classes dedicated to these men. Truthfully, I didn’t even know about Oscar Wilde until I stumbled upon one of his books at the bookstore one day. Want to know why? Because every literature class I have ever taken spends over half of the time on Shakespeare!

My university offers about three literature classes a semester that revolve around Shakespeare. Just literature classes, not even classes for drama students. I could understand the emphasis on Shakespeare if I was a theatre major, but I’m not. And no, I was not forced to sign up for Shakespeare classes, but if I wanted to be able to fit all of my credits in, then I had to. None of the other classes being offered fit my requirements.

My argument is not that we should forget Shakespeare entirely. He did a lot of great things in his work. I cannot deny that. However, having more emphasis on other authors would be wonderful. It would open a world to students that they have never seen before. It would give prior knowledge to some students, so when they walk into their university classes, the names they’re hearing aren’t entirely foreign. For example, my British Literature class textbook was about 1500 pages, and not a single one of them featured Shakespeare. I was astounded, and for an entire semester, I didn’t hear a word about Shakespeare in a literature class. I learned about Percy Shelley, John Keats, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Christina Rossetti, and many others. It was wonderful, but it would have been even better if I had come into that class with prior knowledge about any of those authors. Sadly, I had never heard of any of them until that class.

It’s time to put others in the spotlight. Shakespeare has been center-stage, pun intended, for so long now. His works have been analyzed, re-analyzed, and over analyzed to a point, there is nothing left to do. Let’s clear off a couple shelves and make room for authors who also did great things. Authors who shaped our culture, in other ways. Authors who invented genres we now hold dear. Authors whose characters were revolutionary for their time.

It’s time to give other authors the stage.  

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One of my most favorite authors in all of literary history was born on December 16, 1775. This author is known as Jane Austen, the author of six beautiful novels set in England during the Regency era. Jane was the seventh child and the second daughter in her family. Jane had four older brothers and one older sister, Cassandra, along with one younger brother. When Cassandra was sent off to school in Oxford, Jane was only seven years old. Jane and Cassandra were very close; Jane wanted to do everything her sister did. The girls were described as two of the prettiest in their little community. Marriage was seen as the only suitable job for young women of the time, however, many of the men were gone to war. The ones who were left, unfortunately for Jane, were poor. However, Jane did have a bit of a flirtation with an Irishman, but his family felt that Jane was not good enough for their son.

Because of her pitiful luck in love, Jane was inspired and tried her hand at writing. The first thing she wrote was called “Elinor and Marianne”, later published as Sense and Sensibility. Jane also wrote a story titled “First Impressions” that was later published as Pride and Prejudice. Her next literary attempt was inspired by a trip Jane took to Bath with her sister. The manuscript, titled ‘Susan’, was sold to a publisher for ten pounds but was not published until after Jane died. It was titled, Northanger Abbey.

At the age of 25, Jane moved, begrudgingly, with her Mother, Father, and Sister, from the countryside to the city of Bath. After three years of living in their first house, the Austen family moved from their very nice, but expensive house, to somewhere cheaper to live. Soon after, Jane’s father died, leaving his wife and daughters, unsure of what to do. The ladies moved twice more, to even poorer housing, before moving to South Hampton to live with Jane’s brother, Frank. Frank was away in the Navy and his wife pregnant. The arrangement was good because Frank was able to feel comfortable leaving his wife in the care of his mother and sisters.

While visiting with some friends in her hometown, Jane was proposed to by her friends youngest brother. She accepted, however when she woke up the next morning she had changed her mind and returned home immediately. Jane believed wholeheartedly that marriage should be for love only or not at all. She realized that she did not have much time to marry and her suitors were scarce, Jane became comfortable with the idea of being a single woman.

Later in life, Edward Austen allowed his mother and sisters to live in a cottage near his home. This excited Jane since she would be able to return to the countryside of England. And thus, with this move, started the most important chapter of Jane Austen’s life. At age 33, in July 1809, Jane moved into Chawton cottage. During the time that Jane lived in Chawton, she would wake in the morning to make the breakfast of toast and tea. She also would play the piano early in the morning before anyone else woke. After breakfast and music, Jane would start her writing for the day, however, if guests ever arrived, she would conceal the manuscripts. The door to her study still creaks to this day; Jane never wanted it to be oiled because the squeaks of the hinges would warn Jane that someone was entering and it would give her mere seconds to hide her work.

During her time at Chawton, Jane took to fixing Elinor and Marianne into Sense and Sensibility. It was originally published anonymously, the only credit being ‘By a Lady.’ Later, of course, came Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813. Jane referred to this piece as her darling child and feared criticism, however, the reading public adored the story. In 1814, Mansfield Park was published, yet it was not as popular as Pride and Prejudice. However, it was the first of Jane’s works that was written entirely at Chawton. Mansfield Park was followed by Emma in 1815, after a change in publishers.

After finishing her work on the novel, Persuasion, Jane’s health had begun deteriorating. Jane suffered quite a bit, almost always in pain. In May 1817, Jane and Cassandra moved to Winchester so Jane’s doctor could keep an eye out for her. Sadly, Jane Austen died on July 18, 1817, at the age of 41.

Though Jane never married, she was a happy woman who lived a fulfilling life. Contrary to what many at the time thought, women did not have to be married to live a good life. And today, Jane Austen’s works are still widely read and appreciated by hopeless romantics everywhere.

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On October 16, 1854, one of the most iconic authors and gay icons was born. Oscar Wilde was born to William and Jane Wilde. He was their second son, a middle child, and he grew up in Dublin Ireland. His father was notorious for being a serial cheater; he had three kids with three other women, and three kids with his wife, Jane. Oscar’s mother was six feet tall, and regularly hosted parties in the parlor of their home. Oscar and his older brother were invited to sit in the room of the parties, however, they were not to talk to anyone. This is where Oscar learned to captivate an audience.

At the age of 9, Oscar was sent to Portora Royal School, a boarding school, with his brother. Later, he received a scholarship to Trinity College in Ireland, followed a few years later by a scholarship to Oxford, in England. During his time at Oxford, Oscar really came into his own. He was a six foot two, proud Irishman, who was obsessed with aesthetics. He told many people he wanted to become a work of art. He wore a lot of velvet and silk clothes and grew out his hair. In 1878, Oscar became well-known because he placed first in his finals. When asked what his next move would be, he told many people he would become a poet, writer, or playwright. He is also quoted saying, “I will become famous, if not famous, notorious.” Surprisingly, he achieved all of these things, in that order.

Oscar started writing poems when he was at Trinity College, and so, in 1881 Oscar published his first collection of Poems. The collection sold quite a bit, but many critics said the poetry was bland. It was during this time that Oscar was quoted saying, “There’s one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.” Many people were making fun of Oscar at this time. However, he went on tour in America with the play Patience, a play that was satirical of the aesthetic movement. During his tour, he was to speak to the audience about how the aesthetic movement was a good thing. By the time he returned to London, Oscar had become an international celebrity.

In 1883, Oscar moved to Paris and changed his aesthetic. He did this by adding a flower to his breast pocket. He started smoking gold-tipped cigarettes that he carried in a gold case. He also adorned a cane, for fashion. During his time in Paris, he wrote The Duchess of Padua. Soon after, he had many travels. He went to New York, London, and son back to Dublin. In Dublin, he ran into Constance Lloyd, a woman he had met in London in 1881. The two got married in 1884 and they had their first son in 1885 followed by their second a few months later. However, many people comment about how Oscar didn’t know he was gay when he was married. He was even heard making comments about his wife’s appearance. He said that he was disgusted with how she looked because her very slim body had become swollen with pregnancy. Many believe that this is because before she was pregnant, Constance resembled a male figure. Also, at age 32, Oscar became the editor of a magazine titled Lady’s World, later renamed, Woman’s World. Around the same time, Oscar began tutoring a boy named Robert Ross who was obsessed with Wilde’s poetry. It was at this time where Oscar began living a double life because Ross had seduced him.

In 1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in Lippincott’s Magazine. The Picture of Dorian Gray was seen and scandalous and was highly criticized. Many people called the work ‘unclean.’ In 1891, at age 36, Oscar fell in love with an Oxford student named Alfred “Bosie” Douglas. Alfred was the encompassment of Dorian Gray with blonde hair and overall, gorgeous. However, Alfred was sixteen years younger than Wilde, making him twenty years old. Truthfully, the two were perfect for each other, and Oscar gave Alfred many gifts and they spent a lot of time together. Oscar even went as far as telling his wife that he spent time in hotels because he needed privacy for writing, however, he was staying in hotels with Alfred. Wilde even wrote many plays with titles that alluded to his secret life. For example, “An Ideal Husband” and “A Woman of No Importance.” Oscar caused himself to go into debt because the more money he made the more money he spent. He was spending the modern equivalent of $10,000 a week.

Alfred and Oscar were lovers in many settings, however, they spent a lot of time together ‘hunting’ for other lovers for themselves, or for the other. It is said that Wilde got ‘addicted’ to the danger of the homosexual underworld in London. The homosexual underworld, meaning gay prostitutes. Also, Oscar did not have a lot of time for his wife and children. However, he never tried too hard to hide his secret life. He essentially hid it in plain sight. Oscar essentially lived life thinking that if he didn’t say anything about his secrets, then there was nothing going on, even though many people saw Oscar engaging in suspicious acts.

Soon, Alfred’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, grew suspicious of the relationship between his son and Oscar. He confronted them many times but did not find out much. In 1894, Queensberry met with Wilde on Tite Street and made his feelings clear to Wilde. “I do not say that you are it, but you look it, and pose it. Which is just as bad. If I catch you and my son again in any public restaurant, I will thrash you.” Wilde only responded to this with, “I do not know what the Queensberry rules are, but the Oscar Wilde rule is to shoot on sight.”  

In February 1895, Alfred’s father left his calling card at Wilde’s club. It said, “For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite.” Wilde, who was encouraged by his lover, initiated a private prosecution against Queensberry since the note was a public accusation that Wilde had committed the crime of sodomy. Queensberry was arrested for criminal libel. He could only avoid conviction for libel only if he could present evidence that his accusation was true, and also that there was public benefit to having the accusation made openly. Thus, Queensberry’s lawyers hired private detectives to find evidence of Wilde’s homosexual activities. During their investigation, the private detectives leaked information about Oscar’s private affairs to the press. At the end of the trial, Queensberry was found not guilty and the court found that his accusation was justified. Thus, the end of the trial rendered Wilde legally liable for the expenses Queensberry had incurred and left Wilde bankrupt.

On April 6, 1895, Wilde was arrested for gross indecency under section 11 of the criminal law amendment act of 1885. This act referred to homosexual acts not amounting to buggery. Wilde’s prosecution opened on April 26, 1895. He pleaded not guilty, but the trial ended with a hung jury. Wilde, then, was able to post bail, and then went into hiding. The trial was, essentially, reopened and on May 25, 1895, Oscar and Alfred were convicted of gross indecency and were sentenced to two years’ hard labor. Wilde was incarcerated from 25 May 1895 to 18 May 1897. Once released from prison, Wilde immediately fled to Paris and never returned to the UK. Wilde spent his last years impoverished and in exile. Alfred and Oscar reunited in Naples, during this time. Also, Constance offered Oscar 150 pounds a year to stop seeing Alfred. She had also moved herself and their children to Switzerland. Alfred and Oscar soon had to stop seeing each other because of the fear of having truly, nothing. Constance took away the money from Oscar and then died four months later. There also was no chance of Oscar ever seeing his children again.

In November 1900, Oscar died of cerebral meningitis at the age of 46.

In his life, Oscar faced quite a bit of prejudice, yet he somehow stayed true to himself. He achieved all of his goals and is one of the most iconic authors of all time.

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Modern gothic and science fiction aesthetics, alongside the literature that correlates, would not be possible without two of the most influential writers of all time. Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe are the authors who invented horror, gothic, and science fiction literature as we know it today. Many people either don’t know this fact, or possibly want to dispute it, but it is plain and simple.

Mary Shelley was the first person to write something out of the ordinary. A piece that questioned mortality and the ethics surrounding the reanimation of the human body. The first person to write a piece that had the image of our modern ‘mad scientist’ in his ‘lab’ while rain pours and lightning strikes in the distance. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, was the first story of it’s kind and it covers a couple of genres. We have our gothic setting; there’s lots of rain and everything is dark and feels gloomy. We have the science fiction plot and the horror-like way our character goes about his endeavors. Mary Shelley truly paved the way for all modern horror, gothic, and science fiction writers. Without her influence, I truly do not believe that these genres would exist, especially science fiction. Not a soul on the planet was engrossed with science in the same fashion as Mary Shelley; at least not enough to write a whole story about it. However, I think that is where Edgar Allan Poe comes in.

While Edgar was not engrossed with science, he was highly interested in death and love. Edgar was in England at the time Frankenstein was published. He was young and troubled, and probably had his own copy of the renowned book. Many believe, myself included, that Poe was inspired by Shelley. As he grew older Edgar started writing his own pieces. Poems and short stories, all of which dabbled in the macabre. Poems like ‘The Raven’, ‘Annabel Lee’, and ‘Lenore.’ Short stories like ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, and ‘The Murders in The Rue Morgue.’ These are pieces of love, death, murder, revenge, and ghosts. All of the staples of modern goth culture. I believe that, without Edgar’s writings, the modern goth culture, as we know it, would not exist. We would not have the staple icons like ravens or the fascination with death and tragedy.

Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe are the reasons we have staples of our culture today. Without Mary Shelley, we wouldn’t have ‘Star Wars’, ‘Star Trek’, or any other big-name science fiction movie. Without Edgar Allan Poe we wouldn’t have the modern murder-mystery story, like ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ or ‘Gone Girl.’ Without the two authors together, we wouldn’t have the gothic or horror culture. Yes, there would be troubled teens obsessed with death and ghosts, wearing all black. There would be strange kids highly infatuated with lightning and mixing chemicals to get a reaction. These people would still exist. However, they would exist a little bit differently. In a way, I don’t think I can even explain. Overall, it would just feel as if something is missing.

Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe are two of the most influential authors of all time. They have given us so much of our culture. They deserve to be recognized for their contribution to society; contributions that still have an impact even 200 years later.

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In 1797 in Somers Town, London, the woman who invented Science Fiction was born. This woman was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and known as Mary Shelley. Her parents were William Godwin, the famous journalist and political philosopher, and Mary Wollstonecraft, the famous feminist writer. Mary Wollstonecraft died a few days after her daughter was born, leaving Mary to be raised by her father. A few years later, William Godwin got remarried to a neighbor, Mary Jane Clairmont. Mary had a very rocky relationship with her stepmother throughout her life, however, was close to her stepsister, Claire Clairmont.

In June of 1812, William Godwin sent Mary to stay with a family friend, William Baxter, in Scotland so Mary would be surrounded by great thinkers. Mary stayed here for a few months, returned to London, and then went back to Scotland again in 1813. It is believed that Mary met her future husband, Percy Shelley, for the first time during her stay in Scotland. Coincidently, Percy became sort of an understudy for William Godwin soon after Mary left Scotland. During this time William Godwin was struggling with money, and he took Percy under his wing because Percy promised him payment. However, since Percy had alienated his family due to his political beliefs, he had a hard time getting money and was unable to pay William Godwin. Because of this William became rather ill with Percy. Simultaneously, Mary and Percy would meet at Mary Wollstonecraft’s grave to hang out. On June 26, Percy and Mary announced that they were in love, even though Percy was married at the time to a woman named Harriet. Then, on June 27, Mary lost her virginity to Percy on the grave of her mother. After their announcement, William Godwin expressed his high disapproval for their relationship. On June 28, 1814, Mary and Percy secretly eloped then fled to France, taking Mary’s sister, Claire, with them.

After they fled to France the trio spent a lot of time journeying through Europe. Sometime during this journey, Mary became pregnant, however, she did not find out until they returned to London. In London, the couple found themselves penniless, and William Godwin wanted nothing to do with them since Mary had ‘tarnished’ her name and reputation. During the next two years, Percy and Mary faced constant debt and the death of their premature daughter. Also, during these years, Percy had many relations with Claire and his ex-wife, Harriet. This was a testimony to his belief in free love. He also encouraged Mary to have a relationship with his close friend, Thomas Jefferson Hogg. However, Mary was loyal to Percy, even when Percy was not loyal to her.

In the summer of 1816 Mary, Percy, and Claire spent an extended amount of time in Geneva, Switzerland with the infamous Lord Byron, and his doctor, John Polidori. It was during this time that Mary started writing her famous piece, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus.  Also, in late 1816, Percy and Mary got officially married after the suicide of Percy’s ex-wife. In 1818, the couple moved to Italy which is where their second and third children died. Later, Mary gave birth to their fourth child, the only Shelley child to survive. This child was named Percy William Shelley.

Tragically, in 1822, Percy Shelley drowned after his sailing ship sunk. His body was not found for ten days, and then it was immediately buried. After a month, his body was exhumed and burned by request of his family and friends. The only thing that made it through the fire was Percy Shelley’s heart which Mary kept in a jar and with her at all times until she died. In 1823, Mary returned to England and devoted herself to raising her child and writing. At the age of 53, in 1851, Mary died of a brain tumor.

While her life was full of tragedy, Mary’s work still lives on as one of the most iconic pieces of literature to date. She was a strong woman who faced many obstacles in life, and somehow overcame them all. She invented Science Fiction and created a legacy that has last longer than a lifetime.

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On January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts, the author credited for inventing the modern gothic, horror genre was born to a family in theatrics. You may know this man as Edgar Allan Poe, famous for his poem titled, “The Raven.”

After he was born, Edgar’s father left his mother to raise three kids. When Edgar was three years old, his mother died and he was adopted by John and Francis Allan who attended the same church as the Poe family. As a young child, Edgar moved to Scotland with his new family, then later, in 1816, moved to London. 1816 was also the year that Frankenstein was published. This occurrence leads many people to believe that Mary Shelley had a large impact on the way Edgar wrote later in life. In 1820, Edgar moved back to America with his family. During this time his teachers commented that Edgar was very good at being theatrical, which must come from his parents, who were both in the theatre business during their lives.

In 1825, John Allan inherited the wealth of his uncle who had passed. Therefore, he quit working in the tobacco business. Also, because of this wealth, Edgar got to go to a very nice school. However, while at this school, Edgar accumulated a debt that equaled up to $25,000, which John Allan refused to pay because many people said that Edgar was an alcoholic. Therefore, Edgar had to leave school, and in turn, he also left his home to pursue writing and acting. During this time his adopted mother, Francis Allan, smuggled money and food to Edgar. After a while, Edgar returned home because Francis had fallen ill. Even though Edgar and John Allan were on bad terms, Edgar still trying to reconcile with his adopted father. John Allan did not take kindly to Edgar’s attempts to make peace; they continued fighting quite a bit. After this time, Edgar enlisted in the US Army in 1827. In the two years he was in the Army, Edgar gained the title of sergeant major. In 1829, Edgar was discharged because Francis had died.

Francis’ dying wish was to ensure that her son got to see her before she died. This never happened because John Allan refused to let Edgar see his mother. Francis then demanded that Edgar be able to see her once before she was buried so he would know she was finally at peace. This request was also ignored and Francis was buried only hours after her death. Only then was Edgar informed of his adopted mothers passing. Edgar later wrote the poem Fanny about his beloved adopted mother.

After the passing of his mother, Edgar moved to Baltimore to continue working in the military. He never had contact with John Allan again, and when John Allan died he left nothing of his fortunes to his son, but to random friends. During this time, Edgar also became the assistant editor at Southern Literary Messenger. Soon after this, he married Virginia Eliza Clemm, his first cousin. While there was an age gap between the two, the marriage was consensual and many say they were a very happy, loving, and faithful couple. Six years into their marriage Virginia fell ill with tuberculosis and died in 1847 after five years of suffering. During his wife’s illness, Edgar wrote, what is said to be the very first detective novel, Murder in the Rue Morgue. After Virginia’s death, Edgar wrote many pieces about her. The most famous piece is titled, Annabel Lee.

In 1849, Edgar was found wandering the streets of Baltimore. Supposedly, he was headed to Philadelphia to help a friend with a poem. However, he never even left Baltimore. When he was found, Edgar was wearing clothes that were not his own. He was delirious and calling out for a man named Reynolds, however, no one knew anyone by that name. Many people theorized that Edgar had passed due to alcohol poisoning or by a cat bite that had been filled with rabies. However, no one truly knows the reasoning for Edgar’s passing.

Given the circumstances of his life, it is no wonder that Edgar’s writing was so haunting and filled with such misery. I also believe it is very fitting that such a mystery lay around his death. Even so, I believe that Edgar’s heart can still be heard beating within the eardrums of his readers.