Dancing with Mrs. Dalloway: Stories of the Inspiration Behind Great Works of Literature

By Celia Blue Johnson

Book Overview

The Real Stories Behind Everyone's Favorite Novels-from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to The Great Gatsby . Every great book begins with an idea . . . Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez was driving to Acapulco with his family when he slammed on the brakes, turned the car around, and insisted they abandon their trip so he could return home to write. He had good reason to cut the trip short-a childhood memory of touching ice had suddenly sparked the first line to a novel that would become his most famous work, One Hundred Years of Solitude . C. S. Lewis, on the other hand, spent decades pondering the scene that inspired The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . When Lewis was sixteen, he had a peculiar daydream- a faun carried a bundle of parcels and an umbrella through snow-covered woods. Lewis was almost forty when he decided to write a novel that grew around the vision. In Dancing with Mrs. Dalloway , you'll discover who Edgar Allan Poe's raven really belonged to, whether Jane Austen's heartthrob Mr. Darcy actually existed, who got into mischief with a young Mark Twain, and what the real Sherlock Holmes did for a living. These delightful stories reveal the often unknown reasons our literary heroes put quill to parchment, pen to paper, or finger to keyboard to write some of the world's best-loved books.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399536922
• ISBN13: 9780399536922
• Release Date: October 2011
• Publisher: Perigee Books
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher