They wrote bestsellers and/or future classics before age 25

Carson McCullers the Heart is a Lonely Hunter

To write a great novel (or even a decent one), it seems that a writer should have a certain amount of life experience. But that’s not always the case — not in the past, and not in the present. Following are seven novels written when their authors were precocious young women — some still in their teens.

Some have become iconic classics; others sold in the millions are forgotten bestsellers.

So, what of it? Maybe the point is that if you have a story inside of you, find a way to tell it no matter what your age — tender through advanced. It may not become a classic or a bestseller or even be published, but at least will be something to build on.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein, 1818

In the throes of her tumultuous, tragic, and romantic youth, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797 – 1851) created Frankenstein, one of the most memorable and influential novels of all time. Mary wasn’t yet twenty-one at the time.When she met Percy Bysshe Shelley, the romantic poet, she was around sixteen. Their fateful liaison would alter the course of her life. In the summer of 1814, seventeen-year-old Mary eloped to Italy with the already-married Shelley, who left his distraught, pregnant wife behind.

In the summer of 1816, Mary and Percy rented a villa not far from Lord Byron’s on Lake Geneva. On the night of a thunderstorm (yes, the classic “dark and stormy night”), it was proposed that each of the group write a supernatural tale. 

Frankenstein was first published anonymously, but eventually the author’s identity was revealed and subsequent editions bore her name. In the preface to the 1831 edition, Mary tells the story of how she came to write her masterpiece. Here in her own words is the story of how it came to pass that a sheltered young woman from England came to write one of the most haunting tales of all time, with a creature that continues to grip the imagination.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Miles Franklin: My Brilliant Career, 1901

My Brilliant Career was Miles Franklin‘s first novel. Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (1879 – 1954) went on to become one of the most prominent Australian authors of the first half of the 20th century.

Franklin wrote this novel while still in her teens, and it was published before she turned twenty-one. My Brilliant Career tells the story of Sybylla Melvyn, a high-strung, imaginative girl from the Australian countryside. When her parents fall on hard times, they send her to live with her grandmother in another part of the country.

Convinced that she’s ugly and useless, Sybilla is surprised when Harold Beecham, a wealthy young man, courts her and proposes marriage. Sybilla knows that she is “not a valuable article in the marriage market,” but “despises the slavery which respectable marriage will bring.” She will never “perpetrate matrimony,” will never be a “participant in that ‘degradation’” — these are astonishing words from the pen of a teen who, like her heroine, grew up in the outback.

Sybilla must navigate the narrow choices available to women of her time and place, and her desire to be independent. The 1979 film adaptation starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill was lovely as well, and quite true to the book.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Viña Delmar: Bad Girl, 1928

Despite its provocative title, the forgotten bestselling 1928 novel, Bad Girl by Viña Delmar, wasn’t all that. Delmar, just twenty-three when it was published, was already married and the mother of a four-year-old son. That in itself wasn’t so unusual at the time, but not emblematic of experience-seeking urban women of the Jazz Age.

In Bad Girl, Dorothy, or “Dot,” as she’s called, has one instance of premarital sex, marries the guy (not a bad sort, but none too bright), and after a respectable period of time, becomes pregnant. She seriously considers ending the pregnancy, but goes ahead with it. Dot’s pregnancy and childbirth occupy much of the novel. The cover of a later edition (above) sensationalizes the story, as was typical of pulp novels.

There’s nothing scandalous about this middling novel, but the realities of a young wife’s pregnancy and her experiences in a birthing hospital were enough to grab the attention of The New England Watch and Ward Society. This organization, whose mission was censorship of books and the performing arts gave rise to the phenomenon of “Banned in Boston.”

Publishers welcomed their books being “Banned in Boston” — the controversy boosted book sales, as it did for Bad Girl. Despite having been a big bestseller, copies are hard to come by; I got mine on Ebay. I needed to read it for a project I’m working on, but wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. Still, it’s an interesting document of its era, and the basis of the well-regarded 1931 film of the same name. Here’s a 1928 interview with Viña Delmar.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Daphne du Maurier: The Loving Spirit, 1931

Not as well known as Daphne du Maurier’s more iconic works like Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel (among many other thrilling tales), The Loving Spirit was her first novel. Twenty-four at the time it was published, it launched what would become a stellar career.

Beginning in the early 1800s, The Loving Spirit tells the story of the Coombes family and is mainly set in Cornwall, a part of England in which the author spent much of her life. Janet Coombes marries her cousin, Thomas Coombes, a shipbuilder. The novel follows the adventures and trials of this family for four generations.

A modern reprint of this novel rightly described it as having “established du Maurier’s reputation and style with an inimitable blend of romance, history, and adventure.” Readers familiar with du Maurier’s later, and more famous works, have been delighted to discover her first novel. More about The Loving Spirit.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Carson McCullers: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, 1940

Carson McCullers (1917–1967) was twenty-three when The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was published. While her novels, novellas, and short stories have retained a prominent place in the American canon, Lonely Hunter has arguably remained her best-remembered. This selection of quotes from The Heart of a Lonely Hunter sample the tone and flavor of the narrative.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter made McCullers an overnight literary celebrity. She described herself as “much too young to understand what happened to me or the responsibility it entailed.” Readers and critics considered it an epic achievement and marveled that one so young had such a grasp of human nature. From a 1940 review:

“The characters move around Singer, a man of mystical understanding, in an intricate dance of hope and despair: Mick, and adolescent ardently longing to express herself in music; Jake Blount, a wild, blundering reformer; Dr. Copeland, the African American patriarch. Their appeal to Singer is the appeal of all humanity to a silent, cryptic universe.”

Reviewers felt that McCullers had captured America’s racial and economic divides simply and dramatically. Richard Wright, reviewing the novel in 1940, wrote:

“To me the most impressive aspect of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is the astonishing humanity that enables a white writer, for the first time in Southern fiction, to handle African-American characters with as much ease and justice as those of her own race.”

. . . . . . . . . . .

Kathleen Winsor: Forever Amber, 1944

Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor is the sprawling story of Amber St. Clair, a beauty who climbs the class ranks of Restoration-era England. Twenty-five when the novel was published, Winsor had devoted more than five years to its nearly 1,000 pages.

Amber’s fictional narrative is interwoven with true historic facts of the English Restoration. On her nearly 1,000-page path to becoming the mistress of Charles II, Amber leaves a trail of scandal in her wake — theft, multiple husbands and lovers, and lots of sexual escapades (though none graphically described).

Forever Amber scandalized and enthralled. Fourteen U.S. states and all of Australia, banned the book upon its release, citing obscenity. It went to costly trials in the U.S.; Winsor and her publisher stood by her work and eventually prevailed in court. The notoriety trials didn’t hurt its popularity — quite the opposite.

Winsor made a fortune from Forever Amber and went on to write a few more novels, though none achieved its level of sales or notoriety. One reviewer wrote that Amber made Scarlett O’Hara look like a kindergarten teacher.

Forever Amber (which took me months to listen to) fell out of print, but is available in a “rediscovered classics” edition (with the cover shown above). It has been called a “bodice ripper,” it is not. Though it does take a bit of stamina to read, in my humble opinion, it doesn’t belong in the literary trash heap.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Françoise Sagan: Bonjour Tristesse, 1954

Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan is the story of Cecile, an amoral seventeen-year-old, who goes on vacation to the south of France with her father, Raymond. Sagan was eighteen when it was published and immediately became the epitome of an enfant terrible.

The title Bonjour Tristesse, meaning “hello sadness” in English, comes from a line in the poem “À Peine Défigurée” by Paul Éluard. The poem describes the familiarity of sadness that reappears in waves.

Bonjour Tristesse is a novel of romantic intrigue gone awry. The tangled web of romance and expressions of sexuality earned the book plenty of backlash, but it also solidified Sagan’s position as part of the rebellious post-war youth generation. Here’s a contemporary review of Bonjour Tristesse.

Fast-living and reckless all her life, Sagan nevertheless went on to become one of France’s most prolific and notable 20th-century writers.

 

More recent young women authors …

Writers in their teens and twenties are still producing the novels, maybe more then ever before. Here are a few recent titles, not including those written by enterprising self-publishers who build their readership on social media (especially TikTok):

S.E. Hinton was in high school when she wrote the now-classic YA novel of disaffected youth, The Outsiders (1967).

Angie Thomas wrote The Hate U Give (2017) while she was in high school and was twenty-one when it was published. A YA novel intended to shed light on the Black Lives Matter movement and the issue of police brutality, it was adapted to a highly acclaimed film that came out the following year.

Kody Keplinger was seventeen when she wrote The Duff (2010), a YA romance that stirred up some controversy. Though she has written several YA novels since, The Duff remains her best known.

Helen Oyeyemi was eighteen when The Icarus Girl (2005), a story of a girl with a Nigerian Mother and English father, was published to much acclaim. She has since published seven more novels and two plays.

Flavia Bujor (French-Romanian) takes the prize for youth here — she wrote the children’s story, The Prophecy of the Stones (2004) when she was thirteen. Though the reviews for the American edition were quite mixed, it was translated into twenty-three languages.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *