Popular American writers. "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

If we consider Luhrmann's version, then « The Great Gatsby » It's been filmed five times already. Another famous Fitzgerald novel is « Night is tender » - transferred to the screen twice. Is this a lot or a little?
Rating of American authors, modern and classic, whose works are most often used in films:

1. Edgar Allan Poe
70 stories
1 story
51 poems
Film adaptations: 212 (large - 94)
Acclaimed master of mysticism and creator modern detective Edgar Allan Poe takes first place on the list and leaves behind all possible competitors. It is surprising that during his lifetime the writer was very poor. Recognition came to him only after death, but what a recognition! His stories and poems are an inexhaustible source for the director's imagination. In 1968, Roger Vadim, Louis Malle and Federico Fellini shot the legendary three-part film “Three Steps in Delirium” based on Poe’s works. And in 2012, James McTeigue directed the film “The Raven,” in which he fantasized about how a writer would investigate crimes that he himself inspired a maniac to commit.

2. Jack London
More than 200 stories (16 collections)
21 novels and stories
3 plays
Film adaptations: 124 (large - 78)For 17 years literary activity the author achieved enormous popularity. His fees were 50 thousand dollars per book - a lot of money at that time. In 1913, Jack London himself played cameo role in the film adaptation of his novel " Sea wolf"directed by Hobart Bosworth. His books enjoyed great success in the USSR, and quite a few films were made based on them. Let’s remember, for example, “Hearts of Three” from 1992.

3. O. Henry
252 stories
1 novel
Film adaptations: 184 (large - 72)
Short films based on O. Henry's stories began to be filmed during his lifetime, in 1909. And one of the most famous film adaptations of the author is the 1952 film “The Leader of the Redskins and Others.” It includes five different short stories, directed by five by different directors: “Pharaoh and Choral”, “Trumpet Voice”, “ Last page", "Leader of the Redskins" and "Gifts of the Magi". In the first, Marilyn Monroe appears in one of the roles. The voiceover is read by writer John Steinbeck. He also appears at the beginning of each part, and this is the only time he has appeared on the silver screen in his entire life.

4. Mark Twain
57 stories
8 novels and stories (+ 1 co-authored)
9 articles
1 autobiography
Film adaptations: 105 (large - 51)
William Faulkner called Mark Twain the first truly American writer. And Ernest Hemingway believed that all subsequent literature came from the book “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” This work has been filmed several times in the States, but local critics consider the Soviet version, filmed in 1973 by Georgy Danelia, to be the best. His “Completely Lost” was even nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

5. Howard Phillips Lovecraft
59 stories (+ 38 co-authored)
6 novels and stories (+ 2 co-authored)
1 cycle of sonnets
Film adaptations: 109 (large - 49)
This man did not publish a single book during his lifetime; his work was not popular. And this is a paradox, because without Lovecraft, modern horror as we know it would not exist. His works are even highlighted in separate genre Lovecraftian horror. It’s enough that it was he who came up with the Cthulhu myths and the Necronomicon. Yes, yes, exactly the one that the guys from “The Evil Dead” managed to read.

6. Lyman Frank Baum
60 novels and stories (+ 4 that are lost)
68 stories (+ 3 lost)
5 poetic works
12 pieces (+ 4 lost)
Film adaptations: 105 (large - 31)
Baum was one of the most talented children's writers of his era. But he remained in history mainly as the “court historian of Oz” - that’s what he called himself. Fantasies about this magical world there are dozens, if not hundreds, and a significant part of them have been embodied in cinema. Most famous film adaptation Baum can be considered Victor Fleming's "Wizard of Oz" (he also directed Gone with the Wind in 1939), starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. And recently, the director of “Spider-Man” and “The Evil Dead”, Sam Raimi, turned to the history of Oz, making the film “Oz the Great and Powerful,” a kind of prequel to Fleming’s film.



7. Francis Scott Fitzgerald
About 70 stories
5 novels
1 piece
1 collection of journalism
Film adaptations: 40 (large - 27)
The king of the "Jazz Age", Fitzgerald himself coined this term, uniting the period American history from the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Great Depression. Almost all of his heroes are representatives of “ lost generation", people who believed in the American dream, but did not find in it what they were looking for. So was Jay Gatsby, whose book was filmed five times. The last to do this was Baz Luhrmann, who cast Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role. Before him, the most famous Gatsby can be considered Robert Redford. And in 2008, David Fincher filmed based on short story Fitzgerald's three-hour film " Misterious story Benjamin Button" starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.


8. James Fenimore Cooper
33 novels
5 stories
6 historical works and biographies
2 political essays
6 travel stories
1 memoirs
Film adaptations: 38 (large - 22)This classic of American literature is known for his adventure novels. According to legend, Cooper wrote his first work as a bet, promising his wife that he could outdo the book she was reading at that moment. In 1909, the first short film, Leather Stockings, was made based on his novels. And in 1992, Michael Mann directed the film “The Last of the Mohicans” with Daniel Day-Lewis in leading role. The film received an Oscar for best sound.


9. Ernest Hemingway
10 collections of short stories
11 novels and stories
13 works of documentary prose
Film adaptations: 55 (large - 19) Handsome!
Hemingway was famous for his short and succinct style, so it is very difficult to count the stories he wrote. Suffice it to remember that it was he who owned one of the most famous short works, which in the original consists of only six words (and when translated it can be shortened to three): “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” The first time Hemingway's novel was filmed was in 1932 (“A Farewell to Arms”). And in 1999 Russian artist Alexander Petrov created a short film animated film“The Old Man and the Sea”, for which he received an Oscar.


And, finally, just an interesting picture of who influenced whom and how.)

1. Truman Capote - "Summer Cruise"
Truman Capote is one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century, author of such bestsellers as Breakfast at Tiffany's, Other Voices, Other Rooms, In Cold Blood and The Meadow Harp. We bring to your attention the debut novel written by the twenty-year-old Capote, when he first arrived from New Orleans to New York, and for sixty years was considered lost. The manuscript for "Summer Cruise" surfaced at Sotheby's in 2004, and was first published in 2006. In this novel, Capote, with unsurpassed stylistic grace, describes the dramatic events in the life of high-society debutante Grady McNeil, who remains in New York for the summer while her parents sail to Europe. She falls in love with the parking lot attendant and flirts with her childhood friend, remembers her past hobbies and dances in fashionable dance halls...

2. Irving Shaw - "Lucy Crown"
The book includes one of the most famous novels American prose writer and playwright Irwin Shaw's Lucy Crown (1956). Like the writer's other works - "Two Weeks in Another City", "Evening in Byzantium", "Rich Man, Poor Man" - this novel opens up to the reader a world of fragile connections and complex, sometimes unpredictable relationships between people. The story about how one mistake can turn the whole life of a person and his loved ones upside down, about unappreciated and destroyed family happiness is told deceptively in simple language, amazes the author with his knowledge of human psychology and invites the reader to reflection and empathy.

3. John Irving - "Men Not Her Life"
An undoubted classic modern literature The West and one of its undisputed leaders plunges the reader into a mirror labyrinth of reflections: fears from children's books once popular writer Ted Cole is suddenly overgrown with flesh, and now the fabulous mole man turns into a real maniac killer, so that almost forty years later Ruth Cole, the writer’s daughter, also a writer, collecting material for the novel, becomes a witness to his cruel crime. But first and foremost, Irving's novel is about love. The atmosphere of condensed sensuality, love without shores and restrictions fills its pages with a certain magnetic force, turning the reader into a participant in a magical action.

4. Kurt Vonnegut - "Mother Darkness"
A novel in which the great Vonnegut, with his characteristic dark and mischievous humor, explores inner world... a professional spy reflecting on his own direct participation in the destinies of the nation.

Writer and playwright Howard Campbell, recruited by American intelligence, is forced to play the role of an ardent Nazi - and gets a lot of pleasure from his cruel and dangerous masquerade.

He deliberately piles absurdity upon absurdity, but the more surreal and comical his Nazi “exploits” are, the more they trust him, the more more people listen to his opinion.

However, wars end in peace - and Campbell will have to live without the opportunity to prove his non-involvement in the crimes of Nazism...

5. Arthur Haley - "Final Diagnosis"
Why did Arthur Hailey's novels captivate the whole world? What made them classics of world fiction? Why, as soon as “Hotel” and “Airport” came out in our country, they were literally swept off the shelves, stolen from libraries, given to friends “in line” to read?

Very simple. The works of Arthur Haley are a kind of “slices of life”. Life at the airport, hotel, hospital, Wall Street. A closed space in which people live - with their joys and sorrows, ambitions and hopes, intrigues and passions. People work, fight, fall in love, break up, achieve success, break the law - that’s life. That's what Hayley's novels are like...

6. Jerome Salinger - "The Glass Saga"
“Jerome David Salinger’s series of stories about the Glass family is a masterpiece of American literature of the 20th century, “a blank piece of paper instead of an explanation.” Zen Buddhism and nonconformism in Salinger’s books inspired more than one generation to rethink life and search for ideals.
Salinger loves the Glasses more than God loves them. He loves them too exclusively. Their invention became a hermit's hut for him. He loves them to the point that he is ready to limit himself as an artist."

7. Jack Kerouac - "Dharma Bums"
Jack Kerouac gave a voice to an entire generation in literature for his short life managed to write about 20 books of prose and poetry and became the most famous and controversial author of his time. Some branded him as a subverter of foundations, others considered him a classic modern culture, but from his books all beatniks and hipsters learned to write - to write not what you know, but what you see, firmly believing that the world itself will reveal its nature.

A celebration of the outback and the bustling metropolis, Buddhism and the San Francisco poetic revival, Dharma Bums is a jazz-improvised tale of the spiritual quest of a generation that believed in kindness and humility, wisdom and ecstasy; generation, the manifesto and bible of which was another Kerouac novel, “On the Road,” which brought the author worldwide fame and entered the golden fund of American classics.

8. Theodore Dreiser - "American Tragedy"
The novel "An American Tragedy" is the pinnacle of the work of the outstanding American writer Theodore Dreiser. He said: “No one creates tragedies - life creates them. Writers only depict them.” Dreiser managed to portray the tragedy of Clive Griffiths so talentedly that his story does not leave anyone indifferent and modern reader. A young man who has tasted all the charm of the life of the rich is so eager to establish himself in their society that he commits a crime for this.

9. John Steinbeck - "Cannery Row"
The inhabitants of a poor neighborhood in a small seaside town...

Fishermen and thieves, small traders and swindlers, “moths” and their sad and cynical “guardian angel” - a middle-aged doctor...

The heroes of the story cannot be called respectable; they do not get along well with the law. But it is impossible to resist the charm of these people.

Their adventures, sometimes funny and sometimes sad, under the pen of the great John Steinbeck, turn into a real saga about a Man - both sinful and holy, vile and ready for self-sacrifice, deceitful and sincere...

10. William Faulkner - "The Mansion"
"Mansion" - last book William Faulkner's trilogy "The Village", "The Town", "The Mansion", dedicated to the tragedy of the aristocracy of the American South, which was faced with a painful choice - to preserve former ideas of honor and fall into poverty, or to break with the past and join the ranks of nouveau riche businessmen making quick and not very clean money on progress.
The mansion in which Flem Snopes settles gives the title to the entire novel and becomes the place where inevitable and terrible events take place that rock Yoknapatawaw County.

September 24 is the 120th anniversary of the birth of one of the most famous American writers, Francis Scott Fitzgerald. It is also one of the most difficult to understand, although at first the reader’s eye and mind are blinded by the brilliance of the parties described, behind it lie deep moral and social problems. The editors of YUGA.ru together with the network bookstores“Read City” has selected six more iconic works for this date that will help you look at America and Americans with different eyes.

"The Great Gatsby" - great novel, but there is no greatness either in the life or in the soul of his main character, there are only sparkling illusions, “which give the world such color that, having experienced this magic, a person becomes indifferent to the concept of true and false.” The wealthy millionaire Jay Gatsby had already lost them and, along with them, lost the opportunity to again feel the taste of life and love - and yet all their treasures were at his feet.

The reader is presented with the America of Prohibition, gangsters, playmakers and brilliant parties to the music of Duke Ellington. The very "age of jazz" magnificent century, when it still seemed that all wishes would come true, and you could get a star from the sky without even standing on your tiptoes.

The portrait of the main character of the "Trilogy of Desire" series, Frank Cowperwood, is largely based on a real-life person, millionaire Charles Yerkes, and in the last few years, viewers around the world have been following the life of central figure series "House of Cards", Frank Underwood. It can be assumed that the president even borrowed the name “great and terrible” from the character created by Dreiser. His whole life revolves around success, he is a shrewd financier and builds his empire, using everything and everyone for his own purposes. That’s exactly what “The Financier” is called, the first novel of the trilogy, where we see how the personality of a prudent businessman was formed, who is ready, without hesitation, to step over the law and moral principles, if they become an obstacle on his way.

The most acutely social and accusatory book ever written in the USA and about the USA, The Grapes of Wrath has perhaps no impact on the reader. less texts Solzhenitsyn. The cult novel was first published in 1939, won the Pulitzer Prize, and the author himself was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. A portrait of a nation during one of the most difficult periods in history, the Great Depression, is painted through the story of a farming family who, after going bankrupt, are forced to uproot and seek food on a grueling journey across the country on that same "Route 66". Like thousands, hundreds of thousands of other people, they go for illusory hope to sunny California, but even greater difficulties, hunger and death await them.

451° Fahrenheit is the temperature at which paper ignites. Bradbury's philosophical dystopia paints a picture post-industrial society: this is the world of the future, in which all written publications are mercilessly destroyed by a special squad of firefighters, the possession of books is prosecuted by law, interactive television successfully serves to fool everyone, punitive psychiatry decisively deals with rare dissidents, and an electric dog comes out to hunt for incorrigible dissidents. Today, in Russia in 2016, the relevance of the novel published in 1953 (already 63 years ago!) is greater than ever - in different parts of the country, home-grown censors are raising their heads who seek to limit freedom of speech precisely by destroying and banning books.

Jack London's life was as romantic - at least when viewed through some lyrical lens - and eventful as his novels, and Martin Eden is considered the pinnacle of his work. This work is about a man who achieved recognition of his talent by society, but was deeply disappointed in the respectable bourgeois stratum that finally accepted him. In the words of the writer himself, this is “the tragedy of a loner trying to instill the truth in the world.” A truly timeless work and a hero whose feelings are understandable to readers on any continent and in any era.

One of the most difficult to understand, but at the same time incredibly interesting and multifaceted authors, Kurt Vonnegut wrote, mixing genres and always leaving the reader with uncertainty - what exactly did he just read, was it an appeal to himself through the pages of a book and What are we even talking about here? In “Breakfast for Champions,” the author surprisingly subtly and accurately destroys stereotypes of perception, showing us man and life on Earth with a detached look, looking as if from another planet, where they don’t know what an apple or a weapon is. Main character, writer Kilgore Trout is both the author's alter ego and his interlocutor, he is about to get literary prize. At the same time, someone who reads his novel (the character, Dwayne Hoover, was played by Bruce Willis in the 1999 film adaptation) slowly goes crazy, taking everything written in it at face value and losing touch with reality - as he begins to doubt the reader is also in it.

In John Updike's first novel in the Rabbit series, Harry Engstrom - and this is precisely his nickname - is a young man for whom the rose-colored glasses of his youth have already been broken by the inexorable reality. He went from being the star of his high school basketball team to becoming a husband and father, forced to work in a supermarket to provide for his family. He is unable to come to terms with this and goes on the run. Updike and Kerouac seem to be talking about the same people, but in different tones - so those who have read the latter’s work “On the Road” will be interested in moving from beatnik literature to complex psychological prose, and those who have not read it will undoubtedly get a lot pleasure, switching attention and plunging even deeper into the same topic.

Famous American writers and their work is an example of successful literary achievements.

Famous American Writers

Famous American writers include: Mark Twain, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, O. Henry, Blanche Barton, Edgar Allan Poe, John Steinbeck, Theodore Dreiser, William Faulkner, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Dan Brown and others.

(1876-1916) - American writer, public figure, socialist. He is best known as the author of adventure stories and novels. Creative heritage has many works, these include: “The Sea Wolf” (1904), “ White Fang"(1906), "Interstellar Traveler" (1915), etc.

(1835-1910) - American writer, humorist, satirist, publicist, publisher. The most famous works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
William Faulkner wrote that he was “the first truly American writer, and we have all been his heirs ever since,” and Ernest Hemingway wrote that “all modern American literature has come from one book by Mark Twain, called The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” "".

(1862-1910) - American writer, master of the short story genre. O. Henry occupies an exceptional place in American literature as a master of the short story genre. Before his death, O. Henry expressed his intention to move on to a more complex genre - to the novel: “Everything that I have written so far is just self-indulgence, an attempt at writing, compared to what I will write in a year.” Henry's heroes are diverse: millionaires, cowboys, speculators, clerks, laundresses, bandits, financiers, politicians, writers, actors, painters, workers, engineers, firefighters. O. Henry's originality consisted in the brilliant use of jargon, sharp words and expressions, and in the general colorfulness of the dialogues.
Creative heritage: “The Roads We Choose” (1904), “The Gifts of the Magi” (1905), “The Last Leaf” (1907).

(1899-1961) - American writer and journalist, laureate Nobel Prize in literature in 1954, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1953.
He became widely known for his novels and short stories, as well as for his active and adventurous life. His laconic and rich narrative style played significant role in the literature of the 20th century. In 1993, the minor planet 3656 Hemingway was named in his honor. During his life he wrote and published 7 short stories, 6 collections of stories and 2 documentaries. Additional work, which include 3 short stories, 4 collections of short stories, 3 documentaries, published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.

Instructions

Possibly the first American writer to achieve world fame, became a poet and, at the same time, a founder detective genre Edgar Allan Poe. Being a deep mystic by nature, Edgar Allan Poe was not at all like an American. Perhaps that is why his work, without finding followers in the writer’s homeland, had a noticeable influence on European literature modern era.

Great place The United States is occupied by adventure novels, which are based on the exploration of the continent and the relationship between the first settlers and the indigenous population. The largest representatives of this trend were James Fenimore Cooper, who wrote a lot and fascinatingly about the Indians and the clashes of American colonists with them, Mine Reed, whose novels masterfully combine love line and detective-adventure intrigue, and Jack London, who glorified the courage and courage of the pioneers of the harsh lands of Canada and Alaska.

One of the most remarkable American of the 19th century is the outstanding satirist Mark Twain. His works such as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court” are read with equal interest by both young and adult readers.

Henry James lived in Europe for many years, but did not cease to be an American writer. In his novels “The Wings of the Dove”, “The Golden Cup” and others, the writer showed Americans who are naive and simple-minded by nature, who often find themselves victims of the intrigues of insidious Europeans.

Standing apart in the American 19th century is the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose anti-racist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin contributed greatly to the liberation of blacks.

The first half of the 20th century could be called the American Renaissance. At this time, such wonderful authors as Theodore Dreiser, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway created their works. Dreiser's first novel, Sister Carrie, whose heroine achieves success at the cost of losing her best human qualities, at first seemed immoral to many. Based on a crime chronicle, the novel "An American Tragedy" turned into a story of a crash. American dream».

The works of the king of the “Jazz Age” (a term coined by himself) Francis Scott Fitzgerald are largely based on autobiographical motifs. First of all, this applies to the magnificent novel “Tender is the Night,” where the writer told the story of his complex and painful relationship with his wife Zelda. Fitzgerald showed the collapse of the “American Dream” in famous novel"The Great Gatsby".

A tough and courageous perception of reality distinguishes creativity Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway. Among the most outstanding works writer - the novels “A Farewell to Arms!”, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea”.