A new study (2/08) suggests that sadness leads to shopping.
William Shakespeare wrote about 37 to 39 plays, depending on how collaborations are counted, along with 154 sonnets.
Shakespeare is credited with the first recorded use of hundreds of English words, including "eyeball," "swagger," and "lonely."
Shakespeare's First Folio, published in 1623 after his death by his fellow actors, preserved 18 plays that might otherwise have been lost, and a copy sold for about $10 million in 2020.
The original Globe Theatre burned down in 1613 when a cannon fired during a performance of Shakespeare's "Henry VIII" set the thatched roof on fire.
In his will, Shakespeare left his wife Anne Hathaway his "second-best bed," a line historians still debate.
Only six signatures by Shakespeare are known to survive, and he spelled his name in different ways in them.
Most of Uranus's moons, including Miranda, Oberon, and Titania, are named after characters from Shakespeare's plays.
Shakespeare is the most performed playwright in the world.
"Hamlet" is Shakespeare's longest play.
Almost none of Shakespeare's original handwritten manuscripts survive.
At age 12, Charles Dickens worked in a factory pasting labels on pots of shoe polish while his father was in debtors' prison.
Most of Charles Dickens's novels were first published in monthly or weekly installments, which kept readers hooked on cliffhangers.
Charles Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" in about six weeks in 1843 and paid to publish it himself.
Charles Dickens survived the Staplehurst rail crash in 1865 and helped care for injured passengers.
Charles Dickens's early pen name was "Boz."
Charles Dickens's pet raven, Grip, is believed to have inspired Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven," and the stuffed bird is now at the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Charles Dickens is buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey.
Charles Dickens made popular reading tours of America.
Charles Dickens had 10 children.
"Dickensian" describes poor, grim conditions like those in Dickens's novels.
Jane Austen published her novels anonymously. Her first was credited only to "A Lady."
Jane Austen completed six major novels.
"Pride and Prejudice" was originally titled "First Impressions."
Jane Austen appears on the Bank of England's £10 note, issued in 2017.
Jane Austen reluctantly dedicated "Emma" to the Prince Regent, a fan of her work.
Jane Austen never married, though she accepted a marriage proposal and then withdrew her acceptance the next day.
Jane Austen died in 1817 at age 41.
Jane Austen wrote at a small table in her home in Chawton, England.
Devoted fans of Jane Austen are called "Janeites."
Jane Austen earned only about £600 from her novels during her lifetime.
Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Clemens, and his pen name came from a riverboat term meaning water two fathoms deep.
Mark Twain was born in 1835 when Halley's Comet appeared, predicted he would die when it returned, and died in 1910, the year it came back.
Mark Twain worked as a licensed Mississippi River steamboat pilot.
"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" has often been challenged or banned in schools.
Mark Twain was among the first authors to submit a typewritten manuscript to a publisher.
Mark Twain held three patents, including one for a self-pasting scrapbook.
Mark Twain's famous line about reports of his death is a popular misquote of what he actually wrote.
Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla were friends.
Mark Twain went bankrupt after investing in a failed typesetting machine and paid off his debts with a lecture tour around the world.
The Kennedy Center awards the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
J.K. Rowling came up with the idea for Harry Potter in 1990 while on a delayed train from Manchester to London.
The first Harry Potter book was rejected by 12 publishers before Bloomsbury published it in 1997.
J.K. Rowling's publisher asked her to use initials, and she borrowed the "K" from her grandmother Kathleen.
The Harry Potter series is the best-selling book series of all time, with more than 600 million copies sold.
J.K. Rowling wrote parts of Harry Potter in cafés in Edinburgh.
J.K. Rowling writes crime novels under the pen name Robert Galbraith.
J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter share a birthday, July 31.
The first printing of the first Harry Potter book was just 500 hardback copies.
The first Harry Potter book was retitled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the US.
J.K. Rowling founded the children's charity Lumos.
Agatha Christie is the best-selling fiction writer of all time, with an estimated two billion books sold.
Agatha Christie's play "The Mousetrap" has run continuously in London since 1952, making it the longest-running play in history.
In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days, sparking a massive search before she was found at a hotel.
Agatha Christie learned about poisons while working in a hospital dispensary.
Agatha Christie wrote romance novels under the pen name Mary Westmacott.
When Agatha Christie killed off Hercule Poirot in 1975, the New York Times ran his obituary on the front page.
Agatha Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan.
Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" is the best-selling mystery novel of all time.
Agatha Christie is the most translated individual author.
Agatha Christie was one of the first British people to stand-up surf, in Hawaii in 1924.
Ernest Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
Ernest Hemingway was an ambulance driver in World War I and was wounded.
Ernest Hemingway's "iceberg theory" means leaving most of a story's meaning beneath the surface.
The six-toed cats at Hemingway's Key West home are descended from his cat Snow White.
Ernest Hemingway survived two plane crashes in Africa in 1954, and some newspapers mistakenly ran his obituary.
Ernest Hemingway often wrote standing up.
In 1922, a suitcase with Hemingway's early manuscripts was stolen from his wife Hadley at a Paris train station.
Ernest Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for "The Old Man and the Sea."
The famous six-word story about baby shoes is often credited to Hemingway, but there's no proof he wrote it.
Ernest Hemingway's novel "The Sun Also Rises" made the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, famous.
Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" is about 587,000 words long.
Leo Tolstoy was nominated for the Nobel Prize many times but never won.
Tolstoy's wife, Sophia, copied the "War and Peace" manuscript by hand several times.
Leo Tolstoy's ideas about nonviolence influenced Mahatma Gandhi, and the two exchanged letters.
Leo Tolstoy died at a railway station in 1910, at age 82.
Leo Tolstoy was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901.
Leo Tolstoy's estate was called Yasnaya Polyana.
The "Anna Karenina principle," used in science, is named after the opening line of Tolstoy's novel.
Leo Tolstoy was a Russian count.
Leo Tolstoy learned to ride a bicycle at age 67.
George Orwell's real name was Eric Arthur Blair, and he was born in India in 1903.
George Orwell wrote much of "1984" on the remote Scottish island of Jura while he was seriously ill.
George Orwell's "1984" made terms like "Big Brother," "doublethink," and "thoughtcrime" part of everyday language.
"Animal Farm" was rejected by several publishers, including T.S. Eliot at Faber and Faber.
George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War and was shot in the throat.
George Orwell served in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma.
Room 101 in "1984" was reportedly named after a BBC meeting room.
George Orwell worked as a dishwasher in Paris, an experience he described in "Down and Out in Paris and London."
Sales of "1984" spiked in 2017.
The Orwell Prize is a British award for political writing.
Stephen King threw out the manuscript of "Carrie," but his wife Tabitha pulled it from the trash and encouraged him to finish it.
Stephen King wrote several novels under the pen name Richard Bachman.
Stephen King was hit by a van in 1999 and seriously injured.
Stephen King lives in Bangor, Maine, and many of his books are set in Maine.
Stephen King has sold more than 350 million books.
Stephen King received the National Medal of Arts.
Stephen King plays in the Rock Bottom Remainders, a band made up of authors.
Stephen King lets student filmmakers adapt some of his short stories for just $1, and the films are called "Dollar Babies."
Stephen King has made cameo appearances in film adaptations of his books.
"The Shawshank Redemption" is based on a Stephen King novella.
Edgar Allan Poe is considered the father of the detective story, starting with "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" in 1841.
Edgar Allan Poe was reportedly paid about $9 for "The Raven."
The Baltimore Ravens are named after Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven."
For decades, a mysterious visitor called the "Poe Toaster" left cognac and roses at Edgar Allan Poe's grave on his birthday.
Edgar Allan Poe's death in Baltimore in 1849 remains a mystery.
Edgar Allan Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm.
Edgar Allan Poe attended West Point but got himself expelled.
The Edgar Awards for mystery writing are named after Edgar Allan Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe's essay "Eureka" included ideas about the universe that resemble later scientific theories.
Edgar Allan Poe was orphaned as a child and taken in by John Allan.
J.R.R. Tolkien was born in South Africa in 1892.
J.R.R. Tolkien worked on the Oxford English Dictionary, researching words like "walrus" and "wasp."
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the first line of "The Hobbit" on a blank page while grading exam papers.
J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were members of the Inklings, a literary group.
J.R.R. Tolkien invented languages, including the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin.
"The Lord of the Rings" was written as one novel, but the publisher split it into three volumes.
J.R.R. Tolkien fought in the Battle of the Somme.
Ten-year-old Rayner Unwin was paid a shilling to review "The Hobbit" for his father's publishing company.
J.R.R. Tolkien's gravestone includes the names "Beren" and "Lúthien," characters from his writings.
"The Hobbit" was published in 1937.
"Authors," a Go Fish-style game with famous writers on the cards, was published in 1861.
The Oregon Dunes inspired author Frank Herbert to write "Dune" after he visited in 1957.
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