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Stumbled on a weird fact about the first sci-fi novel
I was reading about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and found out she wrote it when she was only 18. That's crazy young. It started from a ghost story contest during a rainy summer in Switzerland. Anyone know other famous books written by people under 20?
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robert641mo ago
Yeah that always blows my mind too. Makes you feel a bit behind, doesn't it? Writing something that lasts forever while still basically a teenager. The only other one I can remember is S.E. Hinton writing The Outsiders at 16. Pretty wild what some people can do so young.
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miles7981mo ago
Wow, that's a great point from @robert64 about feeling behind. It really makes you wonder what the conditions were for those young authors. Like, was it just raw talent, or did having that free time and a specific challenge, like Shelley's contest, force the creativity? I'd be curious to know if most of these famous young writers had unusual amounts of support or freedom to just focus on writing.
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