Famous Classics - are they famous during their time?

Dicken's books were enormously popular during his lifetime.
He had celebrity status and sailed to America for speaking engagements.
Emily Dickenson's poetry collections, hardly heard of during her lifetime, are now renowned and acclaimed. I think in general if a writer is going against the grain their works will take much longer to catch on and gain an audience. Hope that helps some.

Moby Dick was not popular when it came out. The Lord of the Rings series didn't do very well when first published.

Jane Eyre was a big hit, commercially and critically.

The Great Gatsby didn't do as well, at least commercially, at first.

I tend to think that, in the modern era, most "classics" tend to make something of a splash upon their debut, at least critically, but there are always dark horses that prove themselves over time.

(Earlier masterpieces, like Don Quixote or something, can't really be judged by modern publishing standards -- though that one sold and sells like crazy.)

It truly goes both ways. It depends on so many factors. For example, Mark Twain was very well received during his lifetime. He had both fame and wealth based on his writing. (He also lost the wealth, but that was due to bad investments.) Thomas Hardy's work received so much criticism, that he gave up writing novels and returned to poetry. (On one hand, he was rather thin-skinned. On the other hand, someone did burn one of his novels and mail the ashes to him.)

I don't think Pride & Prejudice was that popular in Austen's time. But now it's one of her (and the world's) most popular novels.

I think Les Miserables was an instant success. There's an old story, where Hugo wrote a letter to his publisher to ask how sales were going. His letter consisted of nothing more than a question-mark. The publisher replied with an exclamation-mark.

maestrowork said:

I don't think Pride & Prejudice was that popular in Austen's time. But now it's one of her (and the world's) most popular novels.

Click to expand...

Pride and Prejudice was actually very popular from the start. The first edition sold out in a few months, & the novel has never been out of print since.

dpaterso said:

That certainly puts some of the harsher critiques posted in Share Your Work into perspective.

-Derek

Click to expand...

Doesn't it? I'd have to double-check, but I think that was his last novel, before he decided to stick with poetry.

If I'm not mistaken, Ben-Hur (General Lew Wallace) and Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson) were both pretty popular novels when they first came out.



--Sean

Weren't Jules Verne and Wells pretty much instant hits?

Tri

How are we and the OP defining 'classics'?

Like others have said--it goes both ways. But I think the one thing every classic has in common is that it touches an integral part of human nature, whether that's the part that likes excitement or...well, something a little "deeper". It may be well-received or not at first, but the really good stuff gets found out eventually.

usually.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a best-selling author in his day and wildly popular in France. Because of that, high school kids will be punished with the Scarlet Letter 'til the end of time...

I would expect books considered classics today would have to have been reasonably popular and acclaimed when first published or they wouldn't have stayed in print long enough to reach official "classic" status.

anis said:

Emily Dickenson's poetry collections, hardly heard of during her lifetime

Click to expand...

Emily Dickinson only published a handful of poems during her lifetime, all anonymously or with initials only, in newspapers and magazines. Although it was her ambition to publish a book of her poetry, she was dissuaded from doing so by her mentor and friend, Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Moby Dick was considered a commercial failure when it was published, especially compared to Melville's earlier books Typee and Redburn (which were more conventional seafaring adventure narratives). It was positively reviewed in both the US and the UK, though.

Billy Buddwas found in the bread warmer in a wood stove after the death of Melville. Melville died in obscurity.

JamieFord said:

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a best-selling author in his day and wildly popular in France. Because of that, high school kids will be punished with the Scarlet Letter 'til the end of time...

Click to expand...

Also college students!

gerrydodge said:

Billy Buddwas found in the bread warmer in a wood stove after the death of Melville. Melville died in obscurity.

Click to expand...

oh dear, I was supposed to read that for class today.

Exir said:

Thanks all! I think the general trend is that the classics are usually well received at their time. Now the question is: are they usually best-sellers at their time? Or are they just simply critically acclaimed?

Click to expand...

Some of each. Dickens, Balzac, Zola, Thackeray, Mann, Tolstoy, Hugo, and many others were top sellers. Others, like Melville, Poe, Dostoevsky, and Joyce, for example, had more ups and downs in their publishing histories.

I can't think of a publishing equivalent to van Gogh--someone who couldn't sell his or her work while they were alive, but who was later hailed as a genius. Melville and Poe probably come the closest.

Then there are figures like Kafka and Dickinson, who published almost nothing during their lifetimes.

Huckleberry Finn was not well-received when first published. Some even called it trash. I just finished Life on the Mississippi and found it only half good. first part, Ok, second part a hodge-podge. Mostly due to the publisher's desires, the second half was done later and is mostly just descriptive. Twain was an uneven writer. He struggled with Huck Finn and had to write himself out of a few corners, changing plot in midstream. Much as we do today, eh?

IceCreamEmpress said:

I can't think of a publishing equivalent to van Gogh--someone who couldn't sell his or her work while they were alive, but who was later hailed as a genius. Melville and Poe probably come the closest.

Click to expand...

Perhaps John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)?

Oberon said:

Huckleberry Finn was not well-received when first published. Some even called it trash. I just finished Life on the Mississippi and found it only half good. first part, Ok, second part a hodge-podge. Mostly due to the publisher's desires, the second half was done later and is mostly just descriptive. Twain was an uneven writer. He struggled with Huck Finn and had to write himself out of a few corners, changing plot in midstream. Much as we do today, eh?

Click to expand...

But they liked Tom Sawyer? Was that earlier? Why the problem with Huck? I always thought Huck's narrative voice was one of the best ever.

Exir said:

Thanks all! I think the general trend is that the classics are usually well received at their time. Now the question is: are they usually best-sellers at their time? Or are they just simply critically acclaimed?

Click to expand...

It's easy to come up with a huge list of best-sellers that nobody has ever heard of...how about Aretino...the first guy to make a bundle off Porn:

http://www.artarchiv.net/doku/museum/Aretino.htm

http://www.wga.hu/database/glossary/illustri/aretino.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Aretino