25 Fun Facts About Your Favorite Authors You Probably Didn’t Know About

1. J.K. Rowling, queen of all things Hogwarts, wrote her original draft of Harry Potter on an antique typewriter in 1996.

2. Hermoine Granger is actually based on Rowling’s 11-year-old self. Precious.

3. Oscar Wilde makes an appearance behind John Legend on The Beatles’ famous album cover for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band.

4. Oscar Wilde’s only novel is The Picture of Dorian Gray.

5. J.D. Salinger wrote parts of The Catcher in the Rye while he was you know, casually serving in World War II.

6. Salinger enjoyed studying various religions.

7. When William Shakespeare was 18-years-old, he married a woman named Anne Hathaway (not the actress from The Devil Wears Prada).

8. Dr. Seuss wasn’t even kind of a doctor. He added Doctor to his name to amp up his writing street cred. I respect this creativity.

9. Dr. Seuss won a ton of awards, including two Emmys. Casual.

10. Stephen King is an openly dedicated and obsessed Boston Red Sox fan. This is just another method he uses to crush my soul.

11. One of Stephen King’s pen-names is Richard Bachman. Even his pseudonyms are respectable.

12. Between 1982-1984, Nora Roberts wrote 23 novels. Same.

13. From 1991-2001, Nora Roberts’s wrote 68 books that landed on the New York Times bestseller list. Same again.

14. Over the last 20 years, it is estimated that an average of 13 Nora Roberts books are sold every minute.

15. Ernest Hemmingway’s dad wanted him to become a doctor. Ernest was all like “Nah.”

16. Hemmingway became a reporter for The Kansas City Star instead of becoming an MD. There, his editor gave him a list of writing tips that Hemmingway referenced and praised for the rest of his career.

17. Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald were pals, but they had a weird ass friendship.

18. Hemmingway asked Fitzgerald to read a draft of A Farewell to Arms. Fitzgerald offered him ten pages of notes regarding the draft. Hemmingway responded gratefully with the following statement: “Kiss my ass.” So, there’s that.

19. Danielle Steel told the anchors on Good Morning America that she writes all of her novels on a typewriter from 1946. Is this what I need to do to get a novel published?

20. Roald Dahl did not starting writing books for children until he had children of his own. This. Is. Adorable.

21. Dahl also served in World War II. He was a fighter pilot.

22. Mark Twain’s real name was Samuel Clemens.

23. Twain stated that he based Huckleberry Finn on a real person who he described as “ignorant…but had as good a heart as any boy had ever had.”

24. George R.R. Martin is from New Jersey. Just one more thing that he and Sammi from Jersey Shore have in common.

25. You know how Georgie boy STAYS killing off your favorite Game of Thrones characters? Well, there is a method to his madness. He says he does it to reflect the reality of war.