I know of a few literary classics written by teenagers (like Rimbaud’s “a Season in Hell”), but are there any examples of notable literary classics written primarily when the author was in their 80s or older?
Henry Roth was born in 1906. He published his first novel Call It Sleep in 1934. He published his second novel Mercy of a Rude Stream (in four parts) in 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1998. He died in 1995. A final part of Mercy of a Rude Stream was published in 2010. Classic - who knows? They were well reviewed.
P.G. Wodehouse.
He died in 1975 at the age of 93 with his beloved typewriter at his side in the hospital room, bearing the last page of the unfinished manuscript of Sunset at Blandings.
He was still writing, but I wouldn’t call his later works classics. I thought his later books showed a marked decline. Obviously a subjective assessment on my part.
Moved to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Define a literary classic.
If it’s defined by a select committee deciding it’s a classic, then Doris Lessing won a Nobel prize in literature at the age of 89.
If it’s defined by readership, Barabara Cartland was still selling in the millions into her 90s.
If it’s defined some other way, you need to tell us what that is.
Multiple published critics called it a literary classic.
Yeah, “classic” is the tricky part. P.G. Wodehouse has been mentioned, and I know Rex Stout was still writing Nero Wolfe mysteries in his eighties, but Wodehouse’s last few books weren’t particularly memorable, and I don’t consider Stout’s last few books to be “classics” of the mystery genre- just decent, workmanlike products.
Helen Hooven Santmyer was born in 1895. She published her first novel Herbs and Apples in 1925 and her second novel The Fierce Dispute in 1929. She published her third novel “. . . And Ladies of the Club” in 1982. She died in 1986. Again, classic? Well, who knows, but it was well reviewed. There is an unpublished novel The Hall with Eight Doors.
I agree, although those of us attuned to his style of writing consider even Wodehouse in decline to be miles above any other comparable writing. He arguably hit his peak during the 30s and 40s, although he wrote great stuff both before and after. Most of the Mulliner series and Ukridge stories were written in the late 20s, and several great Blandings books came from the 50s. His latest works did start to become formulaic. Still, he managed to turn out Jeeves stories that were quite up to par right to the end – Much Obliged, Jeeves in 1971 when he would have been 89, and Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen in 1974 at the age of 92.
apocryphal classical anecdote
Sophocles wrote Oedipus at Colonus when he was very old. In his 90s
His son took him to court to have him declared incompetent so he could get his inheritance. Sophocles just read some lines of his new play he was writing to prove he was still with it.
Norman Maclean published his first book, the Pulitzer nominated A River Runs Through It in 1976 when he was 74. He spent his last years before dying at 87 on his second book Young Men and Fire which was published after his death. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992.
That was for a lifetime body of work, not one specific book.
The last book Lessing wrote that won an award in its own right seems to have been The Good Terrorist, when she was 65. In the context of this thread, that’s probably an honorable mention.
Jack Williamson won the Hugo and Nebula awards for his novella, “The Ultimate Earth” in 2001/2002. He was 92 when it was published. He also won a John Campbell Memorial Award that year for Terraforming Earth.
Though he had won some lifetime achievement awards and a nonfiction Hugo previous to this, it was the first time he had won an award for a single work in competition with others. No one who he competed with had been born before Williamson’s first published work, and most likely some of their fathers hadn’t been either.
To put that in perspective, Williamson was winning awards in the 21st century even though his birthplace wasn’t even a state when he was born.
I was going to mention Young Men and Fire. It’s an extraordinarily beautifully written book, and one of my favorites.
This isn’t quite what you’re asking about, but I think the most interesting example of an artist in any field continuing to work well into old age is the Portuguese film director Manoel de Oliveira. He was born on December 11, 1908. He appeared as an extra in a film of the silent era and worked with some other people in trying to make a film in the silent era which didn’t get finished. He didn’t really get started as a director of feature films until 1972, and it was only in 1983 that he began to consistently average directing a feature film a year. After he turned 100, he directed three feature films and some short films too. He died on April 2, 2015 at the age of 106. He was working on plans for another film at the time of his death. I don’t think he’s considered a great director, but he was a consistently interesting one:
Interesting examples, thanks everyone.
personally, these are two of my least favourite Wodehouse books and I thought they really showed his decline, particularly Aunts.
RealityChuck writes:
> To put that in perspective, Williamson was winning awards in the 21st century even though his birthplace wasn’t even a state when he was born.
Of course, you could also say that of Ellen Kushner, since D.C. still isn’t a state.
You could also say it about anyone who wasn’t born in the USA.