# Artists with a big volume of works who are only known for one or two **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 28, 2010, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778 "2010-06-28T13:25:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/1 "2010-06-28T13:25:58Z")
Some artists are known for their enormous volume of works–Stephen King, Tom Clancey, Ed McBain, Marry Higgins Clark come to mind. Some artists with an equal amount of works are known as “the person who wrote…” the only one work that everybody knows. Madeline L’Engle wrote A Wrinkle in Time, a book that everyone knows and has read. Howver, she wrote a lot of very good [books](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_L'Engle#Partial_list_of_works) that few people know about. Similarly, Roald Dahl, for everything he wrote, is remembered for writing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And while everyone remembers the Alfred Hitchcock episode about the woman who kills her husand with a frozen leg of lamb, how many know that it was on Dahl’s short story [A Lambe to the Slaughter](http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lamb.html). And for one of my favorites, most people who say “I hate Andrew Lloyd Webber” know he wrote CATS. He wrote 14 other works, but let’s judge him on one alone. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/2 "2010-06-28T13:36:53Z")
John Galsworthy wrote **The Forsythe Saga**. He wrote a metric buttload of other novels, and was very popular in his day, but no one remembers any other works. F. Van Wyck Mason was a very prolific, popular American author who is now practically forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/3 "2010-06-28T13:38:06Z")
Don McLean is the poster child for this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/4 "2010-06-28T14:04:55Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Don McLean is the poster child for this thread. Is there room for Loudon Wainwright III on that poster? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/5 "2010-06-28T14:11:14Z")
Traffic is only known to the general music audience (if at all) for “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.” The Band – one of the biggest groups of the early 70s – is only known to modern audiences for “The Weight.” Joseph Heller is known for **Catch-22**. He wasn’t prolific, but he did write other books (though none as successful). Loudon Wainwright III has put out dozens of albums over the past 40 years, but if he’s known at all for his music, it’s because of “Dead Skunk.” (He’s also mentioned as the father of Rufus Wainwright). ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/6 "2010-06-28T14:14:57Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Don McLean is the poster child for this thread. > [@Crotalus](#): > > Is there room for Loudon Wainwright III on that poster? Arlo Guthrie makes it a trifecta! And his father Woody is mostly known for “This Land is Your Land.” Tom Paxton doesn’t even make the list, because everone knows a lot of the songs he wrote, but they are either attributed to someone else (John Denver did not write Whose Garden Was This? and Forest Lawn), or thought of as traditional folk songs, i.e. Rambling Boy. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/7 "2010-06-28T14:27:23Z")
Chris Isaac has had dozens of successful albums, two TV series and a fairly successful film career, but most people only know him for “Wicked Game”. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/8 "2010-06-28T14:32:54Z")
And from the Director of the Sixth Sense… ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/9 "2010-06-28T14:46:15Z")
Bram Stoker wrote at least twelve novels in addition to numerous short stories, but only die-hards know him for anything but _Dracula_. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/10 "2010-06-28T14:57:49Z")
Similarly, [Mary Shelley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Mary_Shelley), only known for Frankenstein, was a realy prolific writer. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/11 "2010-06-28T15:19:54Z")
My favorite in this category is H. Rider Haggard, who wrote and is remembered today for _King Solomon’s Mines_ and _She_, but was extremely prolific: he must have written some forty or so other books, most of which have long been forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/12 "2010-06-28T15:23:38Z")
Bobby McFerrin is mostly known for his 1988 hit “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” even though he has recorded lots of music across several genres. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/13 "2010-06-28T15:26:17Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > And for one of my favorites, most people who say “I hate Andrew Lloyd Webber” know he wrote CATS. He wrote 14 other works, but let’s judge him on one alone. Agreed. It’s just as legitimate to say “I hate Andrew Lloyd Webber because he wrote Phantom of the Opera\*” 😃 \*[sub]Or Evita, or Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, or Starlight Express. _Especially_ Starlight Express. But, hey, I don’t like musicals so what do I know?[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/14 "2010-06-28T15:32:05Z")
**Harriet Beecher Stowe** wrote a _stack_ of books. But all anyone knows about is _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_. If you go to her house in Hartford (She was literally Mark Twain’s next-door neighbor) they have copies of her books on her shelves. I didn’t recognize any of them, aside from UTC, and still can’t remember them – I’ve got to use the internet. (By contrast, even I can name other songs by Don MacLean) \*\* B. Traven\*\* is probably not even known by most people who otherwise know his work. He wrote _The Treasure of the Sierra Madre_, and I hads been under the impression that was all he wrote. The enigmatic writer actually wrote several novels (at any rate, several were published under that name), but AFAIK, no others were filmed, or made a big impression on most of the public. we still don’t know for sure who he was: > **[B. Traven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._Traven)** > > B. Traven (German: \[ˈbeː ˈtʁaːvn̩\]; Bruno Traven in some accounts) was the pen name of a novelist, presumed to be German, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. One certainty about Traven's life is that he lived for years in Mexico, where the majority of his fiction is also set—including The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927), the film adaptation of which won three Academy Awards in 1949. > Virtually every detail of Traven's ... ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/15 "2010-06-28T15:40:35Z")
And, of course, my favorite, whose books I’m still reading, is **Jules Verne**. Of course, people know he wrote other books (mainly because of the movies ostensibly adapted from them. Or, in the case of my generation, of Classics Illustrated adaptations). But they have no idea of quite how many he wrote – over sixty novels, not to mention nonfiction and (his biggest source of income), his plays. But you’re only likely to find a handful in bookstore – mostly _Around the World in eight days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, A Journey to the Center of the Earth_. And, if you’re lucky, _The Mysterious Island_. But most people have never even heard of his vast collection of other novels – _Propellor Island, Cesar Cascabel, The Begum’s Fortune, For the Flag_, and so on. But that last one has been filmed two or three times, is Verne’s _third_ novel featuring a submarine, and also has guided missiles in it. For that matter, although people know of a handful of his more fantastic works – _The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, First Men in the Moon, The Time Machine_, most people are unaware of the vast number of other fantastic works, including the ones with even more impressive predictions – \* The War in the Air\*, about the implications of airplanes in warfare, or _The World Set Free_ (atomic bombs dropped from those planes. And actually _called_ “atomic bombs”). Or about his large number of non-fantastic novels about “free love” and society. ---
**Author:** ![multimediac17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@multimediac17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/multimediac17)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/16 "2010-06-28T15:51:44Z")
Could Yoko Ono fit this? She’s well known for non-musical reasons and two of her Lennon collaboration albums sold well, but as a solo artist she is known by the public at large for one song, ‘Walking On Thin Ice’, despite releasing 11 studio albums, remix albums, compilations etc. over a span of 40 years. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/17 "2010-06-28T16:01:06Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > For that matter, although people know of a handful of his more fantastic works – _The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, First Men in the Moon, The Time Machine_, most people are unaware of the vast number of other fantastic works, including the ones with even more impressive predictions – \* The War in the Air\*, about the implications of airplanes in warfare, or _The World Set Free_ (atomic bombs dropped from those planes. And actually _called_ “atomic bombs”). Or about his large number of non-fantastic novels about “free love” and society. You forgot to mention that you’re talking about HG Wells in this paragraph. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/18 "2010-06-28T16:03:26Z")
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle saw early on that he was going to be defined by one character, Sherlock Holmes. So much so that he killed him off after a mere 14 stories. He always thought his historical novels were his best work. You know how well that worked. Lots of writers have created one memorable character who overshadow the rest of their long careers. Most people can’t name the creator of Zorro, although Johnston McCulley was the author of hundreds of stories, fifty novels, and numerous screenplays for film and television. H. G. Wells was probably better known for his nonfiction while he was alive than for the early fiction that we remember today. Who reads Ann Veronica or Brynhild or the Bulpington of Blup? (I also thought Cal was writing about Verne and missed that last paragraph.) How many people can name a single book by Robert Bloch other than Psycho? ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/19 "2010-06-28T16:24:25Z")
Todd Rundgren has with his bands [Nazz](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nazz#Discography) and [Utopia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_discography#Discography) more than [30 albums](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Rundgren_discography), has produced some of the most [popular albums ever released](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_out_of_hell) and, in his 60s, is still recording and touring new music, including [one of the best of his career](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liars_%28Todd_Rundgren_album%29). But except for his loyal fans, he’s known for only two - [_Hello It’s Me_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_It%27s_Me) and the stupidest thing he’s ever written [_Bang The Drum All Day_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang_the_Drum_All_Day). ---
**Author:** ![Rrose\_Selavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@Rrose\_Selavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rrose_Selavy)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778/20 "2010-06-28T16:49:57Z")
Anthony Burgess an extremely prolific writer mostly known for one work which got made into a film. A Clockwork Orange. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artists-with-a-big-volume-of-works-who-are-only-known-for-one-or-two/544778.md?page=2)