I was listening to a book-on-tape biography of Napoleon on my drive home tonight, and it mentioned in passing that at one point Napoleon had tried his hand at writing fiction. (It was some time early in his life, but I think post-adolesence.) This got me thinking – most people try writing fiction at some point of their life, and world leaders are probably no exception. Now, granted, in all likelihood this writing probably wasn’t too great, or else these future leaders would have become authors instead of world leaders, but it would still be interesting to see what fictitious scenarios various personalities came up with. Then I got to imaging that maybe people would even pay to buy a book that compiled such writings, especially if they were intelligently selected and accompanied by incisive articles by professors and other authorities… hmm, a business proposition? (After all, AFAIK the recent showing of Hitler’s early artistic attempts was pretty succesful…)
So, my questions:
Has anyone either read or heard of any fictional writings from other famous world leaders?
Would you be interested in reading such things, if accompanied by appropriate commentary?
Ah – I will begin to partially answer my own question. I know that Lincoln wrote some poetry in his youth, which has already generated some interest recently. Maybe he wrote other stuff as well?
English Prime Minister Disraeli wrote several novels.
Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt are two world leaders who spring to mind who wrote some highly regarded books, but to my knowledge none of them were fiction.
I read a short story by Winston Churchill many years ago. It was in a collection of horror fiction and involved a young man falling overboard from an ocean liner.
I can’t remember what it was called or find it on the web though.
The piece was a double reverse. By setting “reality” in a world in which Lee had won and then by imaging changing that world into one in which Grant had won, he could doubly comment on both types of worlds. Two alternatives for the price of one.