# What authors writing today will someday be shelved in the "Classics" section? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 29, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393 "2009-11-29T23:14:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![cactus\_waltz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@cactus\_waltz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cactus_waltz)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/81 "2009-12-01T20:33:07Z")
Is Roald Dahl considered classic already? If not, that’s a lock in the children’s classics department. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/82 "2009-12-01T20:38:37Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Frankly, there’s no telling. There’s absolutely no way to predict - one age’s compulsive reading bestseller is literally unknown in the next, and a complete literary nobody ends up being the poster child for an era. Can you give some examples of literary nobodies that are the poster child for an era? ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/83 "2009-12-01T21:02:36Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Can you give some examples of literary nobodies that are the poster child for an era? Keats was neither critically respected nor commercially successful until he died and his friends made sure he wasn’t forgotten. Shakespeare wasn’t a nobody, but he wasn’t the biggest star of his time, nor was he universally respected by his peers. It wasn’t until well after his death that enthusiastic and prominent fans of his work, like Hugo and Goethe, started making him an icon. Jane Austen didn’t publish under her own name, and wasn’t the poster child for the Regency era until the 1940s. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/84 "2009-12-01T21:11:54Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Can you give some examples of literary nobodies that are the poster child for an era? Just a few: Harodl Robbins- megaselling novelist in the 1960s/1970s (also before and afterward but the 60s/70s were his heyday), may have some books still in print but hardly read at all anymore. Ditto Irving Wallace and his family. Jacqueline Susann (IIRC she was the bestselling author of the 1960s, then went out of print not long after she died) Horatio Alger- one of the bestselling authors of his day, hardly read at all anymore Frank Yerby- the bestselling novelist of the 1950s (though his sales declined when the white housewives who were his core audience learned he was black); today all but a couple of his books are out of print. Got fed up with the U.S. during the Civil Rights era and moved with his family to Spain where he wrote, imho, his best novel (at least of the ones I’ve read)- _Judas, My Brother_, a heavily annotated and highly iconoclastic retelling of the story of Christ [in addition to the story it is, like Colleen McCullough’s Rome series, a novel worth having for the notes alone]). Frances Parkinson Keyes, Augusta Evans- both super popular and probably outsold many of the names you’d know from their own time, pretty much disregarded now. Even some greats like Edna Ferber (_Show Boat_, _So Big_, _Cimarron_)-sold majorly, the musical version of _Show Boat_ is still performed pretty much all the time somewhere, yet was out of print for years (reissued a few years ago) and hardly gets read at all anymore outside of “1920s Literature” type classes. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/85 "2009-12-01T21:19:26Z")
John Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga was huge in the 1920’s and you can barely give away first editions today. Faulkner, on the other hand, was barely discernible on the radar screen of popular fiction although he was respected by the literary set. Fitzgerald had some Jazz age bestsellers - The Beautiful and the Damned was very big - but the Great Gatsby only sold okay, Tender is the Night barely sold and all of Fitz’s work was out of print by the time he died in the 40’s a broken drunk. If folks like Malcolm Cowley hadn’t burnished Fitzgerald’s (and Sherwood Anderson’s and others) images in the 50’s, they wouldn’t have the rep they have today… ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/86 "2009-12-01T21:20:32Z")
**Sampiro** , either you or I misinterpreted that question. I’m not sure which. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/87 "2009-12-01T22:03:22Z")
Sorry, King fans, but Stephen King = O. Henry Popular in his day. Prolific. But in the end not really “classic” and within a generation or two only a couple of his stories will be remembered. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/88 "2009-12-01T23:39:54Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Sorry, King fans, but Stephen King = O. Henry > > Popular in his day. Prolific. But in the end not really “classic” and within a generation or two only a couple of his stories will be remembered. While obviously I have no more idea than anyone else here who will actually remain popular in the future; it’s all just a guessing game… I will submit that I think it’s a mistake to look to past authors like O. Henry and try to use them as an example. We are living in a vastly different world, pop-culture wise. Until relatively recently, if a generation lost interest in a particular author, the next generation might not pick it up, and they could easily slip into obscurity. Today, for someone like King or Rowling… with not only millions and millions of copies of their books in print, but also with films, audio books, Kindle editions, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of web pages devoted to them, Facebook fan pages, etc., etc., it’s not going to be nearly as easy for them to slip into obscurity. They have far too deeply been entrenched into our pop culture, a pop culture that is far more global, unified, and easily accessible than it ever was in the past. It’s going on 35 years since King’s first best seller, and he’s still selling extremely well. A new generation is still reading him. I realize that doesn’t assure he’s destined for the “classics” section, but my point is, saying he’s going to be largely forgotten in a generation or two based on what happened to historical writers is a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/89 "2009-12-01T23:43:43Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Nuh uh. lol. “Uh-_huuuuuh_.” > [@lissener](#): > > Actually, to elaborate, King’s “redemptions” are tacked on and incongruous; beyond being cliche, they don’t ring true. What his stories are actually about is his soul-deep self-loathing, projected onto the rest of humanity. How many of his books have your read? In _Salem’s Lot_ the message about faith is consistent and emphatic throughout the book. I mean, the tipsy Catholic priest doesn’t struggle with belief the way Hazel Motes does, but in his cookie-cutter way he does. In _The Stand_ the redemption message is pretty embedded too. And the thing is, I don’t like Stephen King the way I did when I was a teenager, so I’m not even enjoying sticking up for him. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/90 "2009-12-01T23:47:12Z")
> [@enigmatic](#): > > I’d like to see Pratchett go down in the classics, but I think there might be too many people who just won’t take his work as seriously as it deserves. I’m the fourth person here to mention Pratchett, but I think you’re too pessimistic. Lewis Carroll’s Alice books are classics now and I wonder how many people took them seriously when published. Pratchett’s Tiffany books are among his best writings in my opinion, and I think they are able to stand the test of time. It may take a while… ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/91 "2009-12-01T23:54:35Z")
I must add that **my** definition of a classic is anything published as a **penguin classic paperback**. And also that more young people should read **Frankenstein** and **The Picture of Dorian Gray** ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/92 "2009-12-02T00:14:35Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Michael Crichton? I seriously doubt it. Heck, the man’s been off the radar of the SF community for years. To be fair, his writing did drop off when he died. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Baldy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Gary\_Baldy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Baldy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/93 "2009-12-02T00:25:28Z")
> [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](#): > > Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury. Yeah, I know Vonnegut’s dead and Bradbury’s pretty much retired but I figured they were close enough to merit a mention. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I was in school in the 1980s, these two guys’ selected books and short stories were already being taught as being classics as much as Catcher in the Rye. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/94 "2009-12-02T00:25:45Z")
> [@Scupper](#): > > **Sampiro** , either you or I misinterpreted that question. I’m not sure which. Let’s compromise and say it was you.😉 [jk] I interpreted it as “nobodies” in posterity but big shots at the time, though it could actually have been asking the exact opposite of that (“nobodies” at the time but hailed now- like Lovecraft). > [@Gary\_Baldy](#): > > I don’t know about anyone else, but when I was in school in the 1980s, these two guys’ selected books and short stories were already being taught as being classics as much as Catcher in the Rye. True. Neither was taught in my high school but long before I read either of their works I knew their names as well as I knew Melville and Faulkner. (I think _Back to School_ was the first time I realized Vonnegut was still alive.) ---
**Author:** ![amtriska](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@amtriska](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amtriska)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/95 "2009-12-02T01:38:39Z")
Masters of the short story. George Saunders. Donald Barthelme. Jim Shepard. Oh, and Karen Russell someday if she keeps amassing a body of good work. Is Raymond Carver already shelved with the classics? How about Charles Bukowski? ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/96 "2009-12-02T02:14:01Z")
> [@middleman](#): > > No love for Khaled Hosseini? I think the Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns are as worthy of study and assignment as anything I read in high school. Especially Suns. > > Also, what about Paulo Coelho? The Alchemist would be an excellent thing to assign to high schoolers. It has some real depth, but the story and writing is so approachable. And even entertaining. I love Hosseini, but it might be too early to start predicting that he’ll be a “classic” author. He only has two books to his name and, while both very good, they’re fixed to a certain historical period of time that is important now but may not be later. IMHO, “timelessness” is one of the most important things that will make a book a classic, and Hosseini’s books don’t feel timeless to me. Current world events lend a sense or urgency to his books now, but 80 years from now they may feel dated to readers. Anybody feel that Irvine Welsh will be considered “classic?” I’m not sure, but maybe… ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/97 "2009-12-02T03:51:21Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > lol. “Uh-_huuuuuh_.” > > How many of his books have your read? In _Salem’s Lot_ the message about faith is consistent and emphatic throughout the book. I mean, the tipsy Catholic priest doesn’t struggle with belief the way Hazel Motes does, but in his cookie-cutter way he does. > > In _The Stand_ the redemption message is pretty embedded too. > > And the thing is, I don’t like Stephen King the way I did when I was a teenager, so I’m not even enjoying sticking up for him. :dubious: Well, since you ask for my credentials ( :rolleyes: ) I used to quite enjoy a Stephen King read, and I’d kept up with everything he’d written until Bag of Bones, which was enough. I just couldn’t stand another wallow in his pointless selfloathing. And I disagree strongly about both The Stand and Salem’s Lot, although since SL is just ripoff of Dracula, and has less of King in it, I disagree less strongly about that one. The Stand, on top of being the single worst-written book I’ve ever read (and yes I’ve read Rowling and Brown), is just as full of the kind of misanthropy and self-loathing. Only, it’s got some stapled on redemption cliches, like he bought them off a rack at a hack-supply store, so I can see where it would be easy to focus on those and ignore the vile bones of the book. But having read it three times–I loved it in highschool, and then read it again a few years ago and was just appalled at how horrible it was–I’m gonna stick to my opinion on that one. ---
**Author:** ![Stowed\_Bob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stowed_bob/32/3312_2.png) [@Stowed\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stowed_Bob)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/98 "2009-12-02T05:56:05Z")
I’m hoping Frank Herbert’s Dune makes it to the classics. I have no illusions the rest of his work will fade into obscurity (even the Dune sequels he wrote). ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/99 "2009-12-02T06:20:38Z")
Michael Crichton died? I guess that explains why I haven’t seen a new book by him in a while. I’ll fifth/sixth Terry Pratchett and second Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore. Considering how many awards Gaiman’s stuff is winning these days - mainstream, literary awards, even - he may already be edging into that territory. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/100 "2009-12-02T06:23:27Z")
As long as there are outcast kids longing to be accepted by their peers or else destroy them in a fiery apocalypse, Stephen King’s CARRIE will be read. As long as there are teen boys falling in love with their “new” junker cars, CHRISTINE will be read. As long as there are bereaved people longing for a way to bring their departed loved ones back, PET SEMATARY will be read. Now, I’ll agree that TOMMYKNOCKERS and plenty more by King will go by the wayside, but certain themes will always resonate. In 2100, I am sure there will exist a heavily annotated 20-lb. edition of THE STAND. As to once fantastically popular writers who are almost unavailable, if not unknown- only 25 years ago, I would go into a bookstore to see entire racks devoted to Taylor Caldwell. Now I know of only two books in print- CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS and DEAR AND GLORIOUS PHYSICIAN (the latter through the conservative Catholic Ignatius Press). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393.md?page=6)