Which of the great writers would you like to have met?

I'd like to have met Louisa May Alcott and sisters , but I have been to their house which does give you a glimpse of what she may have been like and some context.

Yes, undoubtedly Dickens behaved inexcusably badly to his poor wife and did indeed explore the possibility of declaring her of unsound mind when he was first in thrall to Ellen Ternan. After nine children and a few miscarriages as well.

He pretty much invented the Streisand Effect by insisting on publishing a very unwise statement indignantly denying that a certain ’young person’ of his acquaintance (Ternan, duh) had any sort of improper relationship with him, thereby ensuring that vastly more people got to hear about the scandal than they would otherwise. He was weirdly naive in many ways.

And yet….he still was a brilliant writer, in my view. You can be a total bastard as well, as many others have proved. I do find him a bundle of fascinating contradictions - a deeply controlling person, haunted by demons - and I’d still have loved to meet him. Would I like him? Maybe not, but plenty of people attested to his charm (though I guess those people weren’t married to him or happened to be one of his sons).

I'll have to disagree about Dickens. Yes he was on the side of social reform, very indignant about the way poor people were treated at the time, workhouses etc, and obviously that's good.

But at the same time he was an absolute bastard to his poor wife Catherine who had given birth to his 9 (?) children, totally humiliated her because he was bored with her and he was beginning an affair with Ellen Ternan, (who was young enough to be his daughter). He let it be publicly known that in his opinion everything was Catherine's fault, she was an unfit mother etc. He managed to succeed in estranging most of the children from her.

And all the time he carefully kept his relationship with Ellen T secret from society. When you think of how he created female characters who could not stand the shame of being 'fallen women', and ended up killing themselves because of it (eg the character Martha in David Copperfield, Lady Dedlock in Bleak House etc) - sex outside marriage was a fate worse than death! - the male 'seducers' are blackhearted scoundrels! etc. When all the time his own young mistress is tucked away in a cottage and the relationship went on for years. Total bloody hypocritic!

He was unfeeling to his children as well - one son didn't do well at school - he shipped him off to Australia in his teens for a fresh start and never saw him again.

He was really quite a sanctimonious moraliser in the books and a lot of his characters are just caricatures. Especially women, he didn't understand women at all. Plus some antisemitism (Fagin in Oliver Twist.)

So no, I don't think most women on here would have enjoyed meeting him in reality. He probably wouldn't have been bothered to talk to most of us anyway, unless you happen to be quite young and pretty. The sort of man that is torn to shreds in the Relationships section, and suggestions given on how to Leave The Bastard.

I can appreciate a lot of his writing, a very talented entertainer but a failure of a human being.

People argue about whether CB and CD actually ever met, though — there’s only one reference to them ever meeting, and at second hand. (And it’s possible Emily destroyed her own MS, if it ever existed…)

I had lunch with Bernardine Evaristo yesterday, and she was excellent company. Clever, confident, funny.

I'd love to meet Dorothy L. Sayers.
Her use of English is inimitable.
She sounds humorous and clever.

Interesting thread! I'd have loved to have met Shakespeare - I imagine he was incredibly witty and likely a very entertaining man.

Other than him, my wish list is far more modern and definitely less "great" - but it would mean a lot to me!

Douglas Adams, Dean Koontz, RL Steine, Jilly Cooper (with her I genuinely would love to see what she's really like with how most of her RCB books are written), Sidney Sheldon, Jackie Collins, John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell off the top of my head were my lifelines growing up so would love to thank them! Hesitantly I'd like to meet Stephen King too - I enjoyed a number of his books but I'm not sure about him as a person. I've recently discovered Lisa Jewell so would be nice to meet her too lol!

On reading the title, my first thought was Roadl Dahl, so not quite as highbrow as some of the names above.

The reason was because he was one of the biggest authors when I was young, apart from Enid Blyton but her books seemed more dated (although good).

I remember when I was around eight that I found out that he was still very much alive - for some reason this blew my mind away - I guess that I assumed someone so popular would be dead.

Or both! 😬

pmk as I want to think more about this.

Austen obv.
Brontes to really understand the dynamnic
Heyer cos I love her novels

Rowling cos she's awesome

When I read these books when I was younger HF mother's behaviour took my breath away sometimes. But re reading (many times) as I got older it's obvious that she had severe mental health problems, post natal depression maybe.

They were obviously wealthy middle class people stuck in a world that was not suited to help their own when they slipped out of the thin strata of society they lived in. Hide bound by snobbishness and narrow minded society.

Nonetheless it's the children that suffered and you easily feel for.

A lot of authors I can imagine would be quite intimidating and probably not easy sociable people.

I'd have liked to have known or been in the writing group of the women in Can Any Mother Help Me? (By Jenna Bailey)

I've got an audio book of bbc archive interviews of various people, famous and not, from the 20th Century and there's a bit about Wilfred Owen with his younger brother. Harold(?) He says that he was always amazed by the great humanity in his poetry, because he, Wilfred, was so entirely preoccupied by his own pursuits, his books etc. Harold caveats this by saying "I say this with great love"

It's certainly interesting how our perception of people through their writing may or may not be accurate to them in reality!

Dickens treated his wife pretty badly iirc. He tried to have her committed to an asylum so he could run off with his young lover.

I’d be amazed if Dickens turned out to be an arsehle. The mind behind the novels feels so humane and good.

Not forgetting the social causes he championed. He really used his influence for good.

Incidentally, Charlotte Bronte admired his work greatly and was keen to meet him. The meeting apparently did not go well! I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall, there. I agree she comes across as a prig, although she was probably shaped grestly by their upbringing and a sense of responsibility for the family. As much as I love Jane Eyre, I'll never forgive CB for destroying the manuscript of Emily's finished but unpublished book upon her untimely death. Imagine what that could have been?! CB claimed it was to protect her memory and reputation after the mauling Wuthering Heights got for being deemed unsuitable reading for women (by men).

I'd like to go on a pub crawl with Pepys and I reckon Wilkie Collins might have been interesting too.

Well, did she marry him and impart suffering, or was she really fool enough to marry a man who kept his desperately ill wife a secret?

• imagine what MN would say if someone posted;

I'm a nanny with a wealthy family and I've entered into a relationship with the man, who I believed to be single. But I've just found out I'm the OW, and his wife is actually very ill. What should I do?!

Or

Years ago I fell in love with a man but it turned out I was the Ow. I left him, built my own business and owned my own property. Then this man suffered a huge tragedy and his wife is dead. Should I go for it?

I'm not sure I'd want to meet any writers, we probably see the best of them in their books and they'll either be terrible shy or dreadful in real life.

WLTM: George Orwell (another whose talent was tragically cut short by TB). Oscar Wilde. JG Ballard - fascinating life and incredible mind, and seemed like a good sort.

Met Hilary Mantel once. She was charming and gracious.

Philip Larkin comes across in Martin Amis’ autobiography as much less churlish than his reputation. But perhaps that was saved for his close friends and family.

I love Patrick Leigh Fermor’s writing, might quickly have tired of the womanising in real life but he definitely would have had brilliant stories to tell.

How do you mean, what really happened in Jane Eyre, @GingerLiberalFeminist ?

I think Pepys counts as a writer and he'd probably be a hoot as a dining companion. But his sense of boundaries and his moral compass were non-existent, so I'd want other company able and willing to slap him back in his place. From what Robert Harris's Imperium has taught me about Cicero, he'd be a handy person to have around, as would Terentia, Cicero's formidable wife.

I had the same thought you did about Charlotte Bronte. She's a wonderful storyteller, but she was reputed to be a prig.

And Mitford and Waugh's book of letters is already on my TBR list - it's nice to have it confirmed that it's worth the time and money.

Oh, if we’re talking ‘21st c medical interventions that could have prolonged lives and meant we had more work by beloved writers’, I have a list as long as my arm! Actually TB treatment alone would save quite a few, not just Keats — more work from Emily and Anne Bronte, Chekhov, Kafka, Katherine Mansfield for a start.

And yes, proper diagnosis and treatment for Austen’s possible Addison’s disease/leukaemia/whatever. And better MH support for Plath, and hyperemesis gravidarium treatment for Charlotte Bronte. Or for Mrs Gaskell to have visited and induced a miscarriage, as she said she’d have tried in a letter somewhere if she’d known CB was so ill.

I met Anne Tyler at a literary festival and she was lovely.
Would love to have met John Steinbeck!

James Joyce, to see if he spoke in breathy broken sentences and disorganised syntax like he writes 😂
Charlotte Bronte to see what really happened in Jane Eyre
George Elliot - to ask how she got started

But really I'd love to meet Stephen King (used to be Neil Gaiman too but I'll pass now!). His mind fascinates me.

I would like to have met Helen Forrester, from reading her books I can’t see how her siblings all survived such poverty. I’d also like to have the opportunity to slap her parents for their stupidity and selfishness.

Keats without a doubt. And Shakespeare.
If I could get Keats a TB shot while I was at it I'd love to see what he could have done with a much longer life.