Curated playlist
Literacy and society theorists
- Charles DickensAt twelve, Charles Dickens pasted labels on boot blacking pots in a rat-infested warehouse.
- George OrwellGeorge Orwell was a pen name, chosen from a shortlist in 1932. He was born Eric Arthur Blair in British India.
- Virginia WoolfVirginia Woolf's father let her read whatever she liked in his vast library.
- Johann Wolfgang von GoetheWhen French soldiers broke into Goethe's home in 1806, his companion Christiane Vulpius defended it.
- Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the bombing of Dresden by hiding in an underground meat locker.
- Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Luis Borges directed Argentina's National Library while completely blind.
- Victor HugoVictor Hugo asked for a pauper's funeral and got the largest in French history.
- John MiltonJohn Milton sold Paradise Lost for five pounds. The blind poet handed it to a publisher in April 1667.
- Lev VygotskyLev Vygotsky's work was banned in the Soviet Union after he died at 37. His ideas on learning still spread worldwide.
- Gilles DeleuzeGilles Deleuze never trimmed his fingernails. He once explained that he lacked "normal protective fingerprints", and so could not "touch an object, particularly a piece of cloth, with the pads of my fingers without sharp pain". It is a…
- Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard dropped his script and wrote dialogue day by day for the film Breathless.
- Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss died in 2009, and for four days the world did not know.
- David AttenboroughAt 11, David Attenborough sold newts to a university for three pence each.