5 Famous Authors Who Were Isolated at Some Time

“I am the product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.” -C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

Unless I’m the only one, I’m certain we all have those days when we just want to be alone. As writers, we’re encouraged in this day and age to find a writing mentor, to find a writing/critique group, to be with other like-minded writers like the famous ones were–The Bloomsbury Group, the Inklings Society, just to name two–or else we will surely never be able to grow as writers or write anything good. Forbid the thought! In a way.

I have had the pleasure and benefit of meeting with a writing group near my area twice now, which I found through Meetup, but I can assure you that if you have no mentor, and no writing community, that you are far from doomed. Just look at the trend of dismally secluded authors I noticed who bore us some of the most enduring works in the English language! The first is obviously C.S. Lewis, and four others at least precede him.

C.S. Lewis

I cannot forget the part in Surprised by Joy when Lewis recounts an awkward episode in his boyhood when, in talking at a party with an adult or two, he suddenly realized that the lady with which he was talking was laughing at him! It was because of his unusually lofty vocabulary; the unlimited access to great books and the voracity to read them in the solitude which often met the boy produced a very different speaking style from the ordinary populous. Later, however, good old Clive became one of the founders of the great Inklings Society with his good friend Tolkien, among others, and produced The Chronicles of Narnia, Til We Have Faces, Out of the Silent Planet, and other works with his interesting blend of charm and theology.

Beatrix Potter

Meanwhile, in a time not too far past from C.S. Lewis, Beatrix Potter played in the beautiful countryside of the Lake District and at home with her brother in a famously isolated childhood. She and her brother dissected animals and had many animals for pets, wild or otherwise, including insects, and she grew up to become a governess. It was through letters of hers, in which she wrote an animal tale or two, to students of hers, that the beloved stories of Peter Rabbit and others were born. The nature of the Lake District was surely a great influence on the authoress.

Emily Bronte

According to an introduction to Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte’s only novel, the three Bronte sisters lived in their lonely parish house in Yorkshire, a cemetery in the front, and the gloomy moors stretching beyond the back. Emily never felt happier and more at home than there. She traveled very little in her life, only living abroad as a governess or teacher a couple times. One might not expect such a recluse to have much to write about. However, she had had a childhood rich with the imaginative play of her, her two sisters, and brother and the life on the moors. Out came Heathcliffe, the two Catherines, and a world of raw and untamed drama.

Robert Louis Stevenson

When I did not think there might be more authors of isolation, I happened to open up to the introduction of a tiny copy of his A Child’s Garden of Verses in a random nook of my house. Lo and behold, it was another one! “Confined to bed by illness for long spells of his childhood, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) knew well how tall tales, dreams, and make-believe can sustain a child’s active imagination.” Robert Louis Stevenson became the author of the legendary Treasure Island, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, New Arabian Nights, and other volumes.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

That reminded me of another author who had been confined to the house in boyhood due to illness. Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of America’s first authors, spent a part of his childhood immobile due to a leg injury, giving him leisure to think and read. After college, he spent twelve years living in his mother’s house, not completely secluded according to Encyclopedia of the Word Biography (he had social engagements and played cards, etc.), but he still felt those years to be like “a strange, dark dream.” Reminds me of my summer last year, when I worked on self-publishing Fish Out of Water, except it wasn’t dark.

All in all, a period, or even a lifetime, of significant isolation may actually be a source of or opportunity for great teaching for natural writers, rather than a deprivation of it.