A Dab of Dickens & A Touch of Twain Literary Lives from Shakespeare's Old England to Frost's New England

GEOFFREY CHAUCER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE JANE AUSTEN ROBERT BROWNING & ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING EDGAR ALLAN POE CHARLES DICKENS CHARLOTTE & EMILY BRONTE EMILY DICKINSON MARK TWAIN GEORGE ELIOT THOMAS HARDY OSCAR WILDE SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE D. H. LAWRENCE F. SCOTT FITZGERALD ERNEST HEMINGWAY ROBERT FROSTThey are icons of the literary world whose soaring works have been discussed and analyzed in countless classrooms, homes, and pubs. Yet for most readers, the living, breathing human beings behind the classics have remained unknown...until now! In this utterly captivating book, Dr. Elliot Engel, a foremost authority on the lives of great authors, illuminates the fascinating and flawed men and women of literature's elite. In lieu of stuffy biographical sketchesA Dab of Dickens & A Touch of Twainreveals dozens of fascinating anecdotes: Why Sir Arthur Conan Doyle blamed his wife's death on Sherlock Holmes How Charles Dickens' pet launched Edgar Allan Poe on his way to literary immortality The strange connection between Jane Austen and Ernest Hemingway How Louisa May Alcott's attempt to get Mark Twain'sHuckleberry Finnbanned backfired...and more!You'll never look at these literary giants the same way again.

Dr. Elliot Engel, a native of Indianapolis, earned his MA and PhD as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at UCLA, where he won the Outstanding Teacher Award. He has published ten books, and his articles have appeared in numerous magazines, including Newsweek. His mini-lecture series on Charles Dickens appeared around the country on PBS stations. He now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he has taught at the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Duke University