As a woman writer, I sometimes think about early women writers and the books that made them famous. I am not even a tick on a graph where Mary Shelley, George Sand, Virginia Wolf, Harper Lee, Grace Metalious, Isabelle Allende, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Shirley Jackson are at the top.

I particularly admire Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Competing with two men, her husband Percy Shelley and Lord Byron, Mary wrote “Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus” at just eighteen years old. While not a ghost story, as the agreed topic for the short story competition, the book has been considered early science fiction. It’s not disputed that Mary won the bet. The scandals around the Shelley’s make interesting reading as well. Her parents were well known. Her father, William Godwin, was a political philosopher, and her mother, Mary Wollstonecroft, was a women’s rights advocate. Mary was raised by her father as her mother died eleven days after her birth. Her father subsequently married Mary Jane Clairmont who also had children. Mary never developed a good relationship with her stepmother. But she did become close to her step-sister Claire. Like Mary, Claire was a rebel during a time when women were viewed as inferior to men. The “scandal” started when Mary became romantically involved with the already married Percy Bysshe Shelley. She was sixteen and Percy was twenty-one when they met. Not only was he already married, he had a child and another on the way with wife, Harriet Westbrook. When her father and stepmother were informed of the passionate relationship between Percy and herself they forbade the couple to see one another again. With help from her stepsister, Claire, Mary and Percy went to France. When the trio returned to England, Mary was pregnant with Percy’s child. Shunned by society, the couple lived in debt and, sadly, suffered the death of their premature daughter. It wasn’t until Percy’s wife committed suicide that the couple were finally free to marry. The same year Percy and Mary traveled to Geneva, Switzerland for the summer. Lord Byron was staying at the same location. It was there that Mary created “Frankenstein”. The Shelley’s did not enjoy happy lives and Mary endured more tragedies until she died at fifty-three from a suspected brain tumor.

Harper Lee the author of one of my favorite books, “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Published in 1960, Lee captured the atmosphere of the 1930’s in a small Southern town. She based the story on an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama when she was ten years old. The story deals not only with racism but also the loss of innocence of the children who become aware of the world beyond the adults in their circle. Not only is the book a modern classic, but many of the stories surrounding Lee and her creation of the characters are fascinating. One of my favorite literary literary quotes comes from Atticus Finch. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb around in his skin and walk around in it.” “To Kill a Mockingbird” has been banned and removed from some public school classrooms in the United States citing racism, sexuality, and violence among other reasons. In 1961 the book won the Pulitzer Prize. One of the characters in her book, Dill, was based on writer Truman Capote, who visited the town of Monroeville during the long, hot Alabama summers. Every summer for seven years they shared adventures, though none as dramatic as Scout and Dill in Harper’s book. She remained friends with Capote and even lived near him in New York City on and off for forty years. When Capote took on the challenge of writing “In Cold Blood” Harper accompanied him and assisted in many of tasks. Their relationship is particularly interesting because they were different socially. Harper was a very private person and rarely gave interviews. On the other hand, Capote was a flamboyant attention seeker. Yet, their friendship lasted for decades. Despite the controversy surrounding “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Lee received many accolades including the Presidential Medal of Honor presented in 2007 by President George W. Bush. On February 19, 2016, Harper Lee passed away in her sleep.

Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker was the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize. Her novel, The Color Purple, is only one of her many published works. Walker was born in Georgia and set the novel in rural Georgia from 1909 to 1947. Its intense themes of racism, domestic abuse, violence, and incest has caused controversy. Walker’s parents were poor and in order to supplement the family’s income her mother occasionally did sewing. Regardless, in a family with eight children, they struggled. Alice was the youngest child in the family. She was four years old when she first attended school. The family’s poverty had a physical impact on young Alice. When she was only eight years old she was accidentally shot in her right eye by her brother. Although it was only a BB gun, Alice became permanently blind in that eye. If she had access to immediate medical care things might have turned out differently. But her family was so poor they didn’t have any means of transportation to get her medical treatment quickly. Raised during a time when school segregation was the norm, Alice attended an all black high school where she the valedictorian for her graduating class. Because she had the highest scholastic achievements in her class, the state of Georgia gave her a full scholarship to Spelman College. She went on to receive more awards and scholarships finally graduating in 1965 from Sarah Lawrence College. But all was not easy for Alice. She became pregnant at the beginning of her senior year and had an abortion and went through a period of suicidal ideations. That experience inspired her first poetry collection. In the 1960’s Alice became a vocal advocate for the Civil Rights Movement. She has proven to be an advocate for women’s rights, animals, and trans people. Like other women writers, her book The Color Purple has faced controversy. Accused of stereotyping men of color, excessive violence, incest, same sex relations, and profanity, the book has been banned in schools across the United States.

Often we look at authors only as talented creators of fiction. Delving into their lives we discover people whose lives are as complex as the characters they bring to life.

For more about these amazing women I recommend doing a little research of your own. Wikipedia is a good place to start, but delve further! Find out about your favorite author, male or female. I’d love to hear what you find out.