Dancing With Mrs. Dalloway

You may already know that A.A. Milne created Winnie-the-Pooh based on his son, the real life Christopher Robin, and his childhood stuffed friends, or that Harper Lee modeled Atticus Finch on her father, a lawyer who defended two black men in court. But did you know that Tom Sawyer’s adventures came straight from Mark Twain’s childhood? Or L.M. Montgomery had an aunt and uncle who wanted to adopt two little boys, but got a boy and a girl instead?

Celia Blue Johnson’s new book, Dancing With Mrs. Dalloway: Stories of the Inspiration Behind Great Works of Literature, describes the how and the why behind these and dozens of other classic books and stories.

Dancing With Mrs. Dalloway is broken up by sections depicting how each author was inspired to create a classic work. Some novels were created due to the author’s travels, or a person they knew, or just from telling stories to their children. I was fascinated by some of the tidbits related by Johnson, who scoured biographies and news articles for this book, filling in hypotheticals where facts can’t be found. The majority of the books profiled in Dancing With Mrs. Dalloway were sparked by something or someone experienced by the author — usually an episode that stuck with them — proving the “write what you know” adage holds true.

In addition to describing the spark that started each literary fire, Johnson includes details such as an author’s writing process, novels that were rejected by multiple publishing houses before finally making it to print, and those that did not attain critical success until long after an author’s death. Many of the classic novels profiled were first published as serials before being printed as full books.

Dancing With Mrs. Dalloway would make a great gift for any literature lover or those interested in behind-the-scenes of the writing process.

Nancy’s to-read list just got a whole lot longer. She writes about her 2 boys, books and life in Colorado at Life With My Boys and Books.