We tend to think that successful authors were published when they were young- we’re talking early 20’s or before. But some of the most well-known authors didn’t get published until their 40s, 50s, or later! Of course, there are many who’s first published work came out when they just hit double-digits.
We did some research and found out how old some of the most famous authors were when they published their first book ever. The ages may surprise you!
Here’s a close up:
And since we know it’s hard to see, we’ve listed it out!
S.E. Hinton | 18 | The Outsiders |
Christopher Paolini | 18 | Eragon |
Mary Shelley | 20 | Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus |
Bret Easton Ellis | 21 | Less Than Zero |
Helen Keller | 22 | The Story of My Life |
Stephen Crane | 22 | Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
F. Scott Fitzgerald | 23 | This Side of Paradise |
Leo Tolstoy | 23 | Childhood |
Charles Dickens | 24 | The Pickwick Papers |
Ken Follet | 24 | The Big Needle |
Ernest Hemingway | 26 | In Our Time (a collection of short stories, but sometimes listed as a book) |
Stephen King | 26 | Carrie |
Jack Kerouac | 27 | The Town and the City |
Herman Melville | 27 | Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life |
John Steinbeck | 27 | Cup of Gold |
Vladimir Nabakov | 27 | Mary |
H.G. Wells | 28 | The Time Machine |
Elie Wiesel | 28 | Night |
Gabriel Garcia Marquez | 28 | Leaf Storm |
Albert Camus | 28 | The Stranger |
Joan Didion | 28 | Run, River |
Salman Rushdie | 28 | Grimus |
James Baldwin | 29 | Go Tell it on the Mountain |
George Orwell | 29 | Down and Out in London and Paris |
Margaret Atwood | 29 | The Edible Woman |
George R.R. Martin | 29 | Dying of the Light |
Neil Gaiman | 29 | Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett) |
William Faulkner | 29 | Soldiers’ Pay |
Sylvia Plath | 30 | The Bell Jar |
Meg Cabot | 31 | Where Roses Grow |
J.K. Rowling | 31 | Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone |
Charlotte Bronte | 31 | Jane Eyre |
Ayn Rand | 31 | We the Living |
Henry David Thoreau | 31 | A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers |
J.D. Salinger | 32 | The Catcher in the Rye |
Ray Bradbury | 33 | Fahrenheit 451 |
Chuck Palahniuk | 34 | Fight Club |
Harper Lee | 34 | To Kill a Mockingbird |
John Grisham | 34 | A Time to Kill |
Anne Rice | 34 | Interview with the Vampire |
Paola Coelho | 34 | Hell Archives |
Oscar Wilde | 35 | The Picture of Dorian Gray |
Gillian Flynn | 35 | Sharp Objects |
Jane Austen | 36 | Sense and Sensibility |
Mark Twain | 37 | The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today |
Amy Tan | 37 | The Joy Luck Club |
Joseph Conrad | 38 | Almayer’s Folly |
Khaled Hosseini | 38 | The Kite Runner |
Erik Larson | 38 | The Naked Consumer |
Anthony Burgess | 39 | Time for a Tiger |
Ralph Ellison | 39 | Invisible Man |
Toni Morrison | 39 | The Bluest Eye |
George Eliot | 40 | Adam Bede |
Sherwood Anderson | 40 | Windy McPherson’s Son |
Maya Angelou | 41 | I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings |
R.L. Stine | 42 | Blind Street |
Henry Miller | 43 | Tropic of Cancer |
Bram Stroker | 43 | The Snake’s Pass |
Alex Haley | 44 | The Autobiography of Malcolm X |
L. Frank Baum | 44 | The Wonderful Wizard of Oz |
JRR Tolkien | 45 | The Hobbit |
E.L. James | 48 | 50 Shades of Grey |
Richard Adams | 52 | Watership Down |
Laura Ingells Wilder | 65 | Little House in the Big Woods |
Frank McCourt | 66 | Angela’s Ashes |
Mary Wesley | 70 | The Camomile Lawn |
Karl Matlantes | 64 | Matterhorn |
Franz Kafka | Posthumous | The Trial |
Stieg Larsson | Posthumous | The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo |