Famous Aspie Authors

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Just because Jane Austen wrote about it, doesn't mean she understood it. She was a social recluse, talking only to her family, and having few friends. Her familiarity with small talk and other items seems more a passive understanding than an active one. As in she could write it, but she wouldn't be able to read it if it came acriss in real life. For evidence, I point to the fact that despite her family's money troubles, she did not try to marry up in the social stature, and only had one marriage proposal through out her life! And she was 41 when she died. At a time when women either had to get married or loose social stature, she held her own only because she was such a good writer.
I know you can write good dialouge and small talk and not be familiar with it because I go through it when I write. If anyone needs to see a reference, see my posting on 'Aspie authors writing social interaction' thread from my book. You can see that it has some of that knowledge attached to it, but let me tell you, I don't get social interaction at all. I don't talk to people frequently, and am shy at huge social gatherings. So many unsaid messages, and I'm supposed to be able to sort them out. No way! But seriously, in a novel you can have complete control over what happens. If you want small talk, you put it in, even if it doesn't quite fit. Also, the romantic age was one given to insanity. I wouldn't be surprised is she was at least a little shy, if not a total hermit.

I have to agree. I'm a big Austen fan. Her characters are deceptively shallow, they are incredibly witty and filled with social observations that are Confucian in depth and meaning and philisophical portence. She could very well be Aspergers, her social observations, to the detailed nuances of social interactions can very well be seen as if gathered by a "Data" (star trek) type or outsider, for it takes an outsider to observe it and document it with such impartial fascination and skill. Almost like an Encyclopedist of her time, but putting it into such an artistic framework.

Good afternoon

I thank you in your support of my assertion that Jane Austen may have had a touch of Aspergers, at the least. Since you are such a great fan of hers, and I would like a second pair of eyes to look over my work, please visit my latest post on the wrong planet writing showcase. What is posted is supposed to be Mr. Darcy's father's last will and testament, and there is supposed to be a loop hole that allows Catherine de Burg to take away Pemberly estate from Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth, and Georgiana. Please get back to me if anything is wrong.

Hi I'm new. A year since diagnosis (but I'm 55!) and new to wrongplanet.

I was reading Rilke's correspondence with Lou Andreas-Salome, and thought he was obviously an Aspie. However, I can find nothing on the internet about it.

Anyone had the same idea?

(He's a wonderful poet of course which is the primary thing)

James Joyce seems likely, so does Anthony Burgess

I personally think Robert E. Howard, who gave life to Conan the Barbarian, was almost certainly an Aspie, though there was as of yet no such diagnosis in his short life time.
Howard was given to deep depression, and sudden outbursts of rage, and thought himself more at home in past times of Barbarians, or the old west, than he was in his own first half of the twentieth century. He was very socially inept, and was obsessed with limited subjects like history, or with his imaginary fantasy worlds which he created as an American version of Heroic Fantasy, quite independently of J.R.R. Tolkien, who had been accomplishing the same in Britain. He had had only one intimate relationship in his whole life, and could drink heavily to self medicate. In the last few months of his life, his mother, who was increasingly dependent on him (due to the fact that his father had abdicated responsibility to Howard, despite being a doctor), had found all his time dedicated to her care, leaving him with no more time to write, or to rarely even sleep. As an individual given to extreme depression, Howard apparently believed his only solace could come with suicide, when he learned his mother would not emerge from a coma.
Interesting enough, Howard had corresponded with H.P. Lovecraft - himself another probable Aspie - and they both wrote for the same pulp magazine, Weird Tales.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

My gosh, I'm reading that book now, and one of the first thoughts I had was that anyone with autism or Asperger's wouldn't be able to survive. I haven't gotten very far yet, but I can't wait to see how this plays out.

Twain might have been an Aspie. Didn't care too much for self-grooming, dropped out of school despite obviously being clever [though I believe at the time it was not entirely uncommon to do so], changed careers quite a few times [Printer's apprentice to riverboat pilot to news-writer to comedian to author and essayist], one of his daughters was epileptic, which is sometimes linked with autism.

I actually think that most revolutionary authors are going to appear to be on the spectrum just because they challenged social and literary norms and popular ideology, and are quite often eccentric and prone to depression, as well as being cynical snarkers. It takes a bit of nerve to enter a field where you're either successful or not, and quite often are broke until a ripe old age. In fact, I feel the same way about a lot of artists, especially some impressionists.

Another possible Aspie author is James Elroy, most famous for L.A. Confidential, and The Black Dahlia. In his autobiographical information, he describes himself as socially inept (especially growing up, and into his thirties), at one time with horrible hygiene, and emotionally disconnected. He is obsessed with the murders of women, especially those of Elizabeth Short, AKA "the Black Dahlia," and that of his own mother, whose murder to this day remains unsolved. In fact, he has written incessantly about these two murders in both his fiction, in essays, and in his autobiography, My Dark Places. And despite having been a junior high drop out, Elroy has a million dollar vocabulary. Lastly, his father had already reached middle age by the time Elroy had been born - which seems to be a reoccurring theme with many Aspies.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer