9 Spooky Facts About Your Favourite Authors

Literature is full of magic, but also of shadows. Behind every classic that we revere today, there is a flesh and blood human being with obsessions, tragedies and disturbing episodes that are often hidden under the brilliance of his work. Today we are going to open the curtain and show you 9 spooky facts about writers who have made their mark on literary history.

Get ready: some of these secrets will forever change the way you read his books.

1. Lewis Carroll and his disturbing obsession with Alice Liddell

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, was the man who gave life to Alice in Wonderland. What few people know is that Carroll developed a obsession with Alice Liddell, a girl of just eleven who inspired its famous protagonist.

The writer, then 31 years old, constantly portrayed her in photographs and diaries, and maintained a relationship with her that was far too intense by today's standards. So much so that Alice's family eventually broke off contact with him... And thank goodness.

2. Dostoyevsky and the shooting that never happened

The Russian Genius Fyodor Dostoyevsky, author of Crime and Punishment, He was seconds away from being shot. In 1849 he was arrested for participating in a banned intellectual group. After months of imprisonment, he was taken to the square to be executed along with other comrades.

Blindfolded and facing the firing squad, a messenger interrupted the scene with a pardon from the Tsar: the death penalty had been commuted to four years' hard labour in Siberia. That traumatic experience forever marked his literature, full of characters on the edge of the abyss, like him.

3. William Burroughs and the “game” that ended in tragedy

The beat writer William Burroughs, author of The naked lunch, starred in one of the most macabre episodes in modern literature. In 1951, during a boozy night in Mexico City, he and his wife Joan Vollmer played a kind of “William Tell” game: he had to shoot at a glass placed over his head.

The result was tragic: Burroughs failed and accidentally shot his wife dead in the forehead. Although he always claimed it was an accident, it haunted him for the rest of his life and left a dark mark on his work.

4. George Orwell and the sinister “Room 101”.”

At 1984, George Orwell describes the dreaded Room 101, where prisoners suffer their worst fears. Many believe it to be a simple literary invention, but in reality it has a more everyday... and horrifying... origin.

Orwell named the torture chamber in honour of the BBC Broadcasting House Room 101, where, during the Second World War, he endured endless, tedious and humiliating meetings. For him, the space symbolised utter despair. His personal mockery became one of the most chilling metaphors in literature.

5. J. M. Barrie and the identity of his dead brother

The creator of Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie, grew up in the shadow of a family tragedy. When he was six, his brother David - his mother's favourite - was killed in a skating accident. The loss devastated the family, especially her mother.

To console her, Barrie began to dressing in his deceased brother's clothes and to imitate his gestures, trying to fill his emptiness. That experience profoundly marked his life and his work: a child who never grows up, trapped between innocence and death.

6. H. P. Lovecraft: cursed and forgotten genius in life

Today considered one of the fathers of modern horror, H. P. Lovecraft died in abject poverty. During his lifetime he barely managed to sell about 200 copies of his books, He spent his last days ill with bowel cancer, and without the resources to feed himself properly.

The most ironic thing: his universe of cosmic monsters and indescribable horrors, which today inspires films, comics and video games, was hardly appreciated during his lifetime. Lovecraft died poor in 1937 without knowing that he would become a worldwide cult author.

7. Charles Dickens, ghost hunter

The author of Oliver Twist y Christmas Story was passionate about spiritualism. What not many people know is that Charles Dickens joined ghost hunters' societies and participated in sessions to contact the dead. In fact, he was an important member of the “Ghost Club”, London's most famous paranormal research group.

His obsession was a lifelong one, and some of his stories reflect this fascination with the supernatural. He was not just a storyteller of fictional ghosts: he actually tried to find them.

8. Mark Twain and Destiny Written in the Stars

Chance sometimes writes perfect scripts. The humorist and novelist Mark Twain, creator of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, was born in 1835, the year Halley's comet appeared in the sky.

In an ironic tone, Twain used to say that he hoped to die with the return of the comet itself. And so it was: in 1910, just one day after Halley's reappearance, Twain died. His life was literally marked by the passage of a star.

9. Mary Shelley and her macabre initiation into love

The author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, was a woman ahead of her time, surrounded by scandal and intense passions. Among the darkest stories that circulate about her is that of her first sexual relationship with Percy Bysshe Shelley.

According to contemporary accounts, the couple had sexual intercourse on the grave of Mary's mother, the philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, who died shortly after giving birth. A gothic, macabre, almost literary scene in itself, which marked the beginning of a stormy and legendary relationship.

As you can see, behind every page of our favourite authors there are scars, secrets and obsessions that rarely appear in literature manuals. Knowing about these episodes does not diminish the greatness of their works, but it does remind us that writers are also human: contradictory, vulnerable and, at times, very creepy.

Perhaps the next time you read Alice in Wonderland o Frankenstein, remember these stories and feel an extra chill. Because literature, after all, lives not only in books... but also in the shadows of those who wrote them.