20 Incredible Facts About The Books You Were Forced To Read In School

We'll let Shakespeare sit this one out.

Remember those "required reading" books you picked up for English class? Whether you read them voluntarily or by force, chances are some of those narratives impacted you. If reading wasn't your thing, you probably opted to consume these works via film adaptations.

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There are a lot of fascinating stories behind the iconic novels we all grew up consuming. From humble beginnings on a typewriter to influencing pop culture, Hollywood, and the government, here are some things we wish we knew while reading these books in school.

1. Dill Harris from To Kill a Mockingbird is based on a famous author.

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Many aspects of To Kill a Mockingbird parallel author Harper Lee’s own life. Atticus Finch bears striking similarities to her father, Boo Radley was modeled after one of her neighbors, and the story takes place in Alabama where Lee grew up. Dill Harris also has a surprising (and famous) real-life counterpart. The character is based on Lee’s childhood friend and neighbor Truman Capote, author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. 

2. George Orwell's Animal Farm was rejected by at least four different publishers for political reasons.

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Animal Farm has been a staple of high school English classrooms for as long as we can remember. However, getting it published was quite the struggle, given its criticism of the Soviet Union. Its use of pigs as protagonists (among many other things) was deemed offensive, particularly for Russian readers. It was eventually published by Secker & Warburg in 1945.

3. George Orwell was fighting for his life while writing 1984.

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Originally titled The Last Man in Europe, the novel we now know as 1984 was written under strenuous circumstances. While working on the manuscript, Orwell was diagnosed with chronic fibrotic tuberculosis in the upper part of both lungs. The disease eventually consumed him and he died less than a year after 1984 was published.

4. F. Scott Fitzgerald died thinking The Great Gatsby was a flop.

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Despite being one of the most popular novels of all time and spawning several film adaptations, The Great Gatsby was once considered a flop. It initially failed to perform as well as F. Scott Fitzgerald's previous novels, and he sadly passed away before witnessing its eventual spike in popularity.

5. Hollywood has been desperately trying to make a The Catcher in the Rye film for decades.

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Samuel Goldwyn, Billy Wilder, The Weinstein Company, Jeffrey Katzenberg...even Steven Spielberg. Countless Hollywood heavy hitters have tried to earn the film rights for The Catcher in the Rye, but none succeeded. Actors like Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Jerry Lewis, and Leonardo DiCaprio had expressed interest in playing protagonist Holden Caulfield. Yet, J.D. Salinger refused to let Hollywood touch his classic novel.

6. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens directly inspired one of Christopher Nolan's Batman films.

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Inspiration can spawn from the most unlikely places, as Christopher Nolan learned while working on The Dark Knight Rises. Jonathan Nolan showed him the first draft of his screenplay, citing A Tale of Two Cities as an influence. Christopher then read the book and incorporated the story's tone and dynamics into his own draft.

7. The author of Lord of the Flies actually hated his own book.

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Lord of the Flies is a polarizing story, and author William Golding surprisingly sides as a hater against his work. He regretted writing the notorious novel, once calling it "boring and crude." He also found it absurd that it was considered a classic. Yikes.

8. The Kite Runner was inspired by a news story.

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Khalid Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner, was living in the US in 1999 when he caught a story on the news that would change his life. The Taliban in Afghanistan (his homeland) had banned kite flying. Flying kites was something he loved to do with his friends as a child, so he wrote a short story about it. That story eventually evolved into The Kite Runner.

9. The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde's only novel.

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Oscar Wilde remains one of the greatest literary icons in history, so it's easy to forget that he wrote just one novel his entire life. Lo and behold, it's a story that would become a high school staple for generations. Sure, Wilde wrote essays, plays, poetry, and fairy tales. However, The Picture of Dorian Gray is his sole novel and arguably carries his reputation.

10. The Scarlet Letter features a real punishment used by Puritan communities.

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It's common knowledge that the titular scarlet letter was an A which stood for adultery. Anyone that had sexual relations outside of their marriage was made to wear the letter in shame. This was a real punishment in Puritan communities, though a considerably tame one. Women were also punished for adultery by being publicly whipped, fined, or even sentenced to death. 

11. John Steinbeck's dog ate the first manuscript of Of Mice and Men.

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One of the most iconic required reading books fell victim to the "my dog ate my homework" scenario. John Steinbeck's dog, Toby, literally ate half of the first manuscript of Of Mice and Men. It was the only copy of the draft, and it took Steinbeck two months to write it all over again. 

12. Frankenstein was written by a teenager.

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Frankenstein's creature is one of the most recognizable monsters in the history of fiction...and it was created by a teenage girl. Mary Shelley was just 18 when she had the idea for the story. She was 19 when she finished writing the book.

13. A computer error code is named after Fahrenheit 451.

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If you've ever encountered "Error 451" while browsing the Internet, you were trying to access a page that's "Unavailable For Legal Reasons." The cause is usually a web page censored by the government. The code was given the number 451 as a reference to Fahrenheit 451, a classic narrative about censorship and destroying information.

14. Jane Austen published Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice anonymously.

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While Jane Austen remains a household name to this day, no one knew who she was during her lifetime. Sense and Sensibility, her first published novel, was written "By a Lady." Her following novel, Pride and Prejudice, was "By the Author of Sense and Sensibility." 

15. Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights under a male pseudonym.

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The Brontë sisters toyed with their public identities while creating some of the most recognizable titles in literature. Emily wrote Wuthering Heights under the male pseudonym Ellis Bell to avoid attention and bypass sexism. She crafted her famous work at a time when female authors weren’t taken seriously. Publishing as a male author allowed her writing to be reviewed fairly. 

16. The Grapes of Wrath gave Route 66 its most famous nickname.

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If you've ever heard Route 66 referred to as "the Mother Road," you can thank John Steinbeck. He coined the nickname in his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. Needless to say, the name stuck.

17. Lois Lowry wrote The Giver because of her father's illness.

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The Giver is an essential English classroom read, but the story is more personal than people realize. Lois Lowry was inspired to write the novel because of her late father's illness. During one of her trips to see him at a nursing home, she noticed that he was losing his memory. This led to Lowry crafting a story about people who found a way to manipulate human memory.

18. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston was written in just seven weeks.

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Only an adept author like Zora Neale Hurston could write something as brilliant as Their Eyes Were Watching God. However, it takes an inconceivable amount of talent to do so in just seven weeks. 

19. Starbucks is named after one of Moby Dick’s characters.

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Starbucks co-founder, Gordon Bowker, originally wanted to call the company “Pequod,” after the ship in Herman Melville's Moby Dick. His business partner, Terry Heckler, objected because the name was unappealing. They instead opted to name the company after Starbuck, the first mate on the Pequod.

20. Jane Eyre's publisher had no idea the author was a woman until Charlotte Brontë was forced to meet her editors in person.

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Charlotte Brontë wrote under the pseudonym Currer Bell to distance herself from her writing. She was so particular about hiding her identity that her publishers were shocked to discover she was a woman. They had corresponded by letter until Charlotte and her sister Anne were forced to meet their editors in person.