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had helped her on her way. She is one of the world's greatest
novelists. She was never able to become a full-time writer, having
domestic and social duties to perform, which took priority. She
died at the age of 41 from Addison's disease, then, of course,
incurable. Her output consists of six novels: Sense and Sensibility,
Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Mansﬁeld Park, Emma,
and Persuasion. Fame was beginning to come at the time of her
death and it has continued to grow. Her novels have never been
out of print for 2 centuries, and now more than 1 million copies
a year are sold in paperback in the English-speaking world alone.
(Another million copies are now produced in Hindustan.) Her
letters were burned by her sister at her death. The family also
altered and distorted the record to make Austen appear more
genteel and socially law-abiding than she actually was.
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852): Pugin
was a creative artist of extraordinary sensibility and on an enormous scale. Pugin made gothic the dominant style for all religious and public buildings. He was one of the very few English
architects and the only outstanding one with a ﬁrm and furious
ideological posture. He not only despised but loathed the neoclassical architects of the previous generation. Pugin used the
literary and illustrative skills he had inherited from his father
to launch a series of propaganda work unique in art history
of the Anglo-Saxon world. Pugin's output of aesthetic theory
and practical guidance based on on-the-spot studies, massive
reading and research, uncannily exact observation, and tens of
thousands of drawings was without precedent in England and
has had no successor. Most of Pugin's gothic designs for buildings, furniture, or anything else are entirely original.
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879): Essentially, this man
was the French Pugin. He was hugely inﬂuenced by Pugin and
made gothic respectable and even popular in France. His work
was overwhelmingly in restoration. He protested at the way
France's medieval heritage, the largest by far in the world, was
being allowed to deteriorate. Viollet-le-Duc was the key ﬁgure
in the national response. He is identiﬁed with three projects in
particular: the restoration of Notre Dame in Paris, the rescue of
the enormous and unique medieval town cathedral (palace and
fortress) of Carcassonne, and the rebuilding of the magniﬁcent
castle at Pierrefonds. He was also involved in scores of other
important restoration projects, churches, cathedrals, abbeys,
and public buildings all over the country.
Victor Marie Hugo (1802-1885): Hugo was a creative artist on the grandest possible scale, according to Johnson, with
the widest scope and the highest productivity. In all four great
divisions of literature-poetry, drama, novel, and essay-he was
equally productive and remarkable. At age 13, he was writing
classical tragedies and stories, and at age 16 he was receiving
public recognition. Thereafter, his output was incessant until
he suﬀered a stroke at age 76. Even then he continued to write
sporadically until his death at age 83. In all, he wrote 10 million
words, of which 3 million were edited from his manuscripts and
published posthumously. Hugo wrote every day of his life, be it
only a love letter to his wife or to his principal mistress. Usually,
it was one or more poems or several thousand words of prose-
perhaps both. Poetry punctuated his life and seemed always to
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have been spontaneous, eﬀortless, and ﬂuent. He often wrote
poetry ﬁrst thing in the morning before breakfast. He was 20
when he published his ﬁrst volume of verse. There are 24 books
of poetry printed after the poems ﬁrst appeared in newspapers.
There are probably over 3000 poems by Hugo, a few very long,
most short, some never published. He also wrote nine novels,
the ﬁrst in 1823 when he was 29. His plays began in 1827 with
Cromwell. He dominated French literature in the 19th century,
and he is the nearest equivalent to Shakespeare in France. He was
immensely widely read both in France and abroad. Les Misérables
was published simultaneously in eight major capital cities just
before World War I. There are over 3 million copies of Hugo's
novels in print today. At least 55 operas have been based on
his works. That Hugo was phenomenally creative is unarguable
based on sheer quality and quantity.
Mark Twain (1835-1910): Samuel Langhorne Clemens
stands at the center of American literature. Indeed, he invented
it. Mark Twain was not only a great creative artist but a quintessential American artist from ﬁrst to last. His material was
American even though he garnered or stole much of it from all
over the world. His style was American, as was his vocabulary,
verbal accent, ideological humor, comedy, indignation real or
simulated, self-presentation, methods of literary commerce, and
journalist ﬂair. As Johnson put it, he was an American opportunist, an American plagiarist, an American braggart, egotist,
and an American literary phenomenon. He liberated American
letters. He taught American writers and public performers of all
kinds a completely new set of tricks, which have been in use ever
since. His creativity was often crude and nearly always shameless.
But he was huge and genuine, overpowering, a kind of vulgar
magic, making something out of nothing, then transforming
that mere something into entire books that in turn hardened
into traditions and cultured certitudes. He was the greatest of
all literary con men. Twain took to public speaking, both for
money and to publicize his books, early in his career as a writer,
and his lectures quickly became a major source of income and
fame. Indeed, it is hard to say if Twain in his lifetime was a
better writer or speaker. His lectures were essentially humorous
performances: they were dramatic and he was acting. He was
essentially a standup comedian. Twain was an entertainer. He felt
that getting people interested and making them laugh was what
he was best at, the surest way to make money and his contribution to the health and wealth of mankind. He was not a novelist,
poet, playwright, writer of philosophy or history, or travel writer,
though he posed as such. His books are all entertainment. His
two best books, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn, his masterpiece, are also, when inspected
closely, compilations of anecdotes.
T. S. Elliott (1888-1965): He launched modern poetry in
the English-speaking world in 1922 with the publication of The
Waste Land. He was a conservative by nature. Elliott was never
once (except on holidays) photographed without a tie, wore a
three-piece suit on all occasions, kept his hair trimmed, and was
the last intellectual on either side of the Atlantic to wear spats.
He was from an aﬄuent family with strong concepts of duty
and service, to God, country, community, and culture. If ever

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