...hunted for today are things that I didn't know about certain books and their authors.

And because I think that it would be best to get to the point without any delays, let's start off with Anne Frank...
1. Anne Frank

If you read the diary, you probably know who Miep was, but if now, let me clear that out... she was a young woman, who helped Anne's family and four other people hide in the second World War. What you probably didn't know about her was that when Anne and the others were discovered and arrested, Miep escaped without being caught.

How did she escape?

She probably had every single god on her side, when the guy who came to arrest her turned out to be someone from the old town she was born in, and thus they knew each other.

There is also the fact that Miep was the person who found and hid Anne's diary and later gave it to Anne's father (the only person who survived out of the family). She didn't read the original diary before she gave it over, and she said that if she would have read it she would more than likely destroyed it, because it contained every single name that was involved with the family (not only the people that helped hide them, but also the suppliers).

Miep passed away in 2010, when she was 100 years old.

Another thing you probably didn't know was that Anne Frank was actually caught on video.

When the girl next door where she lived in was getting married, Anne was leaning out the window of her home to watch the bride. And here's the video: 


2. Jules Verne 


Jules Verne was best friends with Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo was his mentor, he had a wife and a single son. His favorite book was Robinson Crusoe, he suffered from diabetes (which was eventually the cause of his death), his career started out with writing opera librettos and his works were blessed by Pope Leo XIII.

Jules Verne is also the second most translated author in the history of time and space (the first being Agatha Christie). Just think about that... he beats even Shakespeare, or Plato, or Hemingway, or Tolstoy...

This isn't bad-ass enough, you say?

Well, Jules Verne was also shot by his nephew, who was 25 years old at the time. There were 2 bullets fired at him, one of it missed and the other hit him in the leg, making him limp all his life. The nephew was introduced to the life of an asylum after an incident where he lived for the rest of his life, and the incident was covered up by the media.

Oh, and besides him actually writing about inventions that weren't even possible back in his time (electric submarines, solar sails, lunar modules, skywriting, video conferences, the taser, and other cool stuff), a last book that he wrote was discovered after his death in a safe by his great-grandson.

This book is called Paris in the 20th century, and it is about an unhappy young man who lives in a world of skyscrapers, really fast trains, gas-powered automobiles, calculators (!), and to top it all off, a worldwide communication network.

This book was only published in 1994, because it was "too depressing".

Yes, people, Jules Verne predicted the internet. How fucking amazing that is?

3. Alexandre Dumas


This one will be a bit short, but I had to write this one down, cause I found it kind of cool. 

Alexandre Dumas was partly black! 

You see, Alexandre Dumas had a pretty nice family going on (both his father and son were called Alexandre Dumas, but so we don't confuse them, the father was Gen. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, and the son was Alexandre Dumas, fils)... which leaves the author to be Alexandre Dumas, Pére. 

Now, that we have that out of the was, let's begin this short story... 

Gen. Thomas- Alexandre Dumas was born in Haiti, and he was the first black general in French history. He is also the highest ranking person of color. 

The guy was pretty much a hero, and because of this he became quite a big threat to Napoleon. Thus, at some point he was thrown into a prison where he spent about two years... which eventually gave his son, our favorite writer, the idea of "The Count of Monte Cristo". 

4. Bram Stoker 


I'm guessing most people would only know him if you would say "the guy who wrote that book about Dracula". 

How many of you guys knew, though, that Stoker was the third kid in a family of seven children, and that he was sick all the time? In fact, he was apparently so sick as a child, that until he was seven years old he was bed-ridden. 

Also, in his lifetime he was never known as a novelist, but as the personal assistant of Henry Irving (actor), and the business manager of Lyceum Theater in London. He was also a theater critic, and he wrote his reviews for the Dublin Evening Mail. 

Now, his most famous book - yes, Dracula- was once upon a time titled "The Un-Dead"... and guess what! In this original manuscript Dracula wasn't called "count Dracula" at all. He was called "Count Wampyr" (which is pretty hilarious, when you come to think about it..). 

Oh, by the way... the whole book only came after Bram actually wrote a theatrical adaptation to it (which was only performed once). Thus, the first adaptation of the book preceded the book itself! 

And to set us all straight, Dracula wasn't even the first vampire novel in the history of time... 

There were actually quite a couple of other similar stories before it, like Carmilla, written by Sheridan Le Fanu, which is about a lesbian vampire who stalks lonely women; Varney the Vampire, written by James Malcolm Rymer; and The Vampyre by John Polidori, which was based on the summer he spent with Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, a summer that eventually also ended up with the story of Frankenstein being written. 

5. Jane Austen 


I started with a woman, and I shall finish it up with a woman (even though I'm not a big fan of Jane Austen books). 

Well, let me first say this, Jane Austen wasn't a revered writer in her lifetime (like it usually happens). She always wrote her novels anonymously... and the only time a "writer" was ever mentioned was when she wrote Sense ans Sensibility. The writer was "a Lady", and after this book, every single book she wrote was signed as "by the Author of..."

This next fact might take you by surprise too... Jane Austen's great-great nephew was called Jack Austen. He was the guy who founded the Austin Motor Company. Jack Austen's grandson is Jeremy effing Clarkson... :) 

All right, back to Jane. 

Jane was a terrible speller... The first sentence of Pride and Prejudice? She had to write it down six times before she got it right. 

Originally it started out with: "It is a truth universally ignol egnog aknol icknowl agknolid acknowlid acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wif." 
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