Being in my late 50s, when my mind turns to morbid thought (and it often does) I think my best writing years are behind me. But there is hope. Even though Pulp writers tended to start quite young, not everyone gets the writing bug in their youth. Here are some Fantasy writers who waited until they were older to write their masterpieces.
Bram Stoker (1847-1912)
Stoker did publish some books early on but Dracula was his big success at 50. The other novels like The Jewel of the Seven Stars and The Lair of the White Worm came later. Stoker had been Henry Irving’s manager and only moved into full time fiction production after leaving the theater scene. Stoker was part of the literary staff of The Daily Telegraph at this time.
E. R. Eddison (1882-1945)
Eddison published The Worm Ouroboros in 1922 when he was 50 and then the sequels after retiring from his job as a civil servant. Before J. R. R. Tolkien, Eddison was one of the big ones along with William Morris and Lord Dunsany.
Vera Chapman (1898-1996)
Vera published her first book when she was The Green Knight (1975). She was 77. She had been a druid before marrying a vicar. She was the founding member of the UK’s Tolkien Society before her Arthurian novels.
Richard Adams (1920-2016)
Adams made a splash with his debut novel, Watership Down (1974) when he was 54, retiring from his civil service job a year later. Shardik, The Plague Dogs, The Girl in a Swing, Traveler, and his other books all came after.
Evangeline Walton (1907-1996)
Walton was another writer who published when younger, but published sporadically. The Island of the Mighty appeared in 1936 as The Virgin and the Swine, but the other three books appeared in the mid-1970s when she was over 65. The Mabinogion novels are the Fantasy masterwork she is known for.
Authors outside the Fantastic genres who also fall into this category include Laura Ingalls Wilder, Raymond Chandler and Charles Bukowski. So I guess there is hope that once I lose the day job, I might actually write something more than a blog….
NB. Retired now and loving it!
This is promising news — today is my birthday and I’m retiring at the end of the year!
Good for you. I’m jealous.
THANK YOU!!!!! I’ve been writing since I was 14 and have had some scholarly items published, but I have four novels that I’ve been working on for the past 20-odd years; I’ve been in Higher Education for 35 years as an instructor, professor, dept. Chair, Dean, Associate Vice President, and Vice President and coming up on retirement in the next few years. So this is VERY encouraging. I’m correct in thinking my writing career will be my second career after I retire from my day hob. THANK YOU!
Jim