The 100 most famous writers of all time

10. Lev Tolstoi

The author of the literary works "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina", Lev Tolstoy was known for creating hundreds of literary characters with complex characters, this being a way to get rid of his inner struggles against the human condition. Tolstoy suffered from severe and frequent cases of depression, and eventually became a wandering ascetic during his octogenarian life. Tragically, he only did so as far as an isolated train station before it collapsed and died of pneumonia shortly thereafter.

9. Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift, an Anglo-Irish writer of Gulliver's Travels, had a life that slowly took the path of madness. What is certain is that by 1472 his psyche had exceeded the limits of rationality and stability. Will Durant wrote, for example, how five people tried to stop him from taking out his eye, which was inflamed, a scene after which he did not speak for a whole year.

8. Philip K. Dick

In late February 1974, Philip K. Dick, a fiction writer and amphetamine user, had a series of powerful psychological visions while resting in his home. They continued throughout the next month, a combination of vivid geometric patterns with ecclesiastical images, in order to create new and profound interpretations of religious and literary history.

"A transcendental mind invaded my mind, as if I had been mad all my life, and suddenly I became healthy," Dick said, also claiming that he had begun to lead a double life, half his personality. being dominated by a persecuted Christian from ancient Rome.

7. HP Lovecraft

The science fiction and horror writer, HP Lovecraft, had a state of mind conditioned by both internal and external influences. He suffered from sleep disturbances or night terrors. Thus, after a time of confrontation with these destabilizing states during the night, his finances were mismanaged, leading to a sharp and sudden decline in his family's way of life. Lovecraft suffered from extreme depression, as he also had suicide attempts and suffered from what he described as a "nervous breakdown". This condition continued especially when he was diagnosed with bowel cancer and Bright's disease, causing him severe pain and was to suffer from it throughout his life.

6. Jack Kerouac

When Jack Kerouac wrote his famous work "On the Road," it was not a standard ten-chapter novel that he simply had in mind. What he created was a product with a continuous flow of consciousness, typed on a continuous roll. This unique approach to the literature is probably less surprising than when Kerouac wrote under the influence of a cocktail of brain-affecting substances, including alcohol, marijuana, and amphetamine benzedrine. But he was honorably indicted by the US Navy on the grounds that he is a "lame personality".

5. Ernest Hemingway

One of the canonical figures in modern American literature, Ernest Hemingway, had a troubled psychological state. He indulged in drunkenness for most of his life, which probably led to his mental deterioration, as did many other writers. Commentators pointed to several probable diagnoses, from bipolar disorder to traumatic brain injury and narcissistic personality traits. After a long period of treatment, Hemingway woke up one morning, picked up his favorite rifle, and blew his brain.

4. Marquis de Sade

The Marquis de Sade undoubtedly had an eccentric life. His cultural beliefs were at the confluence of revolutionary ideas related to sexual and moral freedom, narrated in many of his works and from which we "inherited" the term "sadism." In 1803, not long after his imprisonment, he was declared insane and placed in an asylum. But even in that asylum, de Sade did not give up his illicit sexual relations until his death in 1814.

3. Sylvia Plath

Silvia Path, the author of the autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, described in that novel mental instability, which strikingly resembled the vicissitudes of her life. Due to her clinical depression, Plath had a series of treatment sessions. However, they failed, which is why Plath attempted suicide but failed. Later, after another attempt to stabilize her mental health, 30-year-old Plath was found dead in her apartment, with her head on the edge of the kitchen oven, where she could smell a strong gas.

2. Edgar Allan Po

Known for his attempts to define humanity, an example in this case being the macabre story "The Tell-Tale Heart", in his work it is easy to see that Poe is fighting a demon in his mind. . He himself stated that he has inclinations towards anxiety and mental deviations. "After his wife died, Poe said, 'I'm sensitive and nervous, only to a very unusual degree.'

In October 1849, he was found in a state of delirium on the streets of Baltimore, unable to articulate anything significant or explain how he got there. Poe died at a local hospital in the early hours of the next day.

1. Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf's prose is not only characterized by a unique and creative spirit, but also full of "thorns", from which it appears that she suffered a lot in her life. Missing her mother and stepdaughter, Stella, during her adolescence, Woolf also faced sexual abuse from her stepbrothers.

Throughout her life, she struggled with deep depression and several nervous breakdowns as she went through various hardships, one example being the risk of losing her London home. On March 28, 1941, she placed several stones in her coat pockets, entered the nearest river near her home, and was lost to the world.