The people behind the pages
by Rauwolfia van Raaij
‘Writer’ is not a common name amongst the lists of professions today,
And though our shelves are stacked with books,
it is very rarely you hear someone saying ‘I have met a writer’.
Who are the people behind the pages? What are they like?
Was Jane Austen herself the wittiest person in England?
Why did Beatrix Potter have such an obsession with rabbits?
Did Charles Dickens ever experience a real court case, or collect wills?
People often think that writers are a lot like their stories, yet many of them lived lives that could only be called ordinary. Mary Evans, who wrote under the name George Eliot was the daughter of a common farmer, Emily Bronte whose pen name was Ellis Bell was one of 6 children and the daughter of a vicar. L. M. Montgomery was raised hard and strictly by her grandparents. What was different in these people’s lives that inspired them to write? Did they have overactive imaginations? Everyone around them’s encouragement? extraordinary talent, of simply took the chance to put their ideas on paper, had the perseverance to follow their stories where it led them and the courage to give their works to the world and be counted amongst the writers of the past whose books are still remembered today.