When someone younger than you achieves something great, it’s kind of irritating. Young people are nice and all, but, also, just stop it, young people. Just stop making others feel inadequate.
Hopefully this list of writers and their ages won’t make you feel too bad. As surprisingly young as some writers were when they wrote their most famous work, the ages really do vary. Let this be a source of both bitterness and inspiration. It’s never too late to start!
S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders – 18 years old
Christopher Paolini, Eragon – 18 years old
Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero – 21 years old
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein – 21 years old
Helen Keller, The Story of My Life – 22 years old
Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock – 24 years old
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises – 27 years old
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – 28 years old
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights – 28 years old
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby – 29 years old
Jack Kerouac, On the Road – 29 years old
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar – 30 years old
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – 32 years old
J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye – 32 years old
Herman Melville, Moby Dick – 32 years old
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – 41 years old
A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh – 44 years old
Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games – 46 years old
Bram Stoker, Dracula – 50 years old
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged – 52 years old
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita – 56 years old
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables – 60 years old