Before 1847, vegetarians were called “Pythagoreans”. The Romantic idea that human beings should show compassion to nature and all her creatures was the basis of many a meat-free diet. It appears that the curious Victorian age was a perfect feeding ground for such ideas—and it seemed to be authors, in particular, who applied the Romantic outlook to their eating habits. As you’ll see, some of these diets were fairly bizarre:

A strong defender of injustice towards the lower classes, Percy Bysshe Shelley was inspired by Ritson to become a vegetarian. He did so in 1810, shortly before his time at Oxford. He worried about the transmigration of souls that was brought about by eating an animal, and became more and more enthralled by William Godwin and his bouts of vegetarianism.

During his first marriage to Harriet Westbrook, Shelley and his wife were proud “Pythagoreans”—and Shelley is often considered to be the first famous vegetarian of the modern age, even though he started eating meat again at a later point in his life.

Lord Byron had always struggled with his weight, which often suffered from extreme fluctuations due to his love of starchy foods. In an effort to combat this tendency by strength of will, Byron developed his own diet, which would go on to become the first real “celebrity diet” of the age.

During his university years, he lived on dry biscuits and water, or boiled potatoes in vinegar. He was convinced that vinegar aided digestion and weight loss, as it kept hunger pangs at bay and seemed to ensure sharpness of mind. Between 1806 and 1811, Byron managed to lose a total of seventy pounds (32kg).

If he were forced out of politeness to eat his fill at a dinner party, the poet would end his evening by taking a copious amount of magnesium. When Byron did not have to dress to impress, he would wear layers of wool to induce a sweat, and thereby add to his weight loss.

It is a well-known fact that Lewis Carroll made a habit of smoking opium, and many are convinced that “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” are a less-than-subtle testament to this habit. In the Victorian age, many people used opium on a daily basis, which was one of the main reasons for infant mortality at the time. Carroll eventually began to supplement his diet with opium snacks as well, since eating the drug was often more practical than smoking it. It certainly wasn’t tasty—but the narcotic benefits were more important to him than the resulting bad breath.

Dickens was a man who knew his food, and this knowledge seeped through into his works—everything from his starveling diet in “Oliver Twist” to his obsession with baked apples. Dickens became convinced that eating one baked apple every day during sea travels would prevent sea sickness. He even thought that the lack of balance you experience upon reaching land could be resolved by consuming apples.

The English poet John Keats was diagnosed with “mental exertion” in 1820, and his physician Dr. James Clark tried to heal his stomach pains and tuberculosis with a diet of a singly anchovy, plus one small piece of bread, every day. During his time following this diet—which was of course devoid of essential vitamins and minerals—Keats was also bled on a daily basis. Even though this was a very common treatment in that age, it is almost certain that his diet contributed to his weakness and worsening condition. Unsurprisingly, Keats found himself with no energy at all.

The Bronte sisters did not exactly grow up in the lap of luxury. If they were given any food at all on a particular day, it would be prepared in such a way as to render it almost inedible. There were times of near-starvation, and whole days which would provide their stomachs with nothing more than burnt porridge and a chunk of bread.

Charlotte eventually turned her experiences with food—or lack thereof—into a recurring theme in her books. Heroines would starve themselves as a sign of strength—the gist being that the body does not need fuel, so long as the heart and mind are strong.

Explorer David Livingstone is known not only for his travels, but also for writing a fascinating field diary which covered his journey through Africa. He was used to good food at home, but during his trip he had to live on meals which, at their worst, consisted of water and bird seed. Hunger pangs took their toll, and Livingstone was often unable to participate in the exploration work due to a constant lack of energy. He lost a lot of weight as a result of his travel diet, and would often be forced to cut new notches into his belt.

It’s said that Walt Whitman’s day did not really begin until he ate his favorite meat and oyster breakfast plate. The American poet and journalist relied on his meat for fuel and stamina, and oysters to keep his wit and mind sharp. It makes you wonder what he would have for dinner.

Darwin suffered from stomach acid problems, gout, and flatulence. He took “ten drops of muriatic acid twice a day”, and his daily diet would consist of a small portion of game or fowl, an egg omelet, and cheese. His doctor tried to persuade him to eat toast, and recommended eating more starchy foods such as potatoes. But Darwin loved the fact that his self-designed diet had reduced his vomiting, and would hear none of it.

Robert Louis Stevenson enjoyed all food and drink—and he generally enjoyed it in excess. From his chain smoking habit to his constant consumption of strong coffee and alcohol, he found it difficult to quit his addictions. Quite the opposite to Darwin, Stevenson enjoyed a diet high in cholesterol and carbs, and suffered from repetitive bouts of meningitis. His smoking and coffee-drinking sped up his blood pressure and heart rate, which (combined with a diet rich in cholesterol) did him no favors.

Sabine Bevers is a freelance writer

Many writers and artists had cats and dogs, and sometimes used them as inspiration for their stories or their paintings. The poet Emily Dickinson owned Carlo, a large dog that she took with her on long walks and that she mentions in a few poems and letters. The Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges had as a companion for 15 years a white cat, Beppo, to whom he dedicated at least two poems. The painter Edward Munch, creator of “The Scream”, had a dog that became so inseparable from him that he took him even to the movies. But other artists had a bit more unusual pets. Here there’s a list with some of the more exotic ones.

10 Heartwarming Stories Of Pets Who Survived Natural Disasters (Videos)

10 Frida Kahlo’s deer, Granizo

Frida Kahlo loved all kind of animals and had several unusual pets. In her famous “Blue House” in Mexico where she lived and worked, the famous painter kept several monkeys, cockatoos, parrots and an exotic dog of the Xoloitzcuintli breed — hairless dogs that, it is believed, were first domesticated by the Aztecs. Of the 143 paintings by Frida Kahlo, 55 are self-portraits that include at least one of her animals. But one of her most beloved pets was the deer Granizo (Hail), which posed with her in many photographs, used to sleep with her, and served as inspiration and model for one of her most famous paintings, “Wounded Deer” (1946), where she portrays herself as a deer with a human face.

9 Ernest Hemingway’s Six-Toed Cat, Snowball (or Snow White)

Not many people would think of Ernest Hemingway as a cat-person, but he loved cats and owned several of them during his life. When he lived in Key West, Florida, he received as a gift from a captain’s ship a cat that he named Snowball (or, according to other accounts, Snow White). The unusual thing was that the cat had six toes on each paw, because he suffered from a congenital anomaly called polydactyly. Today, several of Hemingway cat’s descendants, about half of them also polydactyl cats, live in his former house that was transformed into the Hemingway House-Museum.

8 Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Wombat, Top

The writer and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, perhaps the most famous member of the “Pre-Raphaelite” group in the 19th century, loved exotic animals. He was especially fascinated by wombats, those rare Australian marsupials. He adopted one that he named Top and let him sleep on the table during meals, to the horror and chagrin of his guests. When the pet died, he cried and wrote him an epitaph in verse. He also immortalized him in at least two drawings. Rossetti’s growing interest in exotic animals over the years culminated in the adoption of a llama and a toucan that he brought from South America. According to legends, he trained the toucan to ride on the llama with a gaucho hat and to gallop around the dining room table.

7 Charles Dickens’ Raven, Grip

The English writer Charles Dickens had a beloved pet raven called Grip, which he even used as a character in one of his novels, Barnaby Rudge (Edgar Allan Poe, who later reviewed Dickens’ novel, might have been inspired by it to write his poem “The Raven”). Dickens, who was fascinated by taxidermy, preserved his raven after its death, and kept the stuffed bird on his desk as a source of inspiration. After the death of Dickens, the stuffed Grip was sold at an auction, and eventually bought by an American collector. Today it can be seen in a museum in Philadelphia.

6 Lord Byron’s Tame Bear

Lord Byron most famous pet was likely his dog Boatswain, who followed him in several adventures and to which he composed an epitaph in verse. But he also had many other pets during his life, including a tame bear. The story goes that Trinity College, in Cambridge, where he studied from 1805 to 1808, did not allow dogs to be kept on the college grounds. Angry at the rules, Byron reportedly bought a tame bear at a fair, and took him to live at the college with him. Since there was no mention of pet bears in the statutes, the college authorities had no legal right to expel the bear or its owner. Byron walked the bear on a chain and treated it like a dog, and when he left Cambridge he took the bear to his estate in London.

10 Bizarre Ways People Have Been Killed By Pets

5 Flannery O’Connor’s Backward-Walking Chicken

Before becoming famous as the author of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and other brilliant short stories, Flannery O’Connor was briefly famous as a 5 year old child, but for owning a chicken that could walk backwards. The animal and the young future author were recorded in a Pathé newsreel in 1932, a film that can still be seen today. Her fascination with fowl continued throughout her whole life. Besides chicken, which she used to dress in clothes she made herself, Flannery owned several beloved peacocks (her favourite animals), and reportedly also a toucan and an emu.

4 Charles Baudelaire’s Bat

Charles Baudelaire, the famous French author of Les Fleurs du Mal, lived at the Hotel du Grand Miroir in Brussels from 1864 to 1866. One day as he was walking in the hotel courtyard, a bat fell to his feet. Worried that it might be ill, he picked it up with a handkerchief and took care of the animal as he recovered, feeding him with bread and milk. The bat slept upside down in an empty cage that had before housed a canary, and Baudelaire enjoyed caressing it, to the horror of his young maid, Nelly. When the animal was fully recovered, Baudelaire promised to release it back to the crevices of Sainte-Anne chapel across the street, where it seemed to have resided before.

3 Alexandre Dumas’ Vulture, Diogène (previously Jugurtha)

Alexandre Dumas (father), the author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo, was another writer who enjoyed having exotic animals. In his country estate, besides five dogs and a cat, he also kept three monkeys, two parrots, a golden pheasant and a vulture. He purchased the vulture at a cheap price from a local in Constantine, Algeria, but bringing him to France cost him quite a bit more. He named the bird Jugurtha, in homage to the ancient emperor of Numidia who was born in the same city (called Cirta at that time). However, when at the writer’s house, the vulture took an empty barrel as his preferred residence, and so it was renamed Diogenes, in homage to the Greek philosopher who reportedly lived inside a barrel as well.

2 Henrik Ibsen’s Scorpion

In 1865, the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen was still unknown and was living in Rome, surviving on a meagre scholarship. There he started to write “Brand”, the first play that would make him famous. As he wrote the play, he found a scorpion crawling on the floor, and decided to keep him at his desk as he wrote, inside an empty beer glass. As he later told it in a letter to a friend, “During the time I was writing Brand I had on my desk a glass with a scorpion in it. From time to time the little animal was ill. Then I used to give it a piece of soft fruit, upon which it fell furiously and emptied its poison into it —after which it was well again”. Of course, it could be that the animal was simply enraged at his fruit diet, as scorpions are predators who normally prefer to eat insects.

1 Princess Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy’s Lion, Goldfleck

Almost forgotten today, Princess Vilma Lwof-Parlaghy was quite famous as a painter in the late 19th and early 20th century. Perhaps her most famous painting is her 1916 portrait of Nikola Tesla, the only portrait for which the inventor posed during his life. Born in Hungary, Vilma lived in several cities including Paris and Prague, where she married and quickly divorced a Russian prince, earning her Princess title, then she relocated to New York in 1909, taking residence at the Plaza Hotel. She loved animals and once took a fancy at a lion cub that she saw at a circus. When the circus owner refused to sell her the cub, she asked her friend and Civil War hero Daniel E. Sickles to get it for her. The circus owner could not refuse to give the cub to a war hero, and he then gave it to the Princess. She called him Goldfleck and lived with him and several other animals at her suite at the hotel. She occasionally took him for walks on a leash in Central Park. The animal unfortunately didn’t live long, becoming ill just two years later and dying in 1912. He is the only lion interred at Hartsdale Pet Cemetery.

Top 10 Exotic Pets That Killed Their Owners

About The Author: Tomas Creus is the editor of Contrarium and the author of the book “Our Pets and Us: The Evolution of a Relationship”.

People are reported missing all the time, leaving authorities and loved ones to piece together clues and come up with theories. Sometimes, there are logical explanations, But other times, there are no clear theories, and the mystery remains unsolved. Not all these disappearances were of the forever kind, but they definitely are all strange and thought-provoking.

This list explores ten published writers who went missing, leaving their readers and the public to wonder what exactly happened to cause their disappearance.

Related: 10 Mysterious People Who Inspired The Work Of Great Writers

10 Agatha Christie

The famous English mystery writer perplexed police, fans, and family members when she vanished in 1926 under mysterious circumstances. Christie left home in the evening and drove off without leaving any indication as to her destination. Police soon found her car abandoned with no clues about her whereabouts. As an already well-known author, her disappearance was highly publicized with a lot of energy put into her case. But, no new breaks happened in the case until 11 days later, when the author was spotted in a hotel using a fake name. When her husband came to get her, she had little memory of the previous week. Luckily her disappearance resulted in a reappearance.

The police and her husband theorized that she suffered amnesia from a car accident which accounted for her lost identity and memory. But people continued to speculate on the real reason. Suggestions ranged from a nervous breakdown brought on by the death of her mother and embarrassment of her husband’s affair to a cynical publicity stunt to promote the successful but still little-known author. Christie never publicly spoke or acknowledged her disappearance for the rest of her life. Fans and biographers continue to speculate about possibilities, leaving her disappearance an enduring mystery.^[1]

9 Barbara Newhall Follet

Follet, a child prodigy, published her first novel, The House without Windows, at only 12 years old to critics’ positive reviews. She was regularly featured in newspapers and media, showcasing her incredible talent at a young age. By age 14, she would release her second and final novel. After this early success, Follet would go through emotional challenges. Her father, a big supporter of her writing career, decided to leave Follet and her mother for a younger woman. Without much money or the encouragement of her father, Follet would go on to write two unpublished manuscripts before marrying Nickerson Rogers.

Without many prospects in her writing career, she took jobs as a secretary to make ends meet. By 1939, her marriage was in trouble. Later that year, following an argument with Nickerson, she left their home and never returned. Follet’s mother, Helen, continued to look into Follet’s disappearance, though no new leads have ever been made public. Follet has never been seen again and remains missing. Many theories revolve around the idea of foul play or suicide because of her marital issues. Since her body has never been found, neither theory has ever been proven correct.^[2]

8 Ambrose Bierce

Bierce had a prolific writing career spanning decades, earning him much respect in life and posthumously. His disappearance left behind many theories and mysteries about the man who shaped American literature with his short stories, journalism, poetry, and criticism.

Bierce was last seen in 1913 on his way to Mexico, presumably to cover the Mexican Revolution for a story. There are few known truths surrounding Bierce’s disappearance. The last known correspondence he had with a family member included a sense of impending mortality in which he referred to possibly getting killed by armies in Mexico. Scholars indicate this is the most plausible theory, given the danger he risked walking into a civil war (5). But no physical evidence or sighting confirmation has ever been given, leaving his disappearance a part of his final legacy.^[3]

7 Connie Converse

Though not a traditional author like others on this list, Connie Converse still put words to paper to share with the world. She was a songwriter who tried to start her music career in New York during the 1950s. She achieved little success in her lifetime, despite her pioneering work in the singer-songwriter genre. She dropped her music career after a decade, moving to Michigan to be near her family. In 1974, after feeling increasingly depressed over time, she left ominous notes to her family indicating that she intended to disappear and start a new life.

The last reported sighting claimed she simply packed up her car and drove away. Her family never found out what happened after she disappeared. There is the theory that she committed suicide because of her ongoing battle with depression. Another theory is that she really did start a new life somewhere. Though the end of her career and known life was tragic, her music experienced a revival in the 2000s with a reissued early album. Connie’s music, life, and disappearance have continued to influence other artists and songwriters to this day.^[4]

6 Weldon Kees

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Walden Kees was a poet and film critic who had published several collections of poetry, and his last book was published in 1954. A year after his final poetry publication, Kees vanished. Police found his abandoned car with the keys still in the ignition with no clues about what happened to the writer. He confided with various friends about suicidal thoughts or the possibility of starting a new life in Mexico before his disappearance. But there have been no confirmed clues or sightings, leaving police with no leads on the case.

Some of his work was published posthumously, and other authors continued to praise his work. Though he made a name for himself through his poetry while alive, his disappearance continues to fascinate new and old readers of his work.^[5]

5 Irmgard Keun

Before World War 2, the popular German novelist Keun wrote about subjects that the Nazi party denounced. Because of this opposition, Keun had to leave Germany. She lived abroad in France and the Netherlands until a newspaper published in 1940 reported that she had died.

But Keun was not actually dead and instead forged papers to return to Germany to see her parents. Her level of involvement in the publication of her fake death remains a mystery, as do much of the details of her assuming a new identity to return to Germany.

She lived basically unknown until she died, a big contrast to the fame she achieved early in her career. Because of her choice to remain publicly dead, much of the details about her disappearance and life after 1940 remain unclear.^[6]

4 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine was known for his fiction and poetry and also as a military pilot. His adventurous aviation career would supply inspiration for his literary career. Sadly, his last novel, The Little Prince, would be published posthumously in his native France. In 1944, he set off on what would be his final mission heading over the coast of France. He never returned.

The most likely theory was that his plane was shot down by the enemy. However, no wreckage could be located to confirm this theory until 60 years later, when the plane was found off the southern coast of France. The exact circumstances leading to the crash can still not be determined.^[7]

3 Oscar Zeta Acosta

Acosta was a writer, attorney, and activist for the Chicano movement, which pushed back against the discrimination many Mexican-Americans faced in the 1960s and 1970s. He published two somewhat controversial novels in his lifetime. He was also well known for his friendship with fellow writer Hunter S. Thompson, even becoming immortalized as a character inspiration in Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. They remained friends until his disappearance in Mexico in 1974 (11).

Thompson continued to look into his death, even giving his own theories about what may have happened—but without any concrete answers. Many theories throughout the years about his disappearance have been given, including drugs and assassination for his political activism. However, none have ever been proven.^[8]

2 Solomon Northup

Northup was born in 1807 as a free man in New York. He is well known for his book Twelve Years a Slave, based on his experience of being kidnapped and sold into slavery. Northup was eventually legally freed and returned to his family in New York. With the help of people back home, he was able to prove his freedom.

Public speaking events and extensive activism made Northup a public figure in America during his life. However, even after all of this publicity, the circumstances of his later life and death remain unknown. It is suspected that he joined the Underground Railroad, where he helped enslaved people escape.^[9]

1 Edgar Allen Poe

The famous author’s last moments in 1854 are surrounded by mystery. A week before his death, Poe was supposed to leave Richmond for work in Philadelphia and then on to meet his aunt in New York before returning to Virginia. However, he never made it to either city. He was found semi-conscious in Baltimore, delirious and unable to account for his weeklong disappearance.

Many theories exist, including alcohol use, illness, and even foul play. However, all of these explanations are solely speculations, and his disappearance during this time has never been fully explained. Because of the dark subject matter of his writing career, the mystery of his disappearance and subsequent death has fascinated and baffled readers of the author, an apparent case of life imitating art.^[1]

Some Roman writers are very well-known, notably Virgil, who wrote the Aeneid; Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-king who, when not ruling the empire, wrote his Meditations; and Suetonius, the historian who composed biographies of Julius Caesar and the first eleven emperors. You might even recognize the names of Tacitus or Livy, but there are hundreds of Roman authors whose works have survived. Here are ten of the lesser-known Romans whose writings shaped the modern world.

Related: 10 Ways The Roman Empire Was Surprisingly Progressive

10 Seneca (c. 4 BC–AD 65)

Many have heard of the Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence and certainly the earlier Greek dramatists, Sophocles and Euripides. However, Lucius Annaeus Seneca doesn’t get much attention these days. Seneca (Seneca the Younger) was born around the same time as Jesus Christ and died in AD 65. He was close to those in power in Rome later in his life. He became the leading Stoic philosopher of his generation before annoying Emperor Nero (the one who fiddled while Rome burned) and being forced to commit suicide in AD 65.

Seneca’s main impact on shaping the modern world comes from some of his lesser-known works, specifically his plays, all tragedies. Notable among these are Medea, Phaedra, Oedipus, and Agamemnon. These pieces generally dealt with characters seeking revenge on others for some wrongdoing or another. In early modern Europe, these plays profoundly influenced how revenge plays were written and structured, notably William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. As such, Seneca has left an indelible imprint on modern culture.^[1]

9 Boethius (c. AD 477–524)

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was the last of Rome’s notable authors. He lived as the Western Roman Empire was being transformed into a number of successor states ruled by Germanic kings. One of these, Theodoric the Great, had Boethius imprisoned around 523, dying shortly afterward.

Boethius is famed for writing The Consolation of Philosophy while in prison. This work takes the shape of a philosophical treatise between him and the female embodiment of philosophy. Here Boethius famously wrote of the nature of life as a wheel of fortune, in which fate can grant men and women success and then, just as quickly, rob them of it. His book also contained numerous reflections on Roman music from which modern musicologists have been able to determine details of Roman culture. The Consolation of Philosophy was one of the most widely read philosophical treatises in Europe during the Middle Ages.^[2]

8 Columella (c. AD 4–c. 70)

The Roman Empire, for all its sophistication and achievements, always remained a pre-industrial society (though they did have a working scheme for a steam engine). Consequently, agriculture was central to Roman society and its economy. Yet we very rarely hear about Roman writers who actually put pen to paper, or parchment as the case may be, to write about agricultural methods. One of the few exceptions was Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, a first-century soldier and agriculturalist who composed De Re Rustica or On Rural Affairs.

De Re Rustica consisted of twelve books covering a variety of topics, from how to grow grapes to make wine to raising animals and how to manage your staff on a large farm. When it was rediscovered in a Swiss monastery in the fifteenth century, it went on to influence early modern farming methods around the selective breeding of animals and much more.^[3]

7 Marcus Gavius Apicius (c. 10 BC–c. AD 60)

What list of ancient authors would be complete without details of someone who composed a cookbook? Marcus Gavius Apicius is the individual in question, a Roman gourmet. Unfortunately, little is known of his life other than he clearly lived in the first half of the first century AD.

Apicius should be acclaimed today for having written his self-titled work Apicius, also known as De Re Culinaria, meaning On the Subject of Cooking. This ten-book work provides details on how to run a successful kitchen and includes a wide array of recipes and discussions of Roman food. Apicius is not just useful for reconstructing what the Romans ate and how they cooked it, but some of the details provided by Apicius have gone on to influence modern recipes such as stews, ragouts, and salads. Apicius’s work has certainly shaped what the modern world eats.^[4]

6 Frontinus (c. AD 40–103)

Sextus Julius Frontinus was a Roman engineer who lived and wrote during the first century AD. He flourished as a government and military engineer during the reigns of the Flavian emperors between AD 69 and 96 and during the reigns of Nerva and Trajan that followed. In AD 97, he was appointed as curator aquarum, the supervisor of the empire’s aqueducts, a highly significant position within Roman society as the aqueducts that delivered public drinking water to Rome and other cities were one of the cornerstones of urban life.

Frontinus is primarily known for having written De Aqueductu or On Aqueducts, an official report in two parts on the state of Rome’s aqueducts. This report provided extensive details on how the aqueduct system worked, the management problems within it, such as trees growing too close to sections of the aqueducts, and various other issues. De Aqueductu proved very influential in shaping modern water systems. When the text was rediscovered at the monastery library of Monte Cassino outside Rome in 1425, Frontinus’s ideas were quickly applied in improving the water supply of Rome in the fifteenth century, and elements of his work were employed elsewhere in Europe until the nineteenth century.^[5]

5 Pomponius Mela (c. AD 5–c. 60)

Little is known about the life and work of Pomponius Mela other than that he lived during the first century AD and was a geographer. He may have been present during the invasion of Britain by Emperor Claudius.

Pomponius’s legacy today is primarily found in his short work De Situ Orbis, meaning A Description of the World. This provided a cartographic account of the world as it was known to the Romans in the first century AD, with details of lands as far east as India, south to Ethiopia, and north to Scandinavia. His work remained influential until the development of modern cartographic methods in Europe during the sixteenth century. He not only influenced the development of modern cartography, but the names which he used for many places have also become commonplace in the modern world. For instance, Pomponius recorded a version of the word “Scandinavia” as a Latin rendering of the German word “Skaðinawio” to describe the lands north of the Baltic Sea. Thus, Pomponius’s influence continues even to this day.^[6]

4 Marcus Terentius Varro (c. 110 BC–27 BC)

Marcus Terentius Varro isn’t very well known today. However, for most of the last two millennia, he was regarded as one of Rome’s greatest authors, comparable with the epic poet Virgil and the great rhetorician Cicero. Varro’s life was coterminous with the death of the Roman Republic, having been born sometime in the late second century BC and dying in 27 BC, the year Octavian became Emperor Caesar Augustus, and the Roman Empire came into being.

Varro was a brilliant polymath who composed over 70 works throughout his long life. These covered a vast array of topics, from agriculture and architecture to politics, history, and natural philosophy. Unfortunately, of these, only his Rerum Rusticarum Libri Tres, translating to Three Books on Agriculture, has survived fully. However, sections of many other works are still extant. We know of the existence of his other works as a result of the second-hand information provided on them by later Roman writers. Varro’s work foreshadowed the development of many fields of study in modern times, notably microbiology and epidemiology, as he correctly surmised that diseases were caused by bacteria and other entities which could not be seen with the naked eye.^[7]

3 Quintilian (c. AD 35–c. 100)

Few people know who Marcus Fabius Quintilianus is today, but he was one of the most brilliant Roman authors. He lived during the first century AD and had a successful political career in Rome, serving as consul, the Empire’s senior magistrate in the 70s (AD 70s, that is).

Quintilian is primarily famed as a rhetorician and educator. His primary work, Institutio Oratoria, or the Institutes of Oratory, provided a major study of the practice of the art of rhetoric. At the same time, it also commented extensively on educational methods and curricula. Quintilian’s work was studied in every European university during the Renaissance, and his views on educational methods shaped the curriculums of western schools and universities profoundly until the Victorian period. And they continue to residually influence educational methods today.^[8]

2 Vitruvius (c. 75 BC–c. 10 BC)

Few individuals are as little appreciated today for their influence on the modern world as poor old Vitruvius. He was a military engineer who lived during the first century BC and witnessed the death of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Empire under Caesar Augustus.

Vitruvius made his indelible mark on history by composing De Architectura, meaning On Architecture, sometime between 30 BC and 15 BC. This ten-volume work provides extensive details on the construction of monumental buildings such as giant domes and arches and how geometry and mathematics were used in their design and construction. It also outlined many other elements of domestic and civil buildings during the early imperial period, notably the hypocaust, a type of Roman central heating not unlike the use of radiators.

Vitruvius’s work was considered important enough that many copies of the text were made throughout the Middle Ages. During the Renaissance, there was a revival of his methods to erect huge domes such as the one which Filippo Brunelleschi placed on Florence Cathedral in the fifteenth century. The domes that his work allowed individuals such as Brunelleschi to erect were not exceeded height-wise until the advent of the first skyscrapers in the late nineteenth century. Thus, Vitruvius’s impact on the modern world is visible in the architecture of every major European city today.^[9]

1 Galen (AD 129–c. 210)

Surely the most under-appreciated Roman-era author of them all, even more than Vitruvius, is Galen. This physician, surgeon, and philosopher was born at the height of the empire in the reign of Emperor Hadrian in AD 129. He lived until early in the third century. He was born in the Greek city of Pergamum in Asia Minor (Turkey today), but he ended up in Rome in the 160,s where he studied a wide array of fields, including anatomy, pharmacology, and neurology.

Galen’s medical methodology mirrored the prevalent view of Roman physicians in believing that the body was controlled by four humors (fluids) in the body: black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm. This idea was not an entirely unscientific, if unprecise, approach. But his studies went well beyond the prevailing second-century medical knowledge in producing highly detailed studies of human anatomy by dissecting animal torsos and studying the circulatory system and other parts of the body. He also developed a wide array of practical medical procedures, such as removing cataracts in a way that mirrors modern techniques.

Galen recorded his findings in dozens of books—a large proportion of which survive in modern times—and continued to influence medical knowledge as late as the eighteenth century. For that reason, he was undoubtedly one of the most influential Romans in how he shaped the modern world.^[10]

Awhile ago, we told you about 10 Devastating Nuclear Events and Accidents. Included was the story of Stanislav Petrov, the man who single-handedly saved humanity from nuclear annihilation on September 26, 1983. In a very short time frame, the fate of the world was saved by Petrov’s quick thinking. History is littered with these singular world-changing events.

American history is no different, and there are many incidents that could have drastically changed, or even destroyed, America. Altered versions of these “What If” events are a popular genre of science fiction called “alternate history.” To help visualize their Alt-Histories, authors often supply maps of the ALT-USA… and that’s precisely what we’re going to take a look at today. Warning, though: Below Be Spoilers.

10. The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle is a TV show based on Philip K. Dick’s novel of the same name. In this universe, history diverged from our own when Franklin D. Roosevelt was assassinated by Giuseppe Zangarast in 1933. This was based a real event, but in our history Zangarast missed FDR and killed Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak instead. In Dick’s history Roosevelt was killed, and without him America struggled under the Great Depression and became extremely isolationist. This allowed the Axis powers of World War II (Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan) to become victorious in Europe and in the Pacific.

By 1945, the Axis powers have invaded North America from both the Pacific and the Atlantic. A Nazi atomic bomb in Washington DC forces America’s surrender, and the occupation creates the division of the United States between Germany and Japan; much like how, during our timeline, Germany was divided into the East and West. The events in The Man in the High Castle TV show take place in the 1960s, and maps show that Germany and Japan had split America between them with a small neutral zone separating the two.

9. Revolution

Revolution was an American post-apocalyptic NBC TV show that takes place in 2027. In this universe, a mysterious 2012 event called “The Blackout” caused all electricity to permanently cease to function. The show, produced by JJ Abrams, followed the survivors as they deal with the consequences of a world without electrical power.

After the Blackout, America descends into chaos and fragments as technology reverts back to pre-electricity, steam-powered tech. Most of the action in the TV show takes place in the Monroe Republic, which is made up of Northeast America. The character Monroe was able to seize power after setting up a tyrannical military dictatorship that takes away the guns of its people. The West Coast is dominated by the California Commonwealth, and Texas exists as a separate republic… which is pretty much par for the course. The Southwest is abandoned to the desert, and a reemergence of a nomadic lifestyle takes over in the Midwest Plains Nation.   

8. Southern Victory

Celebrated science fiction author Harry Turtledove created an alternate universe called Southern Victory. In 1997 he released the first of 11 alternate history books, How Few Remain. In this universe, history diverges during the American Civil War (which you probably guessed based on the title) on September 10, 1862. In real life on this day, a Confederate messenger lost Top Secret Order 191, which outlined the South’s invasion. With these secret plans, the North was able to check the invasion and slog on to eventual victory. In Turtledove’s universe the secret plans weren’t lost. This allows the South to successfully launch a surprise invasion and defeat the Union Army of the Potomac, and eventually the South captures Philadelphia. Capturing such a large city enables the United Kingdom and France to ally with the Confederate States of America, forcing an end to the war with the South declaring independence from the United States on November 4, 1862.

On the map you can see how America wasn’t able to afford buying Alaska from Russia, and the Second Mexican Empire (which at the time was still ruled by the Emperor of Mexico, Maximilian I) crumbles into poverty. In our universe, Maximilian ruled Mexico until he was killed in 1867. In Turtledove’s history the bankrupt Mexico allows the South to purchase the northwestern regions of Sonora and Chihuahua, giving them access to the Pacific. The series continues with North and South being mortal enemies who ally with other world powers to fight each other over the next hundred years.  

7. Jericho

In the CBS TV show Jericho, a shadow government plans a coup via a nuclear attack on 23 major cities in America, using small bombs smuggled to their targets in cargo vans. After the bombs detonate, civilization breaks down and the American government is destroyed. The first season of the show dealt with a small town as it tried to keep its citizens alive during the aftermath of the nuclear attack.

The show pulled in low numbers and was canceled after one season. Jericho’s fans revolted and launched an online campaign for CBS to do a second season, sending nuts to CBS (it actually makes sense in the context of the show, if you haven’t seen it). Eventually, over 20 tons were mailed to the network. This online outcry was an “unprecedented display of passion in support of a prime-time television series.” CBS caved and made a second season, where it was revealed that civilization had returned but the coup planners had only succeeded in seizing Western America, while Texas became independent (that seems to be a theme in these kinds of alternate histories) and the Eastern USA stopped enough nuclear bombs that some form of federal government survived the WMD attack.

Even with the successful nuts viral campaign, CBS still canceled the show after the second season. However, the universe lived on in comics, which revealed that the East and West USA fragmented into smaller nations while some parts of America were occupied by UN forces.

6. The Handmaid’s Tale

Celebrated author Margaret Atwood first published her book The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985. A 1990 film adaptation of the same name was released, and in 2017 Hulu adapted it into a critically acclaimed series. In Atwood’s America, a polluted country is wracked by falling fertility rates, which cause huge civil unrest. A staged attack wipes out the President and most of the federal government. In the chaos, a Christian Fundamentalist movement calling itself the “Sons of Jacob” seize control. Some surviving elements of the government flee to the West, where America still exists, while east of the Rockies is ruled by a new government called “Gilead.”

The new Christian theocracy decrees Baptists are heretics and brutally suppresses its followers, causing much of the American South to be in continuous revolt. Gilead is able to keep the remnants of America and the world at bay by threatening to use nukes that are seized after coup’s success. A number of areas are radioactive, implying that there was nuclear sabotage or that Gilead demonstrated its nuclear might. Condemned criminals and opponents of the new regime (which are often one and the same) are sent to these areas as “clean up” teams, but due to their high mortality these men and women really face a death sentence.

5. Dies the Fire

Stephen Michael Stirling’s Emberverse series spans 14 novels, with the first book Dies the Fire being released in 2008. More installments are expected as the series chugs right along.

In the Emberverse universe a mysterious event called “The Change” alters the laws of physics, throwing the world into chaos. After the Change, modern technology stops functioning, throwing the world back into the Iron Age, with people arming themselves with swords and bow and arrows. Large population areas collapse when food runs out, and from the ashes of urban centers emerge large cannibal groups that create “Death Zones.” From more rural areas, city-states emerge. This is the universe that Dies the Fire sees for post-apocalyptic America.

4. A Canticle for Leibowitz

Walter M. Miller, Jr. first published A Canticle for Leibowitz in 1959. The award-winning book is considered a classic and has never been out of print. It’s a post-apocalyptic story that takes place 600 years after a horrible nuclear war, which sparked a movement to destroy all knowledge called the “Simplification.” During this movement, all books are destroyed except for some hidden away in a Catholic monastery, the Abbey of Saint Leibowitz, in the deserts of the American Southwest.

After all knowledge is wiped out during the Simplification, America reverts to tribal, feudal societies. Sometime in the 600 years after WWIII, the Catholic Church relocates from Rome, Italy, to New Rome, somewhere in the former United States. Surrounding New Rome are a number of Catholic papal states. Also emerging from the fragments of Western civilization are the Empires of Texarkana, Laredo, Denver. Back at the Abbey of Saint Leibowitz, the monastery keeps its vast collection of pre-war books and knowledge alive by painstakingly copying them by hand. From these books, civilization is reborn.  

3. The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins released the first book of her Hunger Games trilogy in 2008, and the novels were adapted into the blockbuster series starring Jennifer Lawrence as the story’s heroine, Katniss Everdeen. Over their cumulative worldwide releases, the four movies pulled in almost $3 billion dollars. So… we’re guessing you’ve probably seen at least one of them.

The Hunger Games takes place sometime in the future after a great war. Rising sea levels have swallowed up vast parts of North America, leaving a new nation called Panem to rise. This dystopian nation is divided into 12 districts that each specialize in specific goods or services.

A lot of the story takes place in District 12 (D12), which is thought to be in the coal-rich Appalachian region. D11 grows grain, and D10 raises livestock. Both are very large, given their tasks of feeding an entire nation. Close by is D9, which processes the food. D8 produces and treats textiles, while D7 specializes in forestry. D6 specializes in research and development, while D5 does genetic research. D4 is on or near the ocean, while D3 works with Information Technology and D2 specializes in weaponry and training peacekeepers. D1 produces luxury goods for the Capitol District and has a diamond mine – possibly the now-commercially closed Kelsey Lake Diamond Mine. The secret, rebellious District 13 is hidden away in bunkers thought to be in the Northeastern part of America.

2. Crimson Skies

Jordan Weisman and Dave McCoy created the Crimson Skies universe first for a board game released in 1998, and then a video game franchise produced by Microsoft Game Studios beginning in 2000.

History diverges from our universe when, in the 1930s, a series of deadly diseases devastate America and the country becomes increasingly isolationist to the point where the federal government devolves all power to the states, leading to the Balkanization of the United States into a series of small regional-states. With no federal government to pull the nation together interstate highways decay while at the same time aviation technology takes off. With a focus on air travel, roads and trains are abandoned in favor of the skies. With so many city-states there are many grievances, which quickly turn into open war. From the chaos of near constant warfare, large groups of air pirates raid commerce and other settlements.

1. The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead has been airing on AMC since October 31, 2010, and is based on a comic book series of the same name created by Robert Kirkman. Even with declining ratings over the last couple seasons, the show was renewed for a ninth season and Forbes’ Paul Tassi has talked about how the series should catch up to the comic books by season 9 or 10. After that, Kirkman hopes the show will diverge from its source material (which it has already started to do, given a few major cast and character shakeups).

In this alternate reality, America has been overrun by a zombie virus that reanimates the dead. The story starts off with the main character, Rick Grimes, waking up from a coma to find the world overtaken by the undead. He and a group of survivors first go to Atlanta, and then after meeting another group head to the nation’s capital, Washington DC – which is the general area around which the show now takes place. The main locations are the Alexandria Safe-Zone south of the capital, the Hilltop colony north of DC, and in the urban core of the city, Ezekiel’s Kingdom. They fight against Negan and the Saviors, who are based east of Washington DC at The Sanctuary. Everything outside of these areas is more or less abandoned, given over to the hordes of the walking dead.

Oh, so that’s where they got the title.

Jon Lucas covers WW1 live, 100 years ago. You can follow the action on Twitter, Tumblr or Instagram

For most writers, there’s a feeling of catharsis that accompanies having a book published. You had something to say, and now it’s out there for the world to view. It may become a bestseller or it might move five copies, all to your mom, but either way, you created something meaningful. Your high school classmates were wrong about you, just like you always knew!

But sometimes that euphoric feeling doesn’t last. Sometimes it turns to downright loathing. Here are 10 writers who hated, hid, or simply pretended books they wrote didn’t exist.

Read the full list!