Joy Lanzendorfer

Joined: Apr 19, 2013

Joy Lanzendorfer's articles and short stories have appeared in Salon, Hotel Amerika, Entrepreneur, Writer's Digest, Necessary Fiction, Imbibe, Bust, and many others. You can follow her @JoyLanzendorfer.

The cover of Virginia Woolf’s ‘Mrs. Dalloway.’

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter.’

Mark Twain’s ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.’

A lewd drawing contained in an early printing could have destroyed the book’s chances—and Twain’s reputation.

More than 200 years after its publication, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ remains Jane Austen’s most beloved novel.

Jack London amassed more than 600 rejections and endured a frigid Yukon winter before he found success thanks to ‘The Call of the Wild’—which also got him accused of plagiarism.

The cover of Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women.’

“Little Women” is one of the world's most beloved novels—but Louisa May Alcott only wrote it to help her father get a publishing contract.

The cover of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’

The true facts surrounding the classic work are as mysterious and intriguing as the novel itself.

The cover of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ by Ruben Toledo.

In true undead style, Dracula holds up well: He’s as creepy today as he was when Bram Stoker invented him in 1897.

The cover of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein.’

Here are the nuts and bolts about Mary Shelley's 200-year-old tale about what can go wrong when people play God.

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

The cover of L. Frank Baum’s ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.’

‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ was the Harry Potter of its day: There was merchandising, a Broadway musical, a silent film, and a whopping 13 sequels.

The cover of John Steinbeck‘s ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’

John Steinbeck’s 1939 book ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ humanized the “Okies,” captured history as it was happening, and earned its author so much personal trouble that he started carrying a gun for protection.