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Origins of a Story: 202 true inspirations behind the world's greatest literature
“If you’ve wondered how your favorite masterpieces got their starts, the itch can now be scratched.”—Foreword Review’s Matt Sutherland
“Grogan’s research is meticulous and empirical…a lively peek into literary genius.”—Kirkus
For readers and writers alike, Origins of a Story is the inspiring collection of 202 amazing true stories behind the inspiration for the world’s greatest literature!
Did you know Lennie from Of Mice and Men was based on a real person? Or how about that Charlotte’s Web was based on an actual spider and her egg that E. B. White would carry from Maine to New York on business trips? Origins of a Story profiles 202 famous literary masterpieces and explores how each story got its start. Spanning works from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first, this book is the first of its kind. Get glimpses of the reality behind these fictional stories, and learn about the individual creative process for each writer. Origins of a Story will not only leave you with a different perspective into your favorite works of fiction, but it will also have you inspired to take your everyday life and craft it into a literary masterpiece!
“Grogan’s research is meticulous and empirical…a lively peek into literary genius.”—Kirkus
For readers and writers alike, Origins of a Story is the inspiring collection of 202 amazing true stories behind the inspiration for the world’s greatest literature!
Did you know Lennie from Of Mice and Men was based on a real person? Or how about that Charlotte’s Web was based on an actual spider and her egg that E. B. White would carry from Maine to New York on business trips? Origins of a Story profiles 202 famous literary masterpieces and explores how each story got its start. Spanning works from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first, this book is the first of its kind. Get glimpses of the reality behind these fictional stories, and learn about the individual creative process for each writer. Origins of a Story will not only leave you with a different perspective into your favorite works of fiction, but it will also have you inspired to take your everyday life and craft it into a literary masterpiece!
320 pages, Hardcover
First published October 17, 2017
13 people are currently reading
389 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
March 21, 2018
Jake Grogan describes the true inspirations behind 202 of the world's greatest works of literature. The work is well-researched and written, easy to read, and inspirational in itself. Grogan chooses a diverse selection of books and you are sure to find many of your favourites. This is the perfect book to read when you only have a short period of time available. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
December 28, 2017
Amazing read for those who love "Making of the book" type reads. Fantastic way to get into the mind of the writers
December 31, 2017
A fun and quick read about the reasons that authors of classic books wrote the book!
September 26, 2018
Despite the numerous typos, obvious writing/spelling blunders and general laziness of Jake Grogan's cut-and-paste job, I kept flipping through it out of sheer inertia until reading on page 234 that John le Carre's "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" features a character named David Cromwell, "modelled... after himself."
As all who have read that book will recall, there is no such character. As anyone familiar with Le Carre will know, he was born David CORNwell.
Jake Grogan is a dumbass and this book is frequently a fraud: Though it offers "true inspirations" it typically delivers random bits of author biography lifted from dustjackets, Wikipedia entries and such.
I'll also note than in those cases where an actual origin story appears, it tends not to be terribly interesting. This is why writers hate the "where do you get your ideas" question: the answers rarely illuminate the work or explain the writer.
So save yourself the trouble and expense of this book and do your own Googling about books and writers of interest, which will surely deliver at least as much as Grogan has and without his sloppy rendering of other people's better efforts.
As all who have read that book will recall, there is no such character. As anyone familiar with Le Carre will know, he was born David CORNwell.
Jake Grogan is a dumbass and this book is frequently a fraud: Though it offers "true inspirations" it typically delivers random bits of author biography lifted from dustjackets, Wikipedia entries and such.
I'll also note than in those cases where an actual origin story appears, it tends not to be terribly interesting. This is why writers hate the "where do you get your ideas" question: the answers rarely illuminate the work or explain the writer.
So save yourself the trouble and expense of this book and do your own Googling about books and writers of interest, which will surely deliver at least as much as Grogan has and without his sloppy rendering of other people's better efforts.
January 4, 2021
A book latent with grammatical errors and reading more like a compilation of Wikipedia articles than anything else, I nonetheless enjoyed this book because of all of the inspiring stories, writing advice, and motivation it offered, whether it be how to get ideas or how to make time for writing or how to write in general, it felt like this book was a treasure trove of writing advice, and I recommend it to any aspiring writer such as myself. I can't wait to research more into some of the things I underlined in this book, and hopefully write articles or essays or even stories out of them.
February 19, 2024
As a reader and writer, I'm curious about what inspired an author to write a book. Jake Grogan touches on 202 books and the stories behind the stories. The stories are short and to the point, making the book enjoyable and informative at one's own pace. Among the pieces of literature mentioned are "Death of a Salesman," "1984," "Animal Farm," "The Catcher in the Rye," "The Grapes of Wrath," and many more.
September 10, 2017
I wish I liked this more, but instead of inspiring me with the depth and range of where some of these stories came from, I just kind of felt like I was reading trivia. Also, I know a list of 202 books will always be a little divisive about what has been selected, but there are a whole lot of white dudes here.
October 25, 2017
great addition to my collection of literary nonfiction. very much reminds me of Daily Rituals.
January 24, 2018
Pretty interesting for the most part. These are short 1-3 page stories of the original inspiration of famous books. (Some of them were just guesswork, though, and I think perhaps should have been left out) Many of these were favorites of mine and I discovered that I had had no idea how they came to be in the first place. Learn something new every day, as the saying goes.
February 19, 2020
I always want to know what inspires an author to write. The most interesting thing I learned was how often an author will completely start over, and over again.
February 14, 2025
This probably would have gone into the reference section at one point, but my system actively dismantled their reference collections. Likely, for the best, with this book, since people can check this out and look up all the books they are interested in and return it. Honestly, most of them were rather bland and boring, and I had read many of them elsewhere, such as the OZ name coming from his file drawer: O - Z. The one that did surprise and fascinate me was Charlotte’s Web, which made me shudder since I’m afraid of spiders, in spite of loving this book!
Interesting but I can’t help thinking just a bit of a ripoff since many of these stories are widely known. Recommended if you really want to know more about your favorite story.
Interesting but I can’t help thinking just a bit of a ripoff since many of these stories are widely known. Recommended if you really want to know more about your favorite story.
June 19, 2022
When I was in junior high, there'd be books in my bathroom like THE BOOK OF LISTS 2, and it looked like somebody had purchased it 20 years before. It was full of half-truths and probable BS, but it inspired me to research and wonder about the world.
I thought they stopped publishing nonsense like this with the rise of the smartphones and Wikipedia, they'd stop publishing stuff like this. Our library purchased this in a sale from a company that specializes in large print.
This book seems questionably fact-checked and largely lifted from internet searches done over the course of two weeks. I don't think it was even proofread by references to Lord of the Flies author "William Goulding" and the character "Holiday Golightly" from Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Listen, I barely care about any of that. It was super readable and highly entertaining. It might have inspired me to start writing again. If any of these facts, I'll do it myself on my own time. All hail the magical world of bathroom books.
I thought they stopped publishing nonsense like this with the rise of the smartphones and Wikipedia, they'd stop publishing stuff like this. Our library purchased this in a sale from a company that specializes in large print.
This book seems questionably fact-checked and largely lifted from internet searches done over the course of two weeks. I don't think it was even proofread by references to Lord of the Flies author "William Goulding" and the character "Holiday Golightly" from Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Listen, I barely care about any of that. It was super readable and highly entertaining. It might have inspired me to start writing again. If any of these facts, I'll do it myself on my own time. All hail the magical world of bathroom books.
July 31, 2021
Interesting book on the inspiration of some of our greatest literature. I found that I was not acquainted with many of the books (I guess I am not all that well read) but still found what inspires the writers to be interesting. The books waxes and wanes as some inspiration was profound and others more humdrum, still it did get the writer to write the book.
June 12, 2024
Pretty fascinating backgrounds, even on books I’ve never read.
October 23, 2021
This is a simple, interesting book, full of insightful anecdotes about the source of inspiration for many famous literary works.
The way the text is organized is a bit scrambled, though, since there seems to be no logic whatsoever as to how the author chose which book went where.
Also, the relevance of the books in question vary significantly, because there are some legendary pieces of work, while others are, at least to me, completely out of the radar. This affects the reading process, because it engaged me much more to read about novels that I at least know of than some random work by some unknown author.
Regardless of my negative thoughts, this is a good exercise to learn about inspiration, as in one can find it anywhere. Another high point of this book: the ones I haven’t read can become some new additions to the reading list.
The way the text is organized is a bit scrambled, though, since there seems to be no logic whatsoever as to how the author chose which book went where.
Also, the relevance of the books in question vary significantly, because there are some legendary pieces of work, while others are, at least to me, completely out of the radar. This affects the reading process, because it engaged me much more to read about novels that I at least know of than some random work by some unknown author.
Regardless of my negative thoughts, this is a good exercise to learn about inspiration, as in one can find it anywhere. Another high point of this book: the ones I haven’t read can become some new additions to the reading list.
August 1, 2019
As a fellow interested in producing written works, this collection of anecdotes from many writers attracted my attention. I thought it would have quite a dramatic sweep of time, people and places, and would help to expand my literary conceptions.
The author has sought out and compiled details about what inspired just over 200 works of writing. They run the whole spectrum of popular and classic fiction. Most are novels, of course, but there are also plays (Death of a Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire), works of poetry (Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," Homer's Odyssey,) a children's book or two (Goodnight Moon, Curious George, several of Dr. Seuss's works,) and even an occasional excursion to a comic strip, in Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes."
If you have an idea for a reasonably popular novel in mind, it's probably here. A few selections caught me off-guard, but the way these titles are organized, has an uncanny quality of motivating me to read the next segment.
However, that approach presents a flaw. The trend for this book to go leaping across times, places and people, means the reader must immediately adjust one's self to a new language mode, and set or cultural mores, for each entry. That makes the information contained in each section especially hard to retain. Even though I found much of what I read fascinating, I struggled somewhat to recall it later.
This book may be better served as one to pull off the shelf once in a while, if you find yourself wondering what inspired, say, Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises," or you want to recall the possible real-life model for Mary Poppins. Reading every entry in order, while enjoyable, may not be the best approach.
As for each passage, though they're all concise and sound invested, they can be a bit uneven. They can range from a one-paragraph blurb, to three or four pages of insight. Many of them also don't necessarily focus on what inspired the writer; it could be showing what certain names and titles were derived from, descriptions of the society when and where the story was written, or a sample of correspondence. This may be down to the research that was found, but when the entry on, say, The Wizard of Oz is longer than the one for Dune, it could leave some readers cold.
It's often a light read, less concerned with literary scholarship and more so neat facts, so it's worth checking out. Just don't expect it to have the depth of, say, Stephen King's "On Writing," or other works about where stories come from.
The author has sought out and compiled details about what inspired just over 200 works of writing. They run the whole spectrum of popular and classic fiction. Most are novels, of course, but there are also plays (Death of a Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire), works of poetry (Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," Homer's Odyssey,) a children's book or two (Goodnight Moon, Curious George, several of Dr. Seuss's works,) and even an occasional excursion to a comic strip, in Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes."
If you have an idea for a reasonably popular novel in mind, it's probably here. A few selections caught me off-guard, but the way these titles are organized, has an uncanny quality of motivating me to read the next segment.
However, that approach presents a flaw. The trend for this book to go leaping across times, places and people, means the reader must immediately adjust one's self to a new language mode, and set or cultural mores, for each entry. That makes the information contained in each section especially hard to retain. Even though I found much of what I read fascinating, I struggled somewhat to recall it later.
This book may be better served as one to pull off the shelf once in a while, if you find yourself wondering what inspired, say, Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises," or you want to recall the possible real-life model for Mary Poppins. Reading every entry in order, while enjoyable, may not be the best approach.
As for each passage, though they're all concise and sound invested, they can be a bit uneven. They can range from a one-paragraph blurb, to three or four pages of insight. Many of them also don't necessarily focus on what inspired the writer; it could be showing what certain names and titles were derived from, descriptions of the society when and where the story was written, or a sample of correspondence. This may be down to the research that was found, but when the entry on, say, The Wizard of Oz is longer than the one for Dune, it could leave some readers cold.
It's often a light read, less concerned with literary scholarship and more so neat facts, so it's worth checking out. Just don't expect it to have the depth of, say, Stephen King's "On Writing," or other works about where stories come from.
July 25, 2018
Very interesting to read about the origins of many famous stories. I initially started reading about only the books that I had read, but then I realized there were so many fascinating back-stories of how each author came up with their inspirations, I decided to "begin at the beginning" of the book and read all of the origins. I was struck at how different authors approached their ideas and how some even claimed to let the stories write themselves - as if they were merely conduits or messengers of these themes that came from "somewhere else."
You realize that anyone - yes, anyone - has the ability to come up with an original idea and expand it into a novel. There is hope for all the aspiring authors out there, and it may have even inspired me to begin my own someday. At the very least, I finished the book with many more "To-Be-Read" titles to put on my wish list, and hope to get around to reading some if not all of them in the near future.
You realize that anyone - yes, anyone - has the ability to come up with an original idea and expand it into a novel. There is hope for all the aspiring authors out there, and it may have even inspired me to begin my own someday. At the very least, I finished the book with many more "To-Be-Read" titles to put on my wish list, and hope to get around to reading some if not all of them in the near future.
April 30, 2018
In Origins Of A Story by Jake Grogan, we are told about the inspiration for 202 famous stories that you might have heard of. From Roald Dahl and his books to more recent stories like the Harry Potter series, we find out some of what goes into a novel or a short story.
The book is interesting, but it has no real order to it. It would be cool if it was organized in some way rather than in a random state. At first, I thought it would be chronological. It was not. Then I figured it would be by the last name of the author. That would make sense. No. It was not organized in any particular fashion. Therefore, that is my only real complaint. Maybe it’s organized in order of the books he became interested in or found stories for.
The book is interesting, but it has no real order to it. It would be cool if it was organized in some way rather than in a random state. At first, I thought it would be chronological. It was not. Then I figured it would be by the last name of the author. That would make sense. No. It was not organized in any particular fashion. Therefore, that is my only real complaint. Maybe it’s organized in order of the books he became interested in or found stories for.
March 20, 2019
very insightful read-enjoyed the stories about ... the stories!
errors: p.88-'He osaw...' whaaattt??, p.'..and national shift the early twentieth'.. (shift OF, perhaps?), p.219 ' a new kind modernism'...(uh, kind OF modernism?), p.251 'for this failing a ROTC program'.. (AN ROTC program, people!).. needless to say, all these typos were a tad disconcering..
also-title is goodreads unavailable(& I don't know how to add it on-oh well)-'A Grammy saltue to music legends': all-star artists pay tribute to their musical heroes' - edited by David Konjoyan. Enjoyed this one quite a bit, too. 5 stars for the research alone-sheesh. err. p.181-'the group have three recordings'-um, that would be wrong..[finished this one 03/18/19.
errors: p.88-'He osaw...' whaaattt??, p.'..and national shift the early twentieth'.. (shift OF, perhaps?), p.219 ' a new kind modernism'...(uh, kind OF modernism?), p.251 'for this failing a ROTC program'.. (AN ROTC program, people!).. needless to say, all these typos were a tad disconcering..
also-title is goodreads unavailable(& I don't know how to add it on-oh well)-'A Grammy saltue to music legends': all-star artists pay tribute to their musical heroes' - edited by David Konjoyan. Enjoyed this one quite a bit, too. 5 stars for the research alone-sheesh. err. p.181-'the group have three recordings'-um, that would be wrong..[finished this one 03/18/19.
January 22, 2020
I've only soaked in the origins of the books that I have actually read in real life. That's about 40 of the 202. I'm not very proud of myself for that.
Then, I started to go through books I never read but knew about.
This book is wikia, some important books (think a few by Twain and Wilde) are simply half a page long in description. A lot of this isn't inspiring, it's quotes of authors in other sources. Or quotes of family and friends. From other sources.
The production and the content value is very low. I bought this cheap, so I'm not as dented as I would believe, but I don't recommend it, unless you'd rather a physical copy of what you could Google.
Then, I started to go through books I never read but knew about.
This book is wikia, some important books (think a few by Twain and Wilde) are simply half a page long in description. A lot of this isn't inspiring, it's quotes of authors in other sources. Or quotes of family and friends. From other sources.
The production and the content value is very low. I bought this cheap, so I'm not as dented as I would believe, but I don't recommend it, unless you'd rather a physical copy of what you could Google.
November 13, 2020
This is a fun little book with behind-the scenes info on the inspirations and influences on various authors of well known current and past works. There were some back stories that seemed to share more influences on the author's life and beliefs rather than the specific story, so wasn't always a lot of information on the book, but for the most part had quick tidbits on a lot of novels I had read and some I know of but have not yet read. Admittedly I did not read it cover to cover as there were some books and/or authors in there I had never heard of which I skipped, but the vast majority I read and was a fun informative quick read.
January 6, 2024
this was a real fun read, enjoyed learning about the surprising background and inspiration for successful authors across a wide range of functional stories.
it seems to vary between instant inspiration to an idea or thought that took many years to develop, like a yo-yo where the idea is close and the author is thinking about it then pushed away to germinate subconsciously then comes back.
a lot of authors also seemed to suffer from some form of mental health issues, some felt an itch existed for a story to be told.
overall, it was inspiring to realise many authors were just normal ppl like you and me but felt a burning desire to share their story
it seems to vary between instant inspiration to an idea or thought that took many years to develop, like a yo-yo where the idea is close and the author is thinking about it then pushed away to germinate subconsciously then comes back.
a lot of authors also seemed to suffer from some form of mental health issues, some felt an itch existed for a story to be told.
overall, it was inspiring to realise many authors were just normal ppl like you and me but felt a burning desire to share their story
August 27, 2018
Some of the anecdotes in this book were really good (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Hunger Games, Stranger in a Strange Land), some were okay, and some weren't really about the book's origin. The last group left me wondering why the author included them if he couldn't find information on their origins. There were a couple of errors (Madeleine L'Engle's family trip before moving to NY for her husband's acting career stated it was her long-dead father who wanted to try acting) that made me less sure about the stories with which I was unfamiliar. An uneven book.
September 6, 2019
A fun collection of short anecdotes, each of which focuses on a different work of famous literature. The title is pretty self-explanatory. I flipped through and focused mostly on works that I have read, or at least have read about. Honestly, I would say that as much as I read, I probably had not read at least half of the books mentioned.
It was interesting and gave a new perspective on favorite novels. Since I didn't focus on every single book featured, it was a quick read. Enjoyable and worth the time.
It was interesting and gave a new perspective on favorite novels. Since I didn't focus on every single book featured, it was a quick read. Enjoyable and worth the time.
September 27, 2019
What a wonderful little book! It has 1-2 page stories behind writing of certain titles - everything from children's books to classics to modern fiction. The stories behind these works are fascinating. I work this information into my Book Club discussions, and I read the other stories just for fun.
My only complaint is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to way books are listed. To look for a certain title I had to use the index as they seem to be listed in no particular order. Still this book is a little gem! There is also one called Origins of a Song. I can't wait to read it too!
My only complaint is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to way books are listed. To look for a certain title I had to use the index as they seem to be listed in no particular order. Still this book is a little gem! There is also one called Origins of a Song. I can't wait to read it too!
September 20, 2021
Some of these were fascinating, some were not. I did skip past some of the stories I had never heard of, or ones I plan to read so I can learn about them before I start those individual reads. A lot of them I felt had conflicting background stories from information I’ve heard several times about the classics included in this book. I also felt that most of these origin stories sounded like something I could read off of a Google search, but due to the fact that I enjoyed this quick read, 3 stars ⭐️ from me.
April 13, 2022
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I thought the authors might, at least in most case, give a little insight into why they wrote the books. And some of them did. But many just rambled and talked about life in general, or got off on a platform. It wasn't what I expected or hoped it would be.
That being said, I did manage to note a few books I'd like to read because the authors did a very GOOD job of telling about the writing process and how the story evolved.
That being said, I did manage to note a few books I'd like to read because the authors did a very GOOD job of telling about the writing process and how the story evolved.
March 5, 2025
This is not a book to be read in one setting. It is over 200 small chapters, each only a few pages. There are authors we all know and love, and some, frankly, of whom I had no knowledge. My only frustration was the basic format. The order of presentation seemed random. Perhaps the order could have ben by genre, or century, or even alphabetically. I enjoyed it in spite of this small criticism.
April 24, 2018
Sadly not as interesting as I had hoped it would be. I’m a sucker for a good nugget of information, a tidbit of a factoid to bring up in conversation, but beyond Dr. Suess writing Green Eggs and Ham on a bet (which I already knew), many of the stories of inspiration were less intriguing -or perhaps related in a less than intriguing way -than I wanted.
June 28, 2018
Many of the books I have read are in this book. Jake Gorgan goes into detail telling us how the author came up with the idea behind the story; sometimes even the title. Read this book if you are interested in the why behind a book. While some are based on what or who the author knew, others are based on what the author believed and some are fiction coming from nowhere.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews