Who the Hell Is Pansy O'Hara?: The Fascinating Stories Behind 50 of the World's Best-Loved Books

by Jenny Bond, Chris Sheedy

The captivating stories behind fifty of the greatest authors and their most famous literary creations

Before Who the Hell is Pansy O'Hara?, there had never been a single volume that explored the backstories of so many of the greatest books in the English language. A work sure to captivate all lovers of language and literature, it reveals in short, pithy chapters, the lives, loves, motivations, and quirky, fascinating details involving fifty of the best-loved books of the Western world.

- When stacked up, the original manuscript of Gone With the Wind stood taller than Margaret Mitchell, its 4' 9½" author.
- Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, was part of the Allied team that cracked the Nazi's Enigma code.
- Leo Tolstoy's wife copied War and Peace by hand ... seven times.

From The Great Gatsby to Harper Lee, from Jaws to J. K . Rowling, Who the Hell Is Pansy O'Hara? offers an entertaining and informative journey through the minds of writers and the life experiences that took these amazing works from notion to novel.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, History, Reference, Writing, Essays, Trivia

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Jenny Bond is an author of historical fiction whose novels have been published in Australia, New Zealand and Europe and whose non-fiction titles have been published in Australia and the USA.

Jenny, an English teacher and an accomplished copywriter and researcher, is currently working on her third novel, expected to be finished early late 2020.

Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, Jenny earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Education at Macquarie University. Prior to her reinvention as a writer, she held the position of Head of English at Eaton House The Manor in London’s Clapham Common. Jenny also taught English and Drama for eight years at a selective high school in Sydney.

"I have not spent even one day without a book by my side, so slipping from the act of reading into the act of writing didn't actually seem that much of a change," she says. "I get a little bit lost in the research and writing process and now I couldn't actually imagine life without it. The characters are fascinating to live with and sometimes it can be difficult to finally admit the book is finished, to actually send the manuscript away to the publisher."

Jenny has long been a fan of great historical fiction writers such as Hilary Mantel and Kate Atkinson but also spends quality time with books by authors from other genres such as Jane Harper and Adrian McKinty

Jenny enjoys keeping fit and loves to travel. She lives with her husband in Canberra where they enjoy spending time with their two young sons and their very lively dog.

Reviews

[Jill H.]

I hate to say it but this book didn't do much for me. The title is a bit misleading as it is actually more of a biography of the authors of the books mentioned and not much about the books.

The second thing about the title is that if these are the "world's best loved books", then I have been reading the wrong books all my life. What the title should have said is probably " the world's most popular books".......but I guess I misunderstood that "best loved" didn't mean "good". Some of those listed I have never read nor ever intend to, such as Valley of the Dolls or Hollywood Wives. But there are some classic listed as well which saved me from DNF.

Nothing new here for the person who would rather read than eat!!

[Yngvild]

The worst written book I have read in the past year is subtitled The Fascinating Stories behind 50 of the World’s Best-Loved Books. The subtitle is misleading. Who the Hell is Pansy O’Hara? by Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy is a dull compilation of biographies, mostly of the writers of school set books but also Dr Seuss, A A Milne, J K Rowling and Dan Brown.

The biographies contain much the same information you would find in Wikipedia: basic names, dates and events. The thumbnail sketches are generally too bland to give any feel for the underlying personalities. Some, such as William Golding, here portrayed as a beloved Mr Chips schoolmaster, completely miss the target. There are no footnotes to support the authors' assertions.

The essays groan under clichés and contain errors of fact, vocabulary and syntax. It is the kind of writing where people do not read, they “utilize libraries”; they do not write, they “pen”; and every incident ends up as a “life-shaping experience”. Each subject moves predictably from “budding author” to “young writer” to inevitable “iconic status”. Equally predictably, this book will move from the remaindered pile where I found it, to my bookshelf, to the rubbish bin.

[C.]

This book takes fifty of the world's best known and most widely read books and gives a short biography of the author and their life for each book. It is quite interesting, but I've always had this thing about judging a book as a book rather than as some sort of document whose context must always be taken into account. For this reason I often have difficulty appreciating books that were written a long time ago because I have difficulty empathising with the authors.

This is something I am working on, but it's a struggle. This book is helping a little, though I'm only reading the chapters on books I've already read so that I don't alter my experience of the books that may come in the future. Nonetheless I feel much more tolerant of Jane Eyre now.

I'm learning some interesting things: for instance, that Nabokov was trilingual in Russian, French and English. I always assumed that he had learned English at a later age. This makes Lolita slightly less impressive.

It is, though, so depressing. Because for every Charlotte Bronte there must have been millions of women whose voices were silenced, for every Stephen King there are billions who never escape grinding poverty, for every Dostoevsky there were thousands who never escaped the firing squad. And for every one of these authors there must be millions who, no matter how original and stunning their voice, never got the big break they wanted.

[Laura]

I learned some new things and added a few books to my “to-read” list. I was expecting to learn more about the actual book and how it came to be, but it was really just mini-biographies.

[VijayaRaghavan S N]

The captivating stories behind fifty of the greatest authors and their most famous literary creations. Seriously? Captivating? Either they changed the meaning of the word "captivating" and I am unaware of this change or something is seriously wrong with the person who came up with this tagline. Captivating...my foot.

I had to drag myself through this book. I so badly wanted to stop it after getting through the first couple of chapters. But my "inner-voice" promised me that this book can't get anymore worse. Well...I am never gonna trust that wretched voice again. Drop dead.

Apart from a couple of chapters (J K Rowling, Barrey and the one on Guinness Book of World Records) there is not even one that interested me. I don't even get why they published this book. If they didn't find any better way to pass time they should have taken sleeping pills.

Enough is enough. One of the boring books I ever read. Nah...the only boring book I ever read.

[Jyanx]

Interesting facts, but a little limited in scope. For a book that claims to be about the world's best-loved books the world seems to consist mostly of Eupoe, and North America.

[Jennifer (JC-S)]

‘The Stories Behind the World’s Favourite Books.’

A friend gave me this book some time ago, and it has languished near the top of one of my reading piles since. Why has it taken me so long? Well, one reason is that many of the books included would not appear on my own list of favourites. However, I have read 34 of the 40 works of fiction listed and I’m always interested in learning more about books and their writers.

So, what did I learn? I learned some trivia about a couple of authors: I didn’t know that Mario Puzo wrote ‘The Godfather’ to pay hospital bills, and I didn’t know why Samuel Langhorne Clemens chose Mark Twain as his pen name. I also didn’t know that Scarlett O’Hara was originally going to be called Pansy O’Hara.

My conclusion? I enjoyed dipping into and out of the book, finding snippets of information about each of the authors included. I found it interesting to look at the different paths each of these authors followed, the different life experiences each brought to their writing.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Peter Conway]

While interesting, it was not really stories about the creating of the books so much as very short biographies of the authors. Would have enjoyed either longer biographies or the actual stories about the making of the books themselves.

[Cheryl]

Backstories to some of our most beloved books. A lot of the stuff is already known about the authors, but maybe not about their specific book. The title of this book was something I did not known, and I bet a lot of you didn’t know either. Was interesting to find out how these included books came to be, aside from the authors own struggles.

[Sandra Strange]

This nonfiction book should have been a good resource for English teachers like me, since it traces the stories of "50 of the world's best loved books." Though it includes the stories of how such classics as Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre came to be, it also includes the stories of such trashics as Valley of the Dolls. The part that eliminates the book from its place on school shelves, however, isn't the books it treats, but one of the small quotes from the relevant books at the beginning of the stories: at the beginning of the story of how The Color Purple came to be, the authors' have chosen to quote the part where the protagonist is raped by her stepfather--quite sexually explicit, as well as downright nauseating. The short accounts are interesting, and the book includes a good bibliography of books and websites that give further information about each book at the end of the volume.

[Heather]

This was a fun and enjoyable book to read. I not only love books, but I also love books about books. Who The Hell is Pansy O'Hara is a gem with strange and unusual facts about authors and the stories behind their novels. For example, which was taller, Margaret Mitchell or her typed manuscript of Gone with the Wind? Answer: the manuscript. Oh, and Mitchell's orginal name for Scarlet was Pansy - what in the world was she thinking on that? This is the type of book I tend to pick up when I'm in between books and I'm having difficulty narrowing down my choices of what to read next. The chapters/essays are short but full of fascinating information. I'd recommend this for everyone who loves to read...which is pretty much everyone on this site.

[Kirsti]

"All I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama." --Harper Lee

Great title, good book. I never knew that John le Carré's dad was a con man or that Mario Puzo wrote The Godfather to pay off hospital bills from a gallbladder operation.

This book kept me entertained on a train trip from Glenview, Illinois, to Red Wing, Minnesota.

[Keith]

Interesting summaries of popular books, 40 fiction and 10 non-fiction, including Gone with the Wind, The Hobbit, Da Vinci Code, and first Harry Potter, etc. Mostly accurate background, but they got Zelda Fitzgerald's last name wrong. I've read 25 out of the 40 (22 fiction and 3 non-f.). Worthwhile.

[John]

Just about all of the included authors have been extensively profiled elsewhere. However, I found the approach focusing specifically on how each writer's background informed their "breakthrough" (not necessarily first published) work quite interesting.

Definitely recommended.

[Julia]

Not a lot of new information and no new insights about inspirations for characters.

[Kim]

4.0/5.0 - Besides reading books, I love reading about books, their authors and their readers. I love to know why people read or write a certain book, what makes them tick. This book does just that. It is laid out chronologically, starting with Fiction (Pride and Prejudice) in 1813 and closing that category with The Da Vinci Code in 2003. It then goes on to Nonfiction, from The English Dictionary in 1755, to A Brief History of Time in 1988, but with other interesting entries that include Emily Post's book on etiquette, and Sir Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship.
I have read many of the books, but reading more of the background on the authors, the times they lived and wrote in, and their influences makes for interesting reading!

[Julie]

I picked up this book somewhere and started reading a chapter each night before bed. The chapters are short and each one (theoretically) tells a backstory about the author of a famous novel, from "Pride and Prejudice" to "Roots." At first it seemed like a nice easy read before sleep with the opportunity to also learn something. However, about a third of the way through I realized these "backstories" are really poorly written, and half of them don't really give background information for the particular book it's about. Yes, they were good for putting me to sleep, but not worth spending the time. DNF

[Vincent]

If you’re interested in knowing more about any of the books mentioned in this book, just Google it. You’ll probably get more information! This book offered quick and overly simple summaries of the lives of authors and very brief snippets of what brought them up to writing their classic book. I wanted so much more from this book. I will give it that some of the summaries were interesting and got me thinking about reading the book mentioned. But that was only for two or three of the books mentioned. Overall a lackluster book for me

[James S.]

A collection of several dozen short articles on the origins of popular books. A fast read, full of interesting information. Who knew that John le Carré's father was a con man who forced his children to help him steal? Who knew that the Boy Scouts originated in the Boer War? Or that Peter Pan was inspired by the death of J.M. Barrie's 13-year-old brother David? An intriguing yet easy book, good if you need something to read that doesn't take too much focus.

[Julie]

Set within a framework of mini-bios for the selected authors, with the focus on what is considered their major work. Easily digestible to read. But if you're a literary buff, there's not much new to learn about your familiar authors. But it was interesting to see who the writers selected as notable authors and works.

[Julie Pederson]

As other reviewers mentioned, it was "wikipediesque" (how's that for a new word?). It was still interesting to hear the brief histories of the various authors. Sometimes the "connection" between the author's history and the book/s they had written was a bit forced.

[Diane]

An interesting collection of stories behind a number of the most popular books in the last few hundred years. The snippets offered a glimpse into the thinking of the authors and how the books came to be. A good introduction to some titles I haven't read and has me looking for more...

[Peter Swanson]

This is a fascinating look at the background and motivations behind the creation of 50 great books, a sure delight for the bibliophile.

[Shelly]

Nothing fascinating in the writing or recounting of these stories.

[David]

Intriguing idea, lazy research, weird choices, bad writing

[Melissa]

most of the facts were more... dry than fun, so this took me forever to read. not so much a fault of the book, but my own expectations.

[Lynne - The Book Squirrel]

Interesting read!

[Tracey]

Over dinner one night, apparently, the writers of Who the Hell is Pansy O’Hara? (Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy) began discussing popular books and the paths taken to their publication – and this evolved into a book about books: as the subtitle says, “The Fascinating Stories Behind 50 of the Best-Loved Books”. It’s a great idea, which is why I ordered the book from paperbackswap – there have to be hundreds of stories out there about the trials and tribulations and mutations and evolutions of hundreds of books.

Unfortunately … three things. First, some of the writing was awful. Toward the end an essay contained two glaring typos on one two-page spread: “extracurricula activities” and a line about how someone “towed the line” (what kind of gear does it take to tow a line?). More frequently, there were sentences that ran along the lines of: “The youngest of seven children, the family moved to London that year…” That would be a case of misplaced modifier, I believe, with some comma splice thrown in? I can spot ‘em, but I can’t name ‘em. It happened several times, though, and was a bit sad. I have a feeling one of the two authors wrote some entries and the other handled the rest, because some were fine, while others had iffy moments.

Secondly is that even with the minimal knowledge I had of a few of the writers, I knew most of what was considered the Fascinating Story of their lives; there was very little groundbreaking information here. For writers like Austen and Dickens and Tolkien, for three, this was a rehash of well-known anecdotes. I thought it was fairly common knowledge that A.A. Milne didn’t write Pooh for his son, and that Christopher Milne hated the fame that came to him because of his namesake and the silly old bear. And for Stephen King, I wonder if Bond and Sheedy looked any further than On Writing…

The third thing is that apparently, rather than taking fifty books with fascinating stories behind them, they came up with a list of fifty of the most popular books ever, internationally, and determined that for each they would fill five pages. For some, like Jackie Collins (Jackie Collins!), what they used to fill the five rattled a bit, and I for one found it ridiculous that “Valley of the Dolls” was included in a list that highlighted Oliver Twist and The Grapes of Wrath and War and Peace… “Best-Loved”, though, was the adjective in the title, not “Good” or “Respected”, so … Okay. (But … really? “Valley of the Dolls” is beloved? And The Origin of Species is well-respected, but – one of the best-loved books in the world? And the dictionary? And may Stephen Hawking forgive me, A Brief History of Time? From my understanding, BHofT holds a record as the simultaneously most-bought and least-read book ever. I tried; I couldn’t do it.

And seriously? Who actually “loves” Lord of the Flies? I was forced to read it in high school; a great many people have to read it in high school. I can’t imagine loving it.

On the whole, it was a quick read, and interesting – and as a quick read it was interesting to see how often the theme “although [ ] was very bright, s/he was an indifferent student at best” was repeated – almost every author addressed fit that description. It’s a nice encyclopedia, and I can’t say I didn’t learn from it, but I wish it had been what I expected. I mean, The Hobbit seems to have been included because it sold more copies than The Lord of the Rings - but LotR, to my mind, has a more fascinating back story. The student’s test story is fun – but I think the tale that Strider, who is in the finished work the uncrowned king of Gondor, was originally envisioned to be a hobbit whose feet were mangled by orcs, after which he wore wooden clogs, leading to the nickname Trotter – I think that makes for a better story. And knowing that Edith was Tolkien’s Luthien means a great deal to me, and adds depth to the history of the book. It had its moments, but wasn’t a keeper.

The whole review is on my blog

[BookSweetie]

Thank heavens for rewriting. Yes, in Margaret Mitchell’s beloved Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara was originally named – ahem –Pansy! If you like learning odds and ends like this about well-known books and their authors, perhaps you’d enjoy WHO THE HELL IS PANSY O’HARA? by Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy.

The authors penned a few pages for each of fifty fiction and non-fiction books (with familiar titles).

The books are presented in order of publication date in two sections: fiction and then non-fiction. As one might expect, the stories are not equally absorbing.

This book was okay, but I would have enjoyed more headline-grabbing trivia questions for each entry rather than just one in the title, especially given the often ordinary, encyclopedia-like non-fiction writing style.

Here are the titles the authors included in their roughly 300 page book.
(I don't think they had a compelling rationale for what they chose.)

Maybe you can have a little fun and see how many authors you can name.
(Sorry. Answers not given.)

Fiction

1813 Pride and Prejudice
1818 Frankenstein
1838 Oliver Twist
1847 Jane Eyre
1847 Vanity Fair
1866 Crime and Punishment
1869 War and Peace (1867-69)
1885 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
1897 The War of the Worlds
1902 Hound of the Baskervilles
1904 Peter Pan
1925 The Great Gatsby
1926 Winnie-the-Pooh
1929 All Quiet on the Western Front
1936 Gone with the Wind
1937 The Hobbit
1939 The Grapes of Wrath
1940 For Whom the Bell Tolls
1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four
1951 The Catcher in the Rye
1951 From Here to Eternity
1953 Casino Royale
1954 Lord of the Flies
1955 Lolita
1957 The Cat in the Hat
1957 Doctor Zhivago
1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
1963 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
1966 Valley of the Dolls
1969 The Godfather
1971 The Day of the Jackal
1974 Carrie
1974 Jaws
1981 Midnight’s Children
1982 The Color Purple
1983 Hollywood Wives
1996 Bridget Jones’s Diary
1997 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
2000 True History of the Kelly Gang
2003 The Da Vinci Code

Non-fiction

1755 The English Dictionary
1768 The Encyclopaedia Britannica
1859 The Origin of Species
1908 Scouting for Boys
1922 Etiquette in Business, in Society, in Politics, and at Home
1955 Guinness World Records
1966 In Cold Blood
1974 All the President’s Men
1976 Roots
1988 A Brief History of Time

[Rachel]

Well, it seems that New Criticism may finally be on its way out. Here is a book proclaiming that it's silly to look at the text only -- that really, the only way to truly understand the value of a text is to figure out what was going on in the author's life at the time the text was written.

We have, then, a book of mini-biographies of the authors of 50 compelling fiction and non-fiction works. While the book purports to contain biographies of the texts themselves, providing background for and insight into the texts' construction and hidden secrets, Who the Hell... actually focuses more directly on the biographies of the authors of these texts. Though the biographies are interesting, they are somewhat less revealing than the authors seem to have intended.

Really, the book seems rather unpolished, more like someone's pet project than a serious inquiry into the genesis of "good" literature. For one thing, the books surveyed seem to be chosen completely at random. While the authors offer their justification for their choices in the book's introduction, texts published prior to 1900 are heavily underrepresented, while books from the last decade (Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code among them) are categorized among other "enduring" texts.

Also, though the authors' biographies attest to their literary prowess, the text is riddled with tiny errors that indicate their unfamiliarity with some of the texts they reference (or perhaps it's just laziness?). For example, the author of Pilgrim's Progress spells his name Bunyan and not Bunyon. And, as far as I know, it was Malory and not Milton who wrote Le Morte d'Arthur. Perhaps I'm being nit-picky, but if you're going to write a book about books, it seems like you should know better.

That said, it's a cute little romp through some of literary history, and the chapters are short enough that the book is easily picked up in spare moments of time throughout the day. No heavy thought required here, but the book offers some fun insight into the lives of favorite authors, and may even be helpful in bolstering readers' to-read lists.