For These Authors, It Only Took One Go

For some authors, striking literary gold doesn't take a lifetime of publishing, but just one brilliant, all-encompassing idea. Each of these authors created a single masterpiece that defined not just their career but an entire era, leaving an indelible mark on literary history. Here are five authors whose fame rests entirely on one extraordinary book.

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1. Harper Lee

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird was hugely successful and even won the Pulitzer Prize. Despite its acclaim, Lee didn't publish another book until Go Set A Watchman in 2015, which was met with controversy.

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2. Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell wrote her sweeping Civil War epic, Gone With the Wind, in 1936. It won the Pulitzer Prize and became a cultural phenomenon, but she never published another book.

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3. Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë built her entire legacy on one masterful novel, Wuthering Heights, which she wrote before her untimely death at 30. The dark, passionate tale of love and revenge became a literary classic.

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4. J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger published The Catcher in the Rye in 1951 before more or less disappearing from the limelight. His novel captured adolescent alienation and rebellion like nothing before, but aside from some short stories, it was all he published. 

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5. Anna Sewell

Anna Sewell published Black Beauty, the timeless children's book, while she was already in poor health. She died just five months after its publication, but her book, promoting kindness to animals, endures over 140 years later.

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