Creating literature out of life

Creating Literature Out of Life examines four very dissimilar masterpieces and their authors in search of evidence that will answer some of the many questions in the great mystery of creativity. Crossing boundaries of period, nation, and genre, the study looks into the "why" and "how" of the creation of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, Edward FitzGerald's The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Lev Tolstoy's War and Peace. Doris Alexander finds that each of these works was compelled by an urgent life problem of its author, some of them partly conscious, others completely unconscious, which worked in harmony and counterpoint with the author's conscious theme to shape his work. She traces an interconnected nexus of memories - personal experiences, ideas, readings - that came alive in response to the author's problem and served as a reservoir out of which his characters, his images, his story line, and the emotional tone of his work emerged. Creating Literature Out of Life tells the exciting story of how Mann, Stevenson, FitzGerald, and Tolstoy fought out their major life battles in their works.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Mental Health. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.