Influential Autistic Authors

Influential autistic authors: a referenced list of famous people who have been identified as autistic or possibly autistic who wrote books featured in Books That Changed the World: The 50 Most Influential Books in Human History by Andrew Taylor.

Sir Isaac Newton FRS, author of Principia Mathematica 1642–1726, English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher and alchemist. Newton has been identified as autistic or possibly autistic by three different professors. Newton was born very small. He started his schooling at the bottom of the class and was regarded as lazy and inattentive, but after Newton beat the stuffing out of a school bully who was larger than he was, he rose to become the school’s “top boy”. Newton thrived on solitude. During 1665-1666 Newton returned to his home town from Cambridge University which was closed due to plague and in this period Newton invented calculus and did other very important intellectual work. Newton wrote the seminal book of maths and physics Principia Mathematica. Newton was appointed to the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge in his 20s. Newton secretly had heretical religious beliefs and practiced alchemy. In his later years Newton was Master of the Royal Mint and President of the Royal Society. Newton was a very religious person but he explained his brilliant scientific insights as the result of solitary persistent thought rather than divine revelation. Newton never married and he left no offspring.

Herman Melville, author of Moby-Dick 1819–1891, wrote the novels Moby-Dick and Billy Budd. Moby-Dick is regarded by some as the first great American novel, an epic work at 220,000 words in 135 chapters, about an obsessive and eccentric whaler captain’s quest for revenge against a white whale. A chapter about Melville can be found in the 2005 book The genesis of artistic creativity: Asperger’s syndrome and the arts.

Charles Darwin FRS, author of On the Origin of Species 1809-1882, English naturalist, proposed the theory of natural selection which is the foundation of modern biology, wrote On the Origin of Species, “the most important biological book ever written” (Taylor 2008 p. 123) and it was also a popular book partly due to the clear and unpretentious style in which it was written. Darwin also wrote The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Darwin has been discussed in three different books about famous people who were thought to have had Asperger syndrome. Darwin came from a distinguished family and he married a cousin. Darwin was a devoted father and three of their sons became Fellows of the Royal Society.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of A Study in Scarlet 1859–1930, a British polymath most famous for writing the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, his story A Study in Scarlet has never been out of print since it was first published in 1888. Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories got the world hooked on the literary genre of detective fiction. A chapter about Conan Doyle can be found in the 2005 book The genesis of artistic creativity: Asperger’s syndrome and the arts by Prof. Michael Fitzgerald. Sherlock Holmes has been discussed as an autistic fictionial character created by an autistic author by Prof. M. Fitzgerald and also by Prof. T. Cowen in his 2009 book Create your own economy: the path to prosperity in a disordered world. Conan Doyle became an agnostic in his youth despite a religious education. He qualified and practiced as a doctor. When Conan Doyle “killed” the Holmes character in a story there was an outcry from the public. Conan Doyle relented and continued to write Sherlock Holmes stories. He ran for parliament but was not elected. Conan Doyle investigated two real-life closed crime cases leading to the release of two prisoners. He became involved with spiritualism late in life following the deaths of family members. Conan Doyle is credited with promoting the use of forensic science in police work with his stories, before it was widely used (Calamai 2008).

Albert Einstein FRS, author of Relativity: the Special and the General Theory 1879–1955, American theoretical physicist with German-Jewish origins, winner of Nobel Prize in physics in 1921, his many very important contributions to science include the general and special theories of relativity. Einstein wrote Relativity: the Special and the General Theory. Einstein has been identified as autistic or possibly autistic by no less than five different professors, including some leading autism/Asperger syndrome experts. Einstein expressed many political opinions but never joined any political party or movement. Einstein was thought to have had a large head in infancy, and he had very delayed speech development as a child. As a student Einstein was a narrowly-focused autodidact by nature. He ignored school subjects that did not interest him and was not liked by some teachers. His first wife Mileva, a Serbian mathematician, also had a brilliant mind and some believe she made an unacknowledged contribution to Einstein’s work. They had 3 children, one illegitimate daughter who’s fate is unknown, a son who became an engineering professor and another son, Eduard, who was institutionalized as a schizophrenic. According to a member of the Einstein family many of Albert’s colleagues and friends believed Eduard was the one who had inherited his father’s intellect (Zackheim 2008). Einstein’s preserved normal-sized brain has been extensively studied by scientists.

James Joyce, author of Ulysses 1882-1941, writer and poet, wrote Finnegans Wake and Ulysses, a 250,000 word novel of great literary importance because of its experimental literary techniques and stream of consciousness form, “the world’s first modernist novel” (Taylor 2008 p. 161). Joyce overturned the conventional avoidance of mentioning the scatological and sexual sides of life in this novel, and the publication of extracts from the novel in the US led to prosecution for obscenity, but the novel in full was published in the US some years later. The character Leopold Bloom in the novel is an ordinary hero unglamorously depicted. This novel has a cult following. Joyce has been discussed in the 2006 book Unstoppable brilliance: Irish geniuses and Asperger’s syndrome by Prof. M. Fitzgerald and A. Walker. James Joyce has also been the subject of a number of journal papers by other psychiatrists and Freudian psychoanalysts, and has also been given labels such as "schizoid" and "psychotic". The life of Joyce’s daughter Lucia Joyce is a tragic and mysterious part of the Joyce legend. She started a promising career as a dancer and dated Samuel Beckett in her 20s, but her rebellious and eccentric behaviour lead to an analysis by Jung and many different diagnoses from many different sources. The diagnosis that she is remembered by is “hebephrenic psychosis”, the modern term in the DSM-IV for this being “schizophrenia – disorganized type”, an early-onset, permanent subtype of schizophrenia that does not include delusions or hallucinations as criteria. Schizophrenia and schizoid PD are diagnoses that have been incorrectly given to many people who were later re-diagnosed with autism/AS. Lucia Joyce spent most of her life in mental institutions.

George Orwell, author of 1984 1903–1950, real name Eric Blair, author and journalist, “one of the most elegant stylists in English literature” (Taylor 2008 p. 177), Orwell wrote the famous dystopian novel 1984 and the famous political satire novella Animal Farm. A chapter about Orwell can be found in the 2005 book The genesis of artistic creativity: Asperger’s syndrome and the arts. Orwell was a democratic socialist critic of various forms of totalitarianism, many of the terms and neologisms coined by Orwell in the novel 1984 have become a part of the English language.


References

Taylor, Andrew (2008) Books That Changed the World: The 50 Most Influential Books in Human History. Quercus, 2008.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-That-Changed-World-Influential/dp/1847246028

About Charles Darwin
Brilliant minds linked to autism. (2004) BBC.co.uk January 8th 2004.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3380569.stm
[about Prof. Fitzgerald’s book Autism and creativity]

Fitzgerald, Michael, and O’Brien, Brendan (2007) Genius genes: how Asperger talents changed the world. Autism Asperger Publishing Company, 2007.
[Newton, Henry Cavendish, Jefferson, Charles Babbage, Darwin, Gregor Mendel, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Nikola Tesla, David Hilbert, H.G. Wells, John B. Watson, Einstein, Bernard Montgomery (of Alamein), Charles de Gaulle, Alfred Kinsey, Norbert Wiener, Charles Lindbergh, Kurt Godel, Paul Erdos and other famous people discussed in this book. Parts of this book available to read free through Google Book Search]

Fitzgerald, Michael (2006) Autism, Asperger’s syndrome and creativity. Autism2006: AWARES Conference Centre. October 4th 2006.
http://212.74.184.44:8083/BM_DIRECTORY/E/BM000001662/FIT1.PDF
[Stanley Kubrick, George Orwell, Andy Warhol, Charles Darwin, Albert Einsten and many other famous people discussed in this conference paper]

Hooper, Rowan (2009) Back to the beginning. New Scientist. February 7th 2009. Number 2694. p.49.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126943.000-review-the-young-charles-darwin-by-keith-thomson.html
[This brief review of The young Charles Darwin by Keith Thomson mentions the fact that Darwin has been subject of the suggestion that he had Asperger syndrome, but it is not clear whether Thomson addresses this possibility in his book]

Houston, Muiris (2009) Darwin is the origin of new thesis on Asperger's. IrishTimes.com Irish Times. February 24th 2009.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2009/0224/1224241701332.html

Ledgin, Norman (2002) Asperger’s and self-esteem: insight and hope through famous role models. Future Horizons, 2002.
[Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Orson Welles, Marie Curie, Carl Sagan, Glenn Gould, Mozart, Thomas Jefferson, Bela Bartok, Paul Robeson, Gregor Mendel and other famous people mentioned in this book. Parts of the book available to read through Google Book Search]

Lyons, Viktoria and Fitzgerald, Michael (2005) Asperger Syndrome - A Gift or a Curse? Nova Science Publishers Inc.
[Kinsey, Kubrick, Patricia Highsmith, Charles Darwin, Bertrand Russell, Robert Walser, Joy Adamson, Enoch Powell, William James Sidis, Kurt Godel]

Pickover, Clifford A. (1998) Strange brains and genius: the secret lives of eccentric scientists and madmen. Plenum, 1998.
[Charles Darwin and many other famous people discussed in this dated but entertaining book. Darwin not identified as autistic in this book.]

Smith, Rebecca (2009) Charles Darwin had autism, leading psychiatrist claims. Telegraph.co.uk February 18th 2009.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4680971/Charles-Darwin-had-autism-leading-psychiatrist-claims.html

About Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Calamai, Peter (2008) The real Sherlock Holmes. Cosmos. Number 19, 2008. p. 44-45.
[does not mention AS or autism]

Cowen, Tyler (2009) Create your own economy: the path to prosperity in a disordered world. Dutton, 2009.
http://createyourowneconomy.org/
[Vernon Smith, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Peter Mark Roget, Adam Smith, Hermann Hesse, Warren Buffett, Tim Page, Hikari Oe, Craig Newmark, Bram Cohen, Temple Grandin, Glenn Gould, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Jefferson are all discussed in this book with reference to the autistic spectrum]

Fitzgerald, Michael (2005) The genesis of artistic creativity: Asperger’s syndrome and the arts. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
[Gaudi, Hopper, Quine, Wittgenstein, Maxwell, Swift, H. Christian Andersen, Melville, Carroll, W. B. Yeats, Conan Doyle, Orwell, Chatwin, Spinoza, Kant, Weil, A. J. Ayer, Mozart, Beethoven, Satie, Bartok, Gould, van Gogh, J. B. Yeats, L.S. Lowry, Warhol]

About Albert Einstein and family members
Attwood, Tony (2000) The autism epidemic – real or imagined. Autism Asperger’s Digest. November/December 2000.
http://www.tonyattwood.com.au/pdfs/attwood4.pdf
[Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Mozart, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Glenn Gould, Alan Turing]

Baron-Cohen, Simon (2003) The essential difference. Penguin Books.
[Richard Borcherds, Paul Dirac, Einstein, Newton, William Shockley, Michael Ventris]

Fitzgerald, Michael (2006) Autism, Asperger’s syndrome and creativity. Autism2006: AWARES Conference Centre. October 4th 2006.
http://212.74.184.44:8083/BM_DIRECTORY/E/BM000001662/FIT1.PDF
[Stanley Kubrick, George Orwell, Andy Warhol, Temple Grandin, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Simone Weil, Joy Adamson, Wittgenstein, Sir Keith Joseph, W. B. Yeats, Lewis Carroll, Newton, Gregor Mendel, Kant, Spinoza, Charles Lindbergh]

Fitzgerald M. (2000) Einstein: Brain and behaviour. (letter) Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. vol.30, no. 6 December 2000, p. 620 – 621.

Fitzgerald, Michael, and O’Brien, Brendan (2007) Genius genes: how Asperger talents changed the world. Autism Asperger Publishing Company, 2007.
[Archimedes, Newton, Henry Cavendish, Jefferson, Charles Babbage, Darwin, Gregor Mendel, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Nikola Tesla, David Hilbert, H.G. Wells, John B. Watson, Einstein, Bernard Montgomery (of Alamein), Charles de Gaulle, Alfred Kinsey, Norbert Wiener, Charles Lindbergh, Kurt Godel, Paul Erdos, parts of this book available to read free through Google Book Search]

Gernsbacher, Morton Ann (2007) A conspicuous absence of scientific leadership: the illusory epidemic of autism.
http://jepson.richmond.edu/academics/projects/ESSAYGernsbacher.pdf
[Henry Cavendish, Nikola Tesla, Glenn Gould, Moe Norman, Michael Ventris, Einstein, Jefferson, Newton]

Gillberg, Christopher (2002) A guide to Asperger Syndrome. Cambridge University Press.
[Ludwig Wittgenstein, Anton Bruckner, Erik Satie, Bela Bartok, Wassilij Kandinskij, Einstein]

Gold, Karen (2000) The high-flying obsessives. Guardian. Guardian Unlimited. December 12th 2000.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4103969,00.html
[Wittgenstein, Einstein, Bill Gates, Richard Borcherds, Temple Grandin]

Grandin, Temple (1995) Thinking in pictures: and other reports from my life with autism. 1st edition. Doubleday. 1995.
[Einstein, Wittgenstein, van Gogh, Bill Gates]

James, Ioan (2005) Asperger syndrome and high achievement: some very remarkable people. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
[Michelangelo, Philip of Spain, Newton, Swift, John Howard, Cavendish, Jefferson, van Gogh, Satie, Russell, Einstein, Bartók, Ramanujan, Wittgenstein, Kinsey, Weil, Turing, Highsmith, Warhol, Glenn Gould]

James, Ioan (2004) Remarkable physicists: from Galileo to Yukawa. Cambridge University Press.
[Newton, Cavendish, Einstein, Dirac]

James, Ioan (2003) Singular scientists. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. January 2003. Vol. 96, number 1, p. 36-39.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=12519805
[Irene Joliot-Curie, J. M. W. Turner, Paul Dirac, Bela Bartok, Wittgenstein, Cavendish, Newton, Einstein]

Ledgin, Norman (2002) Asperger’s and self-esteem: insight and hope through famous role models. Future Horizons, 2002.
[Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Orson Welles, Marie Curie, Carl Sagan, Glenn Gould, Mozart, Thomas Jefferson, Bela Bartok, Paul Robeson, Gregor Mendel, Oscar Levant, John Hartford, Temple Grandin, a book that is supposed to be an esteem-builder that appears to be loaded with negative and antiquated language, parts of the book available to read through Google Book Search]

Paradiz, Valerie (2002) Elijah’s cup: a family’s journey into the community and culture of high-functioning autism and Asperger’s syndrome. The Free Press, 2002.
[Andy Kaufman, Andy Warhol, Einstein, Wittgenstein, Glenn Gould, Temple Grandin]

Pinker, Steven (1999) His brain measured up. The New York Times on the Web. June 24th 1999.
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1999_06_24_newyorktimes.html
[interesting editorial article reviewing a study of Einstein’s brain published in The Lancet in which Pinker explains the “nuts and bolts” of how development of verbal ability, and mathematical and spatial reasoning might be, to a degree, mutually exclusive, due to brain structure.]

Sacks, Oliver (2004) Autistic geniuses?: we’re too ready to pathologize (letter). Nature. May 20th 2004, Vol. 429, p. 241.
[a letter in which Sacks states that he does not believe that Wittgenstein, Einstein nor Newton “were significantly autistic”]

Zackheim, Michele (2008) Children of a lesser god. Discover. March 2008. p. 32-36.
[a very interesting article about Albert Einstein and Mileva Maric’s many talented offspring, and one adopted family member thought to be an illegitimate child of Albert’s]

About James Joyce and family members
Correia, Arlindo (2004) Lucia Joyce (1907-1982) (web site)
http://www.arlindo-correia.com/140504.html
[an interesting compilation of reviews and links to reviews of the biography Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake or the play about Lucia Joyce titled Calico, no mention of autism/AS]

Walker, Antionette and Fitzgerald, Michael (2006) Unstoppable brilliance: Irish geniuses and Asperger’s syndrome. Liberties Press. 2006.
[“… many of the most notable people in Irish politics, the arts and sciences may have exhibited traits of Asperger's syndrome …”, Robert Emmet, Pádraig Pearse, Éamon de Valera, Robert Boyle, William Rowan Hamilton, Daisy Bates, WB Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett]

About Herman Melville
Fitzgerald, Michael (2005) The genesis of artistic creativity: Asperger’s syndrome and the arts. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
[Gaudi, Hopper, Quine, Wittgenstein, Maxwell, Swift, H. Christian Andersen, Melville, Carroll, W. B. Yeats, Conan Doyle, Orwell, Chatwin, Spinoza, Kant, Weil, A. J. Ayer, Mozart, Beethoven, Satie, Bartok, Gould, van Gogh, J. B. Yeats, L.S. Lowry, Warhol]

About Sir Isaac Newton
Baron-Cohen, Simon (2003) The essential difference. Penguin Books.
[Richard Borcherds, Paul Dirac, Einstein, Newton, William Shockley, Michael Ventris]

Fitzgerald, Michael (2006) Autism, Asperger’s syndrome and creativity. Autism2006: AWARES Conference Centre. October 4th 2006.
http://212.74.184.44:8083/BM_DIRECTORY/E/BM000001662/FIT1.PDF
[Stanley Kubrick, George Orwell, Andy Warhol, Temple Grandin, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Simone Weil, Joy Adamson, Wittgenstein, Sir Keith Joseph, W. B. Yeats, Lewis Carroll, Newton, Gregor Mendel, Kant, Spinoza, Charles Lindbergh]

Fitzgerald, Michael, and O’Brien, Brendan (2007) Genius genes: how Asperger talents changed the world. Autism Asperger Publishing Company, 2007.
[Archimedes, Newton, Henry Cavendish, Jefferson, Charles Babbage, Darwin, Gregor Mendel, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Nikola Tesla, David Hilbert, H.G. Wells, John B. Watson, Einstein, Bernard Montgomery (of Alamein), Charles de Gaulle, Alfred Kinsey, Norbert Wiener, Charles Lindbergh, Kurt Godel, Paul Erdos, parts of this book available to read free through Google Book Search]

James, Ioan (2005) Asperger syndrome and high achievement: some very remarkable people. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
[Michelangelo, Philip of Spain, Newton, Swift, John Howard, Cavendish, Jefferson, van Gogh, Satie, Russell, Einstein, Bartók, Ramanujan, Wittgenstein, Kinsey, Weil, Turing, Highsmith, Warhol, Glenn Gould]

James, Ioan (2004) Remarkable physicists: from Galileo to Yukawa. Cambridge University Press.
[Newton, Cavendish, Einstein, Dirac]

James, Ioan (2003) Singular scientists. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. January 2003. Vol. 96, number 1, p. 36-39.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=12519805
[Irene Joliot-Curie, J. M. W. Turner, Paul Dirac, Bela Bartok, Wittgenstein, Cavendish, Newton, Einstein]

Krull, Kathleen (2006) Isaac Newton. (illustrated by Boris Kulikov), Viking, 2006.
[junior biography in the Giants of Science series]

Sacks, Oliver (2004) Autistic geniuses?: we’re too ready to pathologize (letter). Nature. May 20th 2004, Vol. 429, p. 241.
[a letter in which Sacks states that he does not believe that Wittgenstein, Einstein nor Newton “were significantly autistic”]

About George Orwell
Fitzgerald, Michael (2006) Autism, Asperger’s syndrome and creativity. Autism2006: AWARES Conference Centre. October 4th 2006.
http://212.74.184.44:8083/BM_DIRECTORY/E/BM000001662/FIT1.PDF
[Stanley Kubrick, George Orwell, Andy Warhol, Charles Darwin, Albert Einsten and many other famous people discussed in this conference paper]

Fitzgerald, Michael (2005) The genesis of artistic creativity: Asperger’s syndrome and the arts. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
[Gaudi, Hopper, Quine, Wittgenstein, Maxwell, Swift, H. Christian Andersen, Melville, Carroll, W. B. Yeats, Conan Doyle, Orwell, Chatwin, Spinoza, Kant, Weil, A. J. Ayer, Mozart, Beethoven, Satie, Bartok, Gould, van Gogh, J. B. Yeats, L.S. Lowry, Warhol]


Details of some authors and sources of references

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen
Professor of Developmental Psychopathology in the departments of Psychiatry and Experimental Psychology
University of Cambridge
Co-director of the Autism Research CentreUniversity of Cambridge

Professor Michael Fitzgerald
Henry Marsh Professor of Child and Adolescent PsychiatryTrinity College, Dublin
and also a psychoanalyst with the
International Psychoanalytic Association

Professor Morton Ann Gernsbacher
Vilas Research Professor and
Sir Frederic Bartlett Professor of Psychology
University of Wisconsin-Madison
President of the Association for Psychological Science
and mother of a son diagnosed as autistic

Professor Christopher Gillberg
Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden
St George’s Medical College, University of London
Visiting Professor
Universities of Bergen, Odense, New York and San Francisco

Professor Ioan James
Savilian Professor of Geometry
Oxford UniversityProfessor

Oliver Sacks MD, FRCP
Professor of Clinical Neurology and Clinical Psychiatry
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Columbia Artist
Columbia University
Neurologist and popular science book author