Literary Father's Day: Authors who followed in their fathers' footsteps
For Father's Day, The Thread is delving into literary family legacies.
These father and child author pairs have turned out some great literature — and some bitter family tell-alls.
Six famous literary fathers
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1) Charles Dickens and Charles Dickens Jr.
Charles Dickens is a tough act to follow. The famous British novelist is best known for "A Tale of Two Cities," "Oliver Twist," "David Copperfield" and other classics. When it came time for some fatherly advice, Dickens pushed his son away from writing and toward a career in business. That didn't work out, however and Dickens Jr. ended up as a writer — a writer of dictionaries. He's best known for "Dickens' Dictionary of London."
2) H.G. Wells and Anthony West
Anthony West is the child of not one writer, but two. His father, science fiction legend H.G. Wells, had an affair with novelist Rebecca West — the result was Anthony, born in 1914.
Wells' books "The Time Machine," "The War of the Worlds" and others have fascinated readers for more than a century. Meanwhile, West's most well-known book is a biography of his father.
3) Kingsley Amis and Martin Amis
Kingsley Amis was one of the most well-known British writers of the 20th century; his son Martin is another. Kingsley (technically, Sir Kingsley) kicked off his career with "Lucky Jim" in 1954 and wrote more than 20 books before his death in 1995.
Martin hit it big with "Money" in 1984 and hasn't stopped answering the question "How do you live up to your father's legacy?" in interviews since.
4) Stephen King and Joseph Hillman King
Who wants to be measured against Stephen King? Not his son Joseph. When Joseph started his own writing career, he used the pen name Joe Hill to escape comparisons to his famous father.
His work sparked rumors that the two might be related — they both know how to write a good thriller. The physical resemblance is also difficult to deny. Joseph's cover was officially blown in 2007.
"I really wanted to allow myself to rise and fall on my own merits," Joseph told the Associated Press at the time. "One of the good things about it was that it let me make my mistakes in private."
5) The Waugh Family
The Waugh family's literary legacy stretches on and on. Arthur Waugh kicked things off in the late 1800s, writing poetry and a biography of Alfred Lord Tennyson. His two sons Evelyn and Alec reached even greater fame with their respective novels, "Brideshead Revisited" and "Island in the Sun."
Novelist Auberon Waugh, Evelyn's son, took the baton from there and has since passed it on to his own son, Alexander. In 2007, Alexander wrote "Fathers and Sons," a biography of his family stretching back five generations.
6) Roald Dahl and Tessa Dahl
Roald Dahl's books have charmed children and adults alike since "James and the Giant Peach" caught on in 1961. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" came next, with "The Witches," "The BFG" and "Matilda" becoming instant classics as well.
His daughter, however, didn't have such a fairy tale childhood. Tessa's novel "Working for Love" presents a barely fictionalized account of the many tragedies that struck the Dahl family when she was growing up. She has gone on to write several successful children's books.
In 2007, Tessa's daughter Sophie continued the family tell-all trend with her own semi-autobiographical novel, "Playing with the Grown-Ups."