Can you imagine the young Mary Shelley shaping Frankenstein's monster during the gloomy nights of what became known worldwide as the Year Without a Summer at Villa Diodati? Did you know that Arthur Conan Doyle was a credulous man who believed in ghosts, to the point that he would have put Sherlock Holmes, the analytical detective born from his pen, to shame? Or that the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima led a coup attempt in his country with dramatic consequences for his own life? And that Guy de Maupassant received visits from himself? What happened to him during Agatha Christie's eleven missing days, which caused a sensation in the United Kingdom and one of the largest missing persons searches the country had ever seen? The answers to these and other surprising questions about the biographies of some of the most prominent writers in world literature can be found in the pages of this new book by José Luis Hernández Garvi, a work in which the biographies of its subjects fulfill the adage that reality surpasses fiction. With the force of a vigorous style that keeps us turning the pages, the author of *The Disappearance of Agatha Christie and Other Stories about Mysterious, Eccentric, and Unorthodox Writers* leads us through the labyrinth of the complex personalities of novelists portrayed with a palette rich in nuances and chiaroscuro. This is an essential book for those who want to discover what truly lies behind literary inspiration and genesis. Margaret Atwood said, "Wanting to meet a writer because you like their books is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté." This book contradicts the great writer's assertion, dissecting the most mysterious, eccentric, and unorthodox secrets of the great geniuses of world literature.