Now All We Need Is A Title: Famous Books and How They Got Their Names

"A good title should be like a good metaphor; it should intrigue without being too baffling or too obvious." 
--Walker Percy

When I saw this book on the shelf at the library I said to myself, "I gotta have it." The actual title is Now all we need is a Title: Famous Book Titles and How They Got That Way.

The author, Andre Bernard, shares stories about many of the famous books we've all either read or heard of. It is structured in alphabetical order by author, beginning with James Agee (Now Let Us Praise Famous Men) to Tom Wolfe (Bonfire of the Vanities).

Interspersed throughout the book are sidebars with lists like, Titles We're Glad Got Changed (eg. The Mute was changed to The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), and books with numbers in the title, or books with colors in their title, and books with families in the title, etc. 

If you're a reader of classic literature, you will almost certainly find this book a fun little diversion. Many powerful books had titles taken from famous poems. Dee Brown took the title of his Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee from the last line of a poem by Steven Vincent Benet. Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls is lifted from a poem by John Donne. And the title of O Henry's book of short stories Of Cabbages and Kings was lifted from some verse spoken by the walrus in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. (Learn more about the life of William Sydney Porter, a.k.a. O Henry.)

It's fascinating to read the variety of titles that got rejected by editors or sometimes the authors as their masterpiece stories headed toward publication. F. Scott Fitzgerald originally liked the title Trimalchio in West Egg as his title for what would ultimately become The Great Gatsby. Gold-hatted Gatsby and The High-bouncing Lover were other titles Maxwell Perkins, his publisher, rejected.  In reading this brief anecdote about Fitzgerald's most famous novel (but least profitable during his lifetime) I realized for the first time that all those suds-filled wild parties at Gatsby's place took place during prohibition. Hence, the Fitzgerald observation, "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." In other words, they don't live by the rules like the rest of us are required to.

Did you know that Joseph Heller's Catch-22 was originally going to be Catch-18? Simon & Schuster was notified by Doubleday that Leon Uris had a novel coming out called Mira 18. Since Uris was already a big name and Heller a newby, S&S caved and suggested Heller pick a different number. 

The Bible has been a source of titles for numerous famous books. William Faulkner extracted the title Absalom, Absalom from the Old Testament story of King David's son in II Samuel. Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land was taken from Exodus 2:21-22. It's the story of a human being who returns to earth after being raised by aliens.

Orwell's 1984, begun during WW2 and completed during the dawning of the Cold War, was originally titled The Last Man in Europe. The year selected was determined by reversing the numerals 48, the year this dark vision of the future was completed.

At this point I think you get the picture. 

EdNote: If you're an author, maybe you can pocket a few of these anecdotes to use in the talk you're planning for your next book signing.

* * * 

The Joy of Naming

The Name Game (Includes titles for a number of paintings in my 2009 at The Venue @ Mohaupt Block.)

The Big Read Does Gatsby

H.L. Mencken's 1925 Review of The Great Gatsby