Henry L. Mencken, Edgar Allan Pe, May Sarton and Maxime Kumin liked to do their writing in attic rooms.

Flannery O’Connor turned her desk away from the window.

Edna St. Vincent Millay used a one-room cabin in the woods.

Balzac used to drink over 10 cups of coffee every day.

Dan Brown keeps an hourglass on his desk and, on the hour, puts aside his manuscript to perform push-ups, sit-ups, and stretches.

Blanche D’Alpuget, when writing on the computer,  printed a first draft and then deleted the original file.  She then typed the entire book again from the printouts.

Nabokov wrote on index cards, standing up at a lectern, wearing socks.

Alexandre Dumas, the father, ate an apple at 7 a.m. each morning under the Arc de Triomphe.

Friedrich Schiller could not stand the smell of food being prepared, while writing. He had a kitched built at a considerable distance from the house.

Saint-Pol-Roux hung the inscription “The Poet Is Working” from his door while he slept.

Charles Dickens’s desk

Herman Hesse’s desk

J.R.R. Tolkien’s desk

F. Schiller’s desk

B. Shaw’s desk

Mark Twain’s desk

Jane Austen’s writing table

Leo Tolstoy’s desk

C.S. Lewis’ desk

See also:

American Writers at Home