Ep. 17. One-Hit Wonders: Authors who wrote only one book

Just like in the music industry, there are also literary one-hit wonders. Sometimes these title is given to an author’s debut novel which also happened to be his or her last one, or to one posthumously published book, or to the one title that is very well known from an author that has other lesser known ones. 

We want to highlight in this episodes several books that could be considered one-hit wonders, and they might have been the only well-known novel their authors produced, but they certainly topped the literary charts. Listen to this hit parade!



The book has been a best-seller in 24 languages. It was also awarded the Nobel Prize in 1958, which the author had to decline under threat of exile and political prosecution from the Russian communist government. Pasternak penned other lesser known poems and short stories; but Doctor Zhivago is the only novel he wrote. 

The novel is set in Russia in the time between the Russian Revolution in 1905 and the Russian Civil War ending in 1922. The novel highlights how this historical period affected the lives of everyday Russians including Yuri Zhivago, our protagonist, and Lara, his love interest. Yuri Zhivago is a physician and a poet, in fact, several of Zhivago’s poems appear throughout the book. The novel is a love story as well as a critic of the Russian ideology of the times.

For those who find themselves near Moscow and love Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak Dacha (or Country House) Museum is a must-visit. Pasternak wrote Doctor Zhivago in this traditional dacha in the Peredelkino writer’s colony outside Moscow, where he settled with his wife in 1939 during Stalin’s purge. Pasternak died in 1960 and his death was unacknowledged at the time by the communist government. After his death, it took several years, a disputed court battle, and eventually Perestroika for Pasternak’s family to preserve the house as a museum. If you visit, you will be able to see the couch at which Pasternak died and the heavy oak desk at which he wrote Doctor Zhivago. 


The movie adaptation from 1965 won several awards and has always been a favorite of lovers of classic cinema.


Like Doctor Zhivago, Wild Swans was also banned in the author’s country of origin for political reasons. However, the book has sold over 13 million copies worldwide, it has been translated to 37 languages, and it was named British Book of the Year in 1994. This is the only book from the author which has received such wide reception and critical acclaim. 


This is an autobiography spanning three generations of Chinese women: the author, her mother, and her grandmother. Each of these women had to adapt to the historical and political context in China for most of the 20th century. We have chosen Wild Swans for our Six-Word Review this week: Concubine grandmother, deluded mother, misused daughter.



The Little Prince has been translated to 301 languages and dialects, and it has sold an estimated 140 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling books of all times. Saint-Exupéry published other books and short stories, but none was remotely as successful as The Little Prince.


In the novel, an aviator crashes his plane in the Sahara Desert, and as he is trying to fix his aircraft he meets the little prince, who has landed on Earth after a trip through several planets that started in his asteroid B-612. When they meet, the little prince tells the aviator about what he encountered in each planet, and each story is a simple but profound lesson on being human. 

The book has been recommended as bibliotherapy to cure carelessness, because in a planet as small as B-612, it makes all the difference to be attentive to daily routines like watering your only rose, cleaning your volcanoes (even if dormant), weeding out chronic and menacing baobab shoots, and making things important by spending time on them. 

In the book, the little prince requests the aviator to draw something for him, and after several unsuccessful attempts, the aviator tells the story of his truncated career as an illustrator. One of the most memorable of the illustrations in the book, all created by Saint-Exupéry, was that that some people identified as a hat, and others identified as a boa having dinner. OringoWorld has designed a ring with this memorable illustration that will delight anyone who loves The Little Prince.
Ring inspired by illustration in The Little Prince from OringoWorld

There is a 2015 animated movie adaptation of The Little Prince with Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, James Franco, Paul Rudd, Ricky Gervais, Benicio del Toro, Paul Giamatti and so many others lending their voices to the characters in the movie. Our friends at Screen to Page podcast released an episode (Sept. 13th, 2020) discussing the movie and the book that we wholeheartedly recommend. 

The Little Prince was published in 1943. In 1944, Saint-Exupéry, who was also a pilot, disappeared while flying his plane on a WWII mission for the ally forces. The remains of the aircraft were found almost 60 years later in the Mediterranean Sea near Provence, France. I like to imagine Saint-Exupéry might have "disappeared", but he found the Little Prince and they are together in B-612.

The Little Prince was very special to my dad. He gifted me The Little Prince when I was a kid and we used to read it together all the time. He told me I was going to find something new in it every time I read it, he was right. My dad has passed away, but because he taught me to love books, The Little Prince more than any other, I am never going to stop hearing his voice when I read. He also taught me to love sunsets, which were very special to the Little Prince, and just like the Little Prince, dad, I hope you can get to watch 44 of them in a single day in B-612.


A literary one-hit wonder in the literal sense of the expression: as of today, Arthur Golden has only published Memoirs of A Geisha, despite reports of a sequel to the famous novel being in the works; however, this one novel has sold millions of copies and it stayed in the list of The New York Times Bestsellers for more than a year.

The narrator of the novel is a woman who was sold into slavery as a young girl and became one of Japan's most beautiful and celebrated geishas. The book has been recommended as bibliotherapy for those in the mood to reinvent themselves.

The movie adaptation of Memoirs of A Geisha has been as successful as the book, winning three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe in 2006. 

After publishing the novel, Golden was sued for breach of contract by Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha Golden had interviewed when researching for the novel. Iwasaki claimed that the information was given under condition of anonymity due to the traditional geisha code of silence. But when Arthur Golden mentioned Iwasaki in his acknowledgement, he identified her a source. Eventually the case was settled outside of court, and Iwasaki went on to write her own book, Geisha, A Life. If you like this tidbit of information, you will enjoy our episode Sue Me: Books involved in lawsuits, where we ramble about other books which have been to court. 


Another true literary one-hit wonder, being the only novel written by Margaret Mitchell, but this one book is estimated to be among the top ten most-read books in the world. 

The book tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara and her struggles during the American Civil War as her plantation, Tara, descends into poverty. As well-known as the book is the movie adaptation from 1939, which won ten Academy Awards and starred Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. 

For admirers of Gone With the Wind, a visit to the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum in Atlanta, GA is a must. The author and her husband occupied a small unit in the ground floor. Here Mitchell wrote the novel, unknown to family and friends, in a typewriter her husband presented her as she was recovering from an ankle injury. Today, the museum houses several unique items, like the door to Tara’s plantation used on the set of the Oscar-winning film adaptation, and a suitcase purchased by the editor to transport the immense manuscript of Gone With the Wind. 

There is a scene in the book where Mammy, the houses slave, brings a huge tray of food to Scarlett as she is getting dressed to go to a party. Mammy has the rule that O’Hara girls need to be crammed with food before attending this type of social event. On the tray, there are some yams covered with butter which recipe have been recreated in The Book Lover’s Cookbook. The recipe recommends cutting yams in thick slices covered in pineapple chunks and a thick sauce of boiled pineapple and orange juice, brown sugar, salt, cornstarch, and melted butter. After sprinkling the yams with cinnamon and nutmeg, they should be baked at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. If Mammy's yams are not enough and you would like to have a four-course meal inspired by Gone With the Wind, Steve Mosco has created the menu for Dinnertime at Tara for the Long Island Weekly.


Better known for her poetry, Sylvia Plath published only one novel, The Bell Jar, about a month before she tragically committed suicide. Plath suffered from bipolar disorder, and the mood swings and mental deterioration of the heroine in The Bell Jar mirrors the author's own experience, making the novel semi-autobiographical. Sylvia Plath might have only published one novel, but that one novel is certainly coveted in the literary world: an uncorrected proof copy of the book fetched £87,500 in 2018.

For fans of The Bell Jar who cannot afford to shed thousands on a rare book, Words Of Attraction has created a metal bracelet stamped with one of the famous quotes from the book, "I am, I am, I am". 
Stamped metal bracelet inspired by The Bell Jar from Words Of Attraction


A renaissance man, Ellison was a photographer, musician, sculptor, teacher, journalist, and also a writer. He wrote several essays and short stories, but he is best known for his novel, Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. 

Invisible Man was a true work of courage. It was published in 1952, during a time when laws enforced racial segregation. In the novel, the unnamed narrator exposed readers to the realities faced by a black man at the time, and the different ways in which he had experienced social invisibility. 

For those who love the work of Ralph Ellison, a visit to Oklahoma City is a must. Ellison was born here in 1914, and he grew up in the Deep Deuce neighborhood, an area known for prominent jazz and blues clubs that inevitably permeate Ellison’s life. In fact, Invisible Man has been deemed a literary extension of the blues. Other sites in Oklahoma City related to Ellison's life include the Ralph Ellison Library, with an exhibit on the author's life, Ellison's birth home at 407 NE 1st St., Avery Chapel, where he lived with his mother after his father died, and Douglass High School, from where Ellison graduated.


Black Beauty was the only novel published by Anne Sewell, and she published it late in life, only five months before her passing. The book has sold more than 50 million copies, making it one of the best-selling books of all time.

We have chosen the 2011 paperback edition as part of the Penguin Threads series from Penguin Classics created by Jillian Tamaki for our Cover Gallery. This is a stitch cover series whose idea was born after Paul Buckley, creative director at Penguin, bought a stitch portrait in Etsy and pitched the idea to Penguin Classics publisher Elda Rotor and Penguin publisher Kathryn Court. He was visiting designer Jillian Tamaki’s blog and found in it a picture of a quilt she had stitched herself. Despite the caption for such photo requesting nobody to ask her to do something like that ever, since it took too much time, Paul Buckley asked. Jillian accepted and went to win a Gold Medal from the Society of illustrators on that year for her work on Black Beauty. 

2011 Paperback edition from the Penguin Threads series

For Book vs. Book, we have chosen two literary one-hit wonders which describe the experiences of men at war and have both been adapted to the big screen. 


The title of this book, coined by the author, has even become part of our vocabulary to describe contradictory situations, that's how much of a hit it could be considered. Although this was not the only book written by Joseph Heller, it definitely is the one which has sold the most copies, more than 10 million. Heller also wrote a sequel titled Closing Time, but it is not as well-known as Catch-22. 

Heller’s dark humor in Catch-22 made the gruesome side of war almost bearable. Yossarian, a young bombardier who is convinced that they are trying to kill him, seems to be the only sane one in the bunch. Meanwhile, Colonel Cathcart keeps dangling hope in front of Yossarian; making it really hard for him to stay alive.

Amusing but most of the times irrational. Bureaucracy at its best! Or should I say, at its worst!



Like Joseph Heller, Eric Maria Remarque wrote other works; however, none of them is as well-known as All Quiet in the Western Front. The initial print run of the book sold out on the first day of its release in 1929, and since then, the book has sold an estimate of 30 million copies.

In the novel, we meet Paul Baumer, a young man who enlists in the German army after his teacher inspires him and his classmates to do so. Paul narrates his experience as a soldier, lamenting the unfulfilled potential of those who lost their lives as well as the sequels for those who survive. 


For GuessWork, we have a tragicomic book published 11 years after its author committed suicide. After the author's passing, his mother discovered the manuscript of this book and made it her mission to publish the book, which went to win the author a posthumous Nobel Prize in Literature. Could you know the title of the book from its first line? 

In Episode 2, we talked about other two very famous one-hit wonders: The Help and To Kill A Mockingbird, since besides being the only books published by the respective authors, another thing these two books have in common is that they both were involved in lawsuits. 

If you happen to know of any other literary one-hit wonder, let us know so that we can add it to our hit parade.




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