The lives of twenty writers, ranging from Dickens, the Brontes, and Poe to Twain, Sandburg, and Langston Hughes, are profiled in this humorous and informative collection.

Rice cakes and moonlight : Murasaki Shikibu -- One disaster after another : Miguel de Cervantes -- "Curst be he that moves my bones" : William Shakespeare -- Chocolate for breakfast : Jane Austen -- Ugly duckling or little mermaid? : Hans Christian Andersen -- Imp of the perverse : Edgar Allan Poe -- From raisin pudding to oysters and champagne : Charles Dickens -- Currer and Ellis Bell : Charlotte and Emily Brontë -- Hide-and-seek : Emily Dickinson -- Paddling her own canoe : Louisa May Alcott -- Killingly funny : Mark Twain -- The fairy godmother : Frances Hodgson Burnett -- Into the mountains of the moon : Robert Louis Stevenson -- Cannibal sandwiches : Jack London -- Potato face blind man : Carl Sandburg -- On the farm : E.B. White -- She jumped at the sun : Zora Neale Hurston -- The perfect companion : Langston Hughes -- Blintzes stuffed with cheese : Isaac Bashevis Singer.