Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
My personal definition (and others may well disagree) is that a "literary" author is one who writes as an art form, rather than to entertain the reader. Two examples would be James Joyce and Virginia Woolfe, neither of whom wrote for the entertainment of the public, but considered writing to be a form of art for the "intelligentsia" (however you choose to interpret that word). Which explains why most people don't find their books to be an entertaining read: they weren't intended to be.
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So Austen and Dickens are not literary authors according to your definition then.