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Secrets of the Classics Revealed

The original title of The Iliad was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Rape Helen.

The Book of Genesis was actually an attack ad from the Pear Advisory Council intended to discredit apples.

Newton’s Principia Mathematica was originally pitched as a graphic novel, but was accepted for publication only on condition that it be rewritten as the seminal text in the history of the physical sciences. 

Ernest Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises in forty-eight minutes while under the influence of barbiturates provided by Gertrude Stein.

On his death bed, Franz Kafka asked not only that all his works be destroyed, but also that someone please drown his cat. 

John Milton was inspired to write Paradise Lost after he was locked out of his apartment for an entire night.

Cicero’s On Duties was considered pornographic and banned upon publication by a Roman official until someone explained to him what sex was. 

William Shakespeare was a corporate composite character for the firm Thousands of Captive Monkeys Ltd., known to have tested in the low fifties with Elizabethan focus groups.

6/14/2013