1. JACK LONDON
Famous for Call of the Wild, he
worked a variety of odd jobs, including being an oyster pirate (whatever that
is). He dropped out of school at 13, but continued to read books. His first
collection of short stories were published when he was just 24.2. H.G. WELLS
Famous for early science fiction, including The Time Machine. He was pulled out of school when he was 11. His
father was a professional cricket player who fractured his thigh, forcing his
children to take up apprenticeships. Wells worked as a draper and hated, though
his experience later inspired novels like The
Wheels of Chance and Kipps.
Famous for plays like: Pygmalion,
and Man and Superman. He dropped out
of school at age 14. He had this to say of formal education: “Schools and schoolmasters, as we have
them today,” he once wrote, “are not popular as places of education and
teachers, but rather prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent
them disturbing and chaperoning their parents.” 
Best known for his dyspeptic comic series “American Splendor,” begun
in 1976. Graduated from high school in 1957 but later dropped out of Case
Western University after a year because “the pressure of required math classes
became too much to bear.”5. MARK TWAIN
The author of Tom Sawyer
and Huckleberry Finn dropped out of
school at age 12. When his father died he and his siblings had to help support
the family. He worked with his older brother as a printer – and of course later
as a steamboat captain. He worked with his brother for a while before breaking
out on his own.
6. WILLIAM FAULKNER
The author of Grapes of Wrath was already writing as a teenager (just poetry at first). He didn’t care much for school and dropped out at age 15. Even though he didn’t have a high school diploma he managed to get into Ole Miss as a special student at the age of 22 – his father worked there. But, he dropped out of there too after only three semesters.
The author of Grapes of Wrath was already writing as a teenager (just poetry at first). He didn’t care much for school and dropped out at age 15. Even though he didn’t have a high school diploma he managed to get into Ole Miss as a special student at the age of 22 – his father worked there. But, he dropped out of there too after only three semesters.
This underground celebrity who help found the beatnik generation, a
progenitor of the hippy movement, penned such classics as On the Road, and Big Sur.
When in high school, however, he was a jock, not a poet. As the star of his
football team he won a scholarship to Columbia University. Unfortunately he and
his coach didn’t get along and he was benched most of his freshman year. His
football career ended abruptly when he cracked his tibia, so he dropped out of
school.8. CHARLES DICKENS
With such classics as A Tale
of Two Cities, and Great Expectations
(not to mention A Christmas Carol),
it’s hard to believe that Charles Dickens was a dropout. But at the age of 12
his father was tossed into debtors’ prison and he was forced to out of his
private education to work at a boot blacking warehouse. He worked ten-hour days
making six shillings a week. His father eventually got out of prison thanks to
an inheritance and Charles was able to return to school, but his time in the
factories colored almost everything he produced.9. AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS
An American memoirist and comic essayist, he is best known for his
New York Times bestselling memoir Running
with Scissors. Augusten wanted to drop out of school at age 13, and his
mother actually helped him do it. Together they faked his suicide. By 17 he got
his GED and changed his name. No sooner had he enrolled in Holyoke Community
College than he flunked out. Later he moved to New York and worked in an
advertising agency then published his first memoir, Running with Scissors, when he was just 37 years old.10. HARPER LEE
You might remember a little story called, To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper loved literature during high school,
but once she got into college pursued a legal career. By her junior year she
had the opportunity to start her law studies while concurrently continuing with
her undergraduate work. She ditched it all after a couple of semesters and get
this, moved to New York to become a writer…and so she did.
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