In 1916, after extensive study, French writer Georges Polti announced that all the stories in classical and modern literature could be reduced to 36 essential situations:

1. Supplication. The Persecutor accuses the Suppliant of wrongdoing, and the Power makes a judgment against the Suppliant.
2. Deliverance. The Unfortunate has caused a conflict, and the Threatener is to carry out justice, but the Rescuer saves the Unfortunate.
3. Crime pursued by vengeance. The Criminal commits a crime that will not see justice, so the Avenger seeks justice by punishing the Criminal.
4. Vengeance taken for kin upon kin. Two entities, the Guilty and the Avenging Kinsmen, are put into conflict over wrongdoing to the Victim, who is allied to both.
5. Pursuit. The Fugitive flees Punishment for a misunderstood conflict.
6. Disaster. The Power falls from their place after being defeated by the Victorious Enemy or being informed of such a defeat by the Messenger.
7. Falling prey to cruelty/misfortune. The Unfortunate suffers from Misfortune and/or at the hands of the Master.
8. Revolt. The Tyrant, a cruel power, is plotted against by the Conspirator.
9. Daring enterprise. The Bold Leader takes the Object from the Adversary by overpowering the Adversary.
10. Abduction. The Abductor takes the Abducted from the Guardian.
11. The enigma. The Interrogator poses a Problem to the Seeker and gives a Seeker better ability to reach the Seeker’s goals.
12. Obtaining. The Solicitor is at odds with the Adversary who refuses to give the Solicitor what they Object in the possession of the Adversary, or an Arbitrator decides who gets the Object desired by Opposing Parties (the Solicitor and the Adversary).
13. Enmity of kin. The Malevolent Kinsman and the Hated or a second Malevolent Kinsman conspire together.
14. Rivalry of kin. The Object of Rivalry chooses the Preferred Kinsman over the Rejected Kinsman.
15. Murderous adultery. Two Adulterers conspire to kill the Betrayed Spouse.
16. Madness. The Madman goes insane and wrongs the Victim.
17. Fatal imprudence. The Imprudent, by neglect or ignorance, loses the Object Lost or wrongs the Victim.
18. Involuntary crimes of love. The Revealer betrays the trust of either the Lover or the Beloved.
19. Slaying of kin unrecognized. The Slayer kills the Unrecognized Victim.
20. Self-sacrifice for an ideal. The Hero sacrifices the Person or Thing for their Ideal, which is then taken by the Creditor.
21. Self-sacrifice for kin. The Hero sacrifices a Person or Thing for their Kinsman, which is then taken by the Creditor.
22. All sacrificed for passion. A Lover sacrifices a Person or Thing for the Object of their Passion, which is then lost forever.
23. Necessity of sacrificing loved ones. The Hero wrongs the Beloved Victim because of the Necessity for their Sacrifice.
24. Rivalry of superior vs. inferior. A Superior Rival bests an Inferior Rival and wins the Object of Rivalry.
25. Adultery. Two Adulterers conspire against the Deceived Spouse.
26. Crimes of love. A Lover and the Beloved enter a conflict.
27. Discovery of the dishonour of a loved one. The Discoverer discovers the wrongdoing committed by the Guilty One.
28. Obstacles to love. Two Lovers face an Obstacle together.
29. An enemy loved. The allied Lover and Hater have diametrically opposed attitudes towards the Beloved Enemy.
30. Ambition. The Ambitious Person seeks the Thing Coveted and is opposed by the Adversary.
31. Conflict with a god. The Mortal and the Immortal enter a conflict.
32. Mistaken jealousy. The Jealous One falls victim to the Cause or the Author of the Mistake and becomes jealous of the Object and becomes conflicted with the Supposed Accomplice.
33. Erroneous judgment. The Mistaken One falls victim to the Cause of the Author of the Mistake and passes judgment against the Victim of the Mistake when it should be passed against the Guilty One instead.
34. Remorse. The Culprit wrongs the Victim or commits the Sin, and is at odds with the Interrogator who seeks to understand the situation.
35. Recovery of a lost one. The Seeker finds the One Found.
36. Loss of loved ones. The killing of the Kinsman Slain by the Executioner is witnessed by the Kinsman Spectator.

For example, the Sherlock Holmes stories are an example of situation 3; Madame Bovary of situation 25; Romeo and Juliet of situation 29; and Crime and Punishment of situation 34. (The full text is here.) Correspondingly, he claimed, in life there are only 36 emotions, whose “unceasing ebb and flow … fills human history like the tides of the sea.”

Though he found that 36 categories were enough “to distribute fitly among them the innumerable dramas awaiting classification,” Polti felt that his system shouldn’t inhibit the creativity of future writers. “Any writer may have here a starting-point for observation and creation, outside the world of paper and print, a starting-point personal to himself.”

In the U.S. edition of Thrilling Cities, his 1963 collection of travel pieces written for the Sunday Times, Ian Fleming included a brief section describing a visit to New York by James Bond, who visits the Edwardian Room at the Plaza and orders a dry martini, smoked salmon, and “the particular scrambled eggs he had once instructed them how to make.” And in a footnote, Fleming gives the precise recipe for 007’s scrambled eggs:

Scrambled Eggs “James Bond”

12 fresh eggs
Salt and pepper
5-6 oz. of fresh butter

Break the eggs into a bowl. Beat thoroughly with a fork and season well. In a small copper (or heavy-bottomed) saucepan melt four oz. of the butter. When melted, pour in the eggs and cook over a very low heat, whisking continuously with a small egg whisk.

While the eggs are slightly more moist than you would wish for eating, remove pan from heat, add rest of butter and continue whisking for half a minute, adding the while finely chopped chives or fines herbes. Serve on hot buttered toast in individual copper dishes (for appearance only) with pink champagne (Taittainger) and low music.

It serves “four individualists.”

When chronic illness confined Boston poet Arthur Crew Inman to a darkened room, he turned inward, scribbling his thoughts and feelings into an enormous diary that eventually filled 155 volumes with 17 million handwritten words — most of them peevish:

A Lithuanian came to read to me. I disliked her at once. She was common. Her voice sounded like an ungreased axle. She spoke with a pronounced accent. She would start to read fairly well, but in short order she would become interested in the book, forget me, let the reading go as it might. I began to ask her questions. She answered in monosyllables. She used gutter slang. Her father, she said, had fled from Poland to escape the Russian term of army service. He had come to America where he had stayed for a while in Elizabeth, New Jersey. After saving some money, he took his family to Amsterdam, New York, and started a dry goods store. The girl had been one of six children. She had not learned to speak English until she was thirteen. She had gone to public school. Now she is studying music at the Boston Conservatory.

Harvard professor Daniel Aaron, who edited the diaries for publication in 1985, called them “surely one of the fullest and largest diaries ever kept by any American.” Inman would have agreed with him. “I trust to do in nonfiction what Balzac did in fiction,” he said. Perhaps he succeeded — the diaries were turned into an opera in 2007, and a film version starring John Hurt is in development.

A letter from Lewis Carroll to Gertrude Chataway, Oct. 28, 1876:

My Dearest Gertrude,

–You will be sorry, and surprised, and puzzled, to hear what a queer illness I have had ever since you went. I sent for the doctor, and said, ‘Give me some medicine, for I’m tired.’ He said, ‘Nonsense and stuff! You don’t want medicine: go to bed!’ I said, ‘No; it isn’t the sort of tiredness that wants bed. I’m tired in the face.’

He looked a little grave, and said, ‘Oh, it’s your nose that’s tired: a person often talks too much when he thinks he knows a great deal.’ I said, ‘No, it isn’t the nose. Perhaps it’s the hair.’

Then he looked rather grave, and said, ‘Now I understand: you’ve been playing too many hairs on the pianoforte.’ ‘No, indeed I haven’t!’ I said, ‘and it isn’t exactly the hair: it’s more about the nose and chin.’

Then he looked a good deal graver, and said, ‘Have you been walking much on your chin lately?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Well!’ he said, ‘it puzzles me very much. Do you think it’s in the lips?’ ‘Of course!’ I said. ‘That’s exactly what it is!’

Then he looked very grave indeed, and said, ‘I think you must have been giving too many kisses.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I did give one kiss to a baby child, a little friend of mine.’ ‘Think again,’ he said; ‘are you sure it was only one?’ I thought again, and said, ‘Perhaps it was eleven times.’ Then the doctor said, ‘You must not give her any more till your lips are quite rested again.’ ‘But what am I to do?’ I said, ‘because you see, I owe her a hundred and eighty-two more.’

Then he looked so grave that tears ran down his cheeks, and he said, ‘You may send them to her in a box.’ Then I remembered a little box that I once bought at Dover, and thought I would some day give it to some little girl or other. So I have packed them all in it very carefully. Tell me if they come safe or if any are lost on the way.

Half of Jane Austen’s oeuvre was written on a tiny table in the family parlor, subject to continual interruptions. In his Memoir of Jane Austen, James Edward Austen-Leigh wrote:

The first year of her residence at Chawton seems to have been devoted to revising and preparing for the press ‘Sense and Sensibility,’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice’; but between February 1811 and August 1816, she began and completed ‘Mansfield Park,’ ‘Emma,’ and ‘Persuasion,’ so that the last five years of her life produced the same number of novels with those which had been written in her early youth. How she was able to effect all this is surprising, for she had no separate study to retire to, and most of the work must have been done in the general sitting-room, subject to all kinds of casual interruptions. She was careful that her occupation should not be suspected by servants, or visitors, or any persons beyond her own family party. She wrote upon small sheets of paper which could easily be put away, or covered with a piece of blotting paper. There was, between the front door and the offices, a swing door which creaked when it was opened; but she objected to having this little inconvenience remedied, because it gave her notice when anyone was coming.

He adds: “I have no doubt that I, and my sisters and cousins, in our visits to Chawton, frequently disturbed this mystic process, without having any idea of the mischief that we were doing; certainly we never should have guessed it by any signs of impatience or irritability in the writer.”

Shakespeare dedicated his sonnets to a “Mr. W.H.” No one knows who this was — his identity has remained a mystery for 400 years. Most of the sonnets are addressed to a young man, and some seem to contain puns on the names “Will” and “Hughes” (for example, sonnet 20 refers to “a man in hue all hughes in his controlling”), so the 18th-century scholar Thomas Tyrwhitt suggested that the young man was named William Hughes. Oscar Wilde took this up in his 1889 short story “The Portrait of Mr. W.H.,” in which he imagines that Mr. W.H. was one Willie Hughes, “a wonderful boy-actor of great beauty” who played women’s roles in Shakespeare’s company. Unfortunately there’s no evidence that such a person actually existed, though Samuel Butler discovered a real-life William Hughes who served as cook on a ship called the Vanguard in 1634.

In Ulysses, Mr. Best calls Wilde’s the “most brilliant” of all theories to explain the mystery. That’s ironic, because Ulysses contains a mysterious character of its own.