As it is Halloween, I thought I would post some of my favorite authors in costume. The  photos include Truman Capote, Maya Angelou, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, J. M. Barrie,  and Ursula K. Le Guin.

Let’s start with F. Scott Fitzgerald in costume, author of my favorite book, The Great Gatsby. This was for the Princeton musical, “The Evil Eye”. The New York Times called Fitzgerald “the most beautiful” showgirl in the production.

Here is the sublime Maya Angelou in earlier days. Check out those gams! Here she is as  “Miss Calypso” in a publicity still for Columbia Records in the mid 1950s. This was her only album of poetry and music ever distributed.

On a more sinister note, here is J. M. Barrie playing his most famous villain, Captain Hook with his adopted son, Michael Llewellyn-Davies as Peter Pan.Below are Peter, George and Jack Llewellyn-Davies, Barrie’s other adopted sons, as ax-toting Lost Boys. Ambiguity continues to surround the validity of the will and testament of the Llewellyn Davies children’s mother who may not have entrusted her children to Barrie.

Ursula K. Le Guin as Queen. “The creative adult is the child who has survived.” ~ Queen Ursula

Ernest Hemingway in costume. Well, at two years, Ernest wasn’t really in charge of this costume!  Up until the 1940s, it was not unusual in America to dress toddlers in gowns. From the JFK Library, photograph take in 1901.

Here is  critic, Susan Sontag in costume.In the “teddy bear suit”.Dear God, what is she writing?  Photo by Annie Lebowitz

Finally here is Truman Capote in costume.Truman Capote as some sort of Christmas sprite. Truman Capote as Truman Capote (Photo by Avedon).

Happy Halloween!