Yesterday, we came across this awesome piece that Book Riot did of 5 classic books with awful original titles (CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT FAULKNER'S THE SOUND AND THE FURY WAS ORIGINALLY NAMED TWILIGHT?! THIS MIGHT BE A VERY DIFFERENT WORLD IF THAT HAD ACTUALLY HAPPENED), and that got us thinking: what other working book titles did classic books have?
We did a bit of digging, and found quite a few.
Which do you like better? The original title, or the classic title? Let us know in the comments!
George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was originally titled The Last Man in Europe.
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was originally titled The Kingdom by the Sea.
George Orwell's Animal Farm was going to be Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, A Satire, or A Contemporary Satire.
Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises was originally titled Fiesta.
W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage was originally titled Beauty from Ashes.
Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth was originally titled The Year of the Rose.
Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace was originally titled All's Well That Ends Well.
Don DeLillo's White Noise was originally titled Panasonic.
Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind was going to be Tomorrow Is Another Day, Not In Our Stars, Tote the Weary Load, or Bugles Sang True.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was going to be Gatsby, Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires, Trimalchio, Trimalchio in West Egg, On the Road to West Egg, Under the Red, White and Blue, Gold-Hatted Gatsby or The High-Bouncing Lover.
Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead was originally titled Second-Hand Lives.
Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird was originally titled simply Atticus.
JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings series was originally titled The War of the Ring.
Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited was originally titled The House of Faith.
Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front was originally translated Nothing New in the West (a direct translation of the German).
Carson McCullers's The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter was originally titled The Mute.
John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men was originally titled Something That Happened.
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was originally titled First Impressions.
Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was originally titled simply Alice.
William Faulkner's Light in August was originally titled Dark House.
Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden was originally titled Mistress Mary.
James Joyce's Dubliners was originally titled Ulysses in Dublin.
Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint was originally going to be The Jewboy, Wacking Off, or A Jewish Patient Begins His Analysis.
William Golding's Lord of the Flies was originally titled Strangers From Within.
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