History CreatorBacklash / Literature

* Creator/LFrankBaum resented writing sequels to ''Literature/TheWizardOfOz'', and repeatedly tried to end the Oz series altogether. Several books end with firm declarations that he has told the reader everything there is to know about Oz, or that Oz has cut itself off from the rest of the world, and he can no longer give the reader new stories as a result. Yet Baum's other books never sold well, and for strictly financial reasons he was forced to repeatedly return to the tired franchise.

* JackKerouac found ''Visions of Cody'' to be a superior work to ''Literature/OnTheRoad'', and was disappointed at how much more people focused on the latter.

* This trope is part of the reason Creator/ArthurConanDoyle was led to kill off Franchise/SherlockHolmes, who overshadowed all of his other writings. He eventually got over it. To quote a letter that Doyle sent a friend after "The Final Problem":

** It's not so much that he got over it, but that he felt forced to resurrect Sherlock Holmes seeing as how people were shouting "MURDERER!" at him on the street. His own mother wouldn't talk to him after finding out he killed off Holmes! For Doyle is was a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.
* Creator/AgathaChristie came to hate the famed fictional detective she created, Literature/HerculePoirot. To quote TheOtherWiki: "By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot 'insufferable' and by 1960, she felt that he was a 'detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep'. Yet the public loved him, and Christie refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked, and what the public liked was Poirot." She would eventually tweak Poirot through one of her other characters, Ariadne Oliver, who was a mystery-writer turned detective. (Yes, Ariadne's an AuthorAvatar; yes, she exists; no, we don't blame you for not knowing that.) Unlike Doyle, Christie never got over it; just before she died, she released ''Curtain,'' a novel she had written years ago, in which [[spoiler:Poirot was [[DroppedABridgeOnHim killed off]]]].

* "Ode an die Freude" ("Ode to Joy") has been popular ever since it was first written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785, but fifteen years after its publication he wrote a letter to his friend Körner saying he regarded the ode as a failure, calling it "detached from reality" and "of value maybe to us two, but not for the world, nor for the art of poetry".

* Creator/PeterSBeagle called ''A Fine and Private Place'' (his first novel, and fairly well received) his "state of grace" novel, where he must have been protected by whatever spirit watches over young and self-important authors.

* Creator/AnneRice, for a time, disclaimed her popular ''Literature/VampireChronicles'' series, as well as the connected ''Mayfair Witches'' series, due to converting to Christianity, but she got over it later.

* Stephen Crane believed that the best way of writing was to go experience something, then dash off your thoughts rapidly and without editing, while being careful not to go on too long. For reasons uncertain to biographers (a bet may have factored into it), he decided to write ''Literature/TheRedBadgeOfCourage'', based on nothing he'd ever seen, heavily edited, and by his own admission "too long." Naturally, "the damned ''Red Badge''" made him famous, while not necessarily helping to dispel his conviction that [[ViewersAreMorons Readers Were Morons]].

* Lucy Maud Montgomery was sick of her most famous work, ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables,'' by the time she wrote its sequel. The creation of [[Literature/EmilyOfNewMoon Emily Starr]] was a direct result of her own disillusionment with her work - though she went on to put out eight books in the ''Anne'' series anyway (the last two books feature Anne as a supporting character, rather than the main character she'd been in previous instalments). In addition, the series was written out of order, which meant that the last book she wrote wasn't ''Rilla of Ingleside'', which ends the series, but ''Anne of Ingleside''. By then she was thoroughly tired of writing Anne - and it shows.

* Creator/DouglasAdams suffered from terrible black moods, and in response to constant nagging from fans for a new ''Literature/TheHitchHikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' book, he gave them a [[CreatorBreakdown dose of his depression in literary form:]] ''Literature/MostlyHarmless''. It's a depressing, nihilistic book in which EverybodyDies and the Earth is irrevocably destroyed in all universes. It made any more sequels impossible, and was a big middle finger to all his fans. Years later, Adams said he regretted ending the series on such a depressing note, and was in the early stages of writing a sixth book that would have fixed it all when he died.

* Some tales in Literature/TheBible, such as Noah's Ark can be interpreted as God having a backlash against humans, especially because of the HumansAreBastards trope. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment But let's leave it at that.]]

->Ah, yes, I wrote the "''Purple Cow''"—
->I'm Sorry, now, I wrote it;
->But I can tell you Anyhow
->I'll Kill you if you Quote it!
* More a love-hate relationship than despise, but this is part of the reason Creator/ArthurConanDoyle was led to kill off Franchise/SherlockHolmes, who overshadowed all of his other writings. He eventually got over it. To quote a letter that Doyle sent a friend after "The Final Problem":

* Creator/MarkTwain came to think of ''Literature/TomSawyer'' as the exemplar of everything that's shallow and stunted in the American spirit. His disgust found its way into ''Literature/HuckleberryFinn'', in which Tom comes off as more of a thoughtless {{Jerkass}} than a mischievous scamp. He wrote Sawyer into two more books after that, though Twain did have financial troubles later in life due to poor investments.

** Crichton has tried to TorchTheFranchiseAndRun twice to no avail. The first novel ends [[spoiler: with the park being destroyed and all the dinosaurs being killed by the fictional Costa Rican air force]]. This was partially retconned with ''The Lost World'', though it too ends with [[spoiler:the dinos turning out to be infected with prions and eventually all going to die.]]

* Gelett Burgess's exasperation over the popularity of his fluff 1895 poem "The Purple Cow". So much so he eventually wrote... you guessed it... a retaliatory poem.
->Ah, yes, I wrote the "Purple Cow"—\
I'm Sorry, now, I wrote it;\
But I can tell you Anyhow\
I'll Kill you if you Quote it!

* Gelett Burgess's exasperation over the popularity of his fluff 1895 poem "The Purple Cow".

* Similar to the above example, Creator/AgathaChristie came to hate the famed fictional detective she created, Literature/HerculePoirot. To quote TheOtherWiki: "By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot 'insufferable' and by 1960, she felt that he was a 'detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep'. Yet the public loved him, and Christie refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked, and what the public liked was Poirot." She would eventually tweak Poirot through one of her other characters, Ariadne Oliver, who was a mystery-writer turned detective. (Yes, Ariadne's an AuthorAvatar; yes, she exists; no, we don't blame you for not knowing that.) Unlike Doyle, Christie never got over it; just before she died, she released ''Curtain,'' a novel she had written years ago, in which [[spoiler:Poirot was [[DroppedABridgeOnHim killed off]]]].

* Creator/AAMilne grew to loathe his ''Literature/WinnieThePooh'' books, as it typecast him forever as a "writer of children's books" and he could never go back to writing adult fiction. He even tried to kill off Pooh at the end of the 2nd book. (It didn't work.) E. H. Shepard, Pooh's illustrator, also suffered from this, as it overshadowed his work in political cartoons. Similarly, Milne's son Christopher Robin grew to hate the works as well, for he was bullied constantly for being immortalized in them.
** At one point, Christopher accused his father of ''exploiting him'' in the stories. Ironically, he later owned a bookstore, where it's inevitable that someone was going to ask ''that'' question.
** Similarly, Lillian Moller Gilbreth didn't like ''Literature/CheaperByTheDozen'' or ''Belles on Their Toes'', which her children wrote, because they made her and her husband's life's work look silly.
** Another similar example, Peter Llewelyn Davies is forever known as the basis for J. M. Barrie's ''Literature/PeterPan''. Davies hated being associated with "that terrible masterpiece" and it is believed that's what drove him to alcoholism and suicide.

* Ian Fleming was sufficiently unhappy with his novel ''Literature/TheSpyWhoLovedMe'' that he licensed the title only and required the film producers to write an entirely new story.

* Creator/PeterBenchley came to regret writing ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' when he learned that drastic overfishing was driving many shark species to extinction, coming to believe he was at least partially responsible due to his book (and the [[Film/{{Jaws}} eponymous film version]]) instilling a cross-cultural fear of sharks around the world. He spent the rest of his life trying to make up for it by becoming a vocal ocean conservation activist.

** Crichton has tried to TorchTheFranchiseAndRun twice to no avail. The first novel ends [[spoiler: with the park being destroyed and all the dinosaurs being killed by the fictional Costa Rican air force]]. This was partially retconned with ''The Lost World'', However.

* Some tales in the Bible, such as Noah's Ark can be interpreted as God having a backlash against humans, especially because of the HumansAreBastards trope. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment But let's leave it at that.]]

** In RealLife, Creator/StephenKing has come to regret writing the novel ''Rage'' because someone decided to make life echo art with that book - or rather, make ''death'' echo art. Current copies of ''The Bachman Books'' no longer feature ''Rage''. But the short story "Cain Rose Up", which deals with similar topics, is still in ''Skeleton Crew''. For those wondering, both ''Rage'' and "Cain Rose Up" concern [[spoiler: a student who kills people on school grounds; the former has the main character/narrator "only" kill two teachers in the course of a long quasi-therapy session with his classmates, be treated sympathetically by all but one of said classmates (in the end the others turn on the OnlySaneMan) and ultimately get shot by the police - but not fatally; both he and the holdout are last seen in different mental institutions - whereas the latter features a sniper who is still killing indiscriminately at the end of the story]].

* Another in-story example: Sharyn [=McCrumb=]'s novel ''Bimbos of the Death Sun'' features an author who despises the series of cheesy Literature/ConanTheBarbarian-style novels to which he's become metaphorically chained by success and merchandising, all the while wanting recognition for his use of Celtic mythology in the books.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov had a minor version of this regarding his famous short story "Nightfall", considering it to be far from his best work and in no way deserving of all the acclaim it received. This was partly because it was one of his earliest works (he wrote it when he was 21), and the notion that it was his best story suggested that he hadn't improved as an author in 50 years of writing. One of the most-remembered paragraphs from that story (it's toward the end) isn't his work, having been added by editor Creator/JohnWCampbell.

** It's not so much that he got over it, but that he felt forced to resurrect Sherlock Holmes seeing as how people were shouting "MURDERER!" at him on the street.

* Gelett Burgess's exasperation over the popularity of his fluff 1895 poem ''The Purple Cow'', as quoted on the main page.
* More a love-hate relationship than despise, but this is part of the reason Arthur Conan Doyle was led to kill off Franchise/SherlockHolmes, who overshadowed all of his other writings. He eventually got over it. To quote a letter that Doyle sent a friend after "The Final Problem":

* Shocked by the conditions in which Dust Bowl refugees lived, John Steinbeck wrote a satire, ''L'Affaire Lettuceberg.'' He decided, however, that it would be better not to publish it, because it was to "cause hatred through partial understanding" and he preferred "making people understand each other." Reconsidering the subject, he wrote ''The Grapes Of Wrath'', a much more direct and passionate work.

* Ian Fleming was sufficiently unhappy with his novel ''Literature/{{The Spy Who Loved Me}}'' that he licensed the title only and required the film producers to write an entirely new story.
* Andrzej Sapkowski has come to utterly despise ''Literature/TheWitcher'', due to both his disagreement with the direction CD Projeck RED has taken the series, and anger over the ''Witcher'' series [[OneHitWonder being the only thing most people remember him for]].
* "Ode an die Freude" ("Ode to Joy") has been popular ever since it was first written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785, but fifteen years after its publication he wrote a letter to his friend Körner saying he regarded the ode as a failure, calling it "detached from reality" and "of value maybe to us two, but not for the world, nor for the art of poetry".

* Gelett Burgess's exasperation over the popularity of his fluff 1895 poem ''The Purple Cow'', as quoted above.

* Some tales in the Bible, such as Noah's Ark can be interpreted as God having a backslash of humans, especially because of the HumansAreBastards trope. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment But let's leave it at that.]]