5 Famous Geniuses And Their Super Embarrassing Early Works

Nobody knew this better than Leo Tolstoy, legendary author of those books no has ever gotten to the end of, who at an early age was already looking back at his shortcomings. He used this to become the most boring young adult of them all: a self-help nerd.

At the tender age of 18, Tolstoy was having a bad year. Not only was he about to drop out of university for poor academic performance, but he was also being treated in a hospital for a venereal disease -- and we're going to assume those two events were somehow related. Lying in the hospital, Tolstoy decided to use this time to "enter into himself" (if only he'd done that in the first place, then he wouldn't have needed a doctor) and find a way to turn his life around. His answer? A series of diaries and notebooks composed of instructions on every aspect of life, as if he was trying to make a Leo Tolstoy user manual.

The first of these notebooks was his "Rules for Life," which is the exactly the kind of ambitious scope you'd expect from a man who later wrote War And Peace. Then that scope narrowed quite significantly. There were the "Rules for Developing Will," then "Rules for playing music," and "Rules for playing cards in Moscow until January 1," among many, many others. But the most disturbing and difficult writings had to be his "Journal of Weaknesses", inspired by the harsh self-criticism of his idol, Benjamin Franklin. In it, he would write down every bad quality he thought he had, including "laziness, mendacity, indecision, sensuality, and vanity." Then he would unflinchingly and on a daily basis mark every bad quality he had shown. He would also fill his ledgers with notations of "sissiness" aside every failed opportunity, because he was clearly not being too hard on himself already.

By the time he was 21, Tolstoy would keep a single journal that combined all the most obsessive parts of his former works. So a typical passage would look like this:

Poiret came, I fenced, and did not send him away (sloth and cowardice). Ivanov came, I spoke with him for too long (cowardice). Koloshin (Sergei) came to drink vodka, I did not escort him out (cowardice). At Ozerov's argued about nothing (habit of arguing) and did not talk about what I should have talked about (cowardice). Did not go to Beklemishev's (weakness of energy). During gymnastics did not walk the rope (cowardice), and did not do one thing because it hurt (sissiness).

This was followed by a minutely planned schedule for the next day:

From 10 to 11 yesterday's diary and to read. From 11 to 12-gymnastics. From 12 to 1-English. Beklemishev and Beyer from 1 to 2. From 2 to 4-on horseback. From 4 to 6-dinner. From 6 to 8-to read. From 8 to 10-to write.-To translate something from a foreign language into Russian to develop memory and style.-To write today with all the impressions and thoughts it gives rise to.

All of this self-obsession led to his first literary work at the age of 22. In The History Of Yesterday, he (you guessed it) wrote a complete accounting of every single second of a 24-hour day, with commentary in parentheses after every single sentence. It was the start of his journey as the most detail-oriented novelist of all time. And we thought Batman had an intense origin story.

Kitty is only one of many girls to feature heavy in Li'l Fitzgerald's carousel of school beaus. In fact, the future author thought he was so popular with girls that cooties were afraid of catching him.

At the time I was more popular with girls than I ever have been before. In truth Kitty Shultz, Dorothy, Violet, Marie and Catherine Tre all liked me best.

To cement his reputation as St. Paul Academy's resident ladies' man, Scott also kept a tally of his Valentine victories, writing: Last year in dancing school I got 11 valentines and this year 15. That's not an undeserved haul, as his diary entries prove he could be quite the smooth talker. With lines like "Today in dancing school I told her she was my best girl" and "She asked me if I liked dancing school and I said I liked it if she went," there wasn't a middle school girl out there who could resist the charms of this Junior Gatsby.

But like any playboy, pocket-sized or no, it quickly becomes clear that what Fitzgerald loved most of all was falling in love. And he was quite fickle about which fair maiden was most deserving of his affection. As he writes in one entry:

Since dancing school opened this last time I have deserted Alida. I have to new crushes, to wit - Margaret Armstrong and Marie Hersey. I have not quite decided yet which I like the best. The 2nd is the prettiest. The 1st the best talker.

He also kept a ranked list of which girls he liked best at any given time, which he wrote "changes continually" and was "only authentic at date of chapter," showing he already had a very good understanding of the fickleness of infatuation for such a young age. But the thoughtbook has more literary value than you'd think. Throughout his novelist career, the adult Fitzgerald would often re-read this old journal, drawing inspiration from the crushes, his social circles, and all those bittersweet memories to write his jarringly accurate tales of socialite life. Burn?

At 18, Dickens was working as a reporter when he laid eyes on Maria Beadnell, his first-ever crush and the woman who later be the basis for both Flora Finching in Little Dorrit and Dora Spenlow in David Copperfield. Dickens was so smitten by the 20-year-old woman that he decided he would "make a poet out of any wannabe reporter." At this he failed miserably:

Here lies Mrs. Beadnell, whose conduct through life,

As a mother, a Woman, a friend, a Wife,

I shall think, while I possess recollection,

Can be summ'd up in one word-PERFECTION.

You've just read one of many courting couplets in Bill Of Fare, which was written in the form of a tombstone epitaph. That's right, one of many. Dickens not only wrote a tombstone dedication for the girl he was wooing, but also for her best friend and her parents. Because nothing wins over a potential father-in-law than writing about how he's "a good sirloin of beef, though to see him cut up would cause no small grief."

Doubling down on his "m'lady" (which wasn't even cool back when it was a normal thing to say) stalker attitude, Dickens also followed Beadnell around. To be slightly more original, he also wrote her weird treatises on how she should accept his generous gift of a pair of gloves:

Surely, surely you will not refuse so trivial a present: a mere common place trifle; a common present even among the merest 'friends'. Do not misunderstand me: I am not desirous by making presents or by doing any other act to influence your thoughts, wishes, or feelings in the slightest degree. - I do not think I do: - I cannot hope I ever shall: but let me entreat of you do not refuse so slight a token of regard from me.

After this, the Beadnell parents shipped their daughter to Paris, where Dickens couldn't get to her, putting an end to the one-sided courting. But let's not condemn a man for how he behaved as a teenager crushing hard. Let's instead condemn him for that same crush when he was a full-grown adult and famous author. Dickens was still obsessing over Maria Beadnell 25 years later, writing her several letters asking to meet and swearing to her that his love is still as deep as it ever was:

I never can think, and I never seem to observe, that other young people are in such desperate earnest, or set so much, so long, upon one absorbing hope. It is a matter of perfect certainty to me that I began to fight my way out of poverty and obscurity, with one perpetual idea of you.

Which wasn't very deep at all, as he wrote this after she finally agreed to meet him:

We have all had our Floras, mine is living and extremely fat.

What a charmer.

When he was a teen, Newton appeared to be constantly wracked with Catholic guilt, finding transgressions in even the smallest of his actions. We know this because one day in 1622, Newton made a definitive list of his 57 sins in his diary, split between those happening "Before Whitsunday 1662" (seven weeks after Easter) and "Since Whitsunday 1662." No one can tell what exactly happened on that day that caused Newton's desire to let it all out, but it didn't make the list.

The "sins" can easily be divided into two categories. The first can basically be described as sucking up to God, and includes things like "neglecting to pray," "gluttony," and "making a mousetrap on Thy day." A few of them also just say "relapse," and seeing as this is a teenager we're talking about, we can all figure out what that's code for. The second is good old (secular) boyish tomfoolery. Newton wrote of such japes as "Robbing my mothers box of plums and sugar," "Striving to cheat with a brass halfe crowne," and "Punching my sister." You know, the kind of thing you could see Huck Finn getting up to when he wasn't busy being a massive racist.

But then, in between all of the apple-cheeked antics, there are a few legitimately sinister entries:

13. Threatning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them

14. Wishing death and hoping it to some

15. Striking many

16. Having uncleane thoughts words and actions and dreamese.

As it turned out, Young Newton had quite a few mommy issues, to the point that when his mother remarried, he developed an intense hatred for his new stepfather. Apparently, by his own admission, this resulted in the genius teenager threatening to kill both of them in a fiery inferno and beating the shit out of one or more people. Wow, Isaac, what happened to the boy who just liked to bake pies on the Lord's day?

17. Stealing cherry cobs from Eduard Storer

Too late now, Isaac!

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For more, check out 5 Geniuses With Hilariously Stupid Creative Processes and 5 'Geniuses' Who Drove Their Legacies Into The Ground.

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