8 Shocking Ways Authors Secretly Got Revenge Through Their Stories

Ever wonder if biting back at your enemies could actually fuel your creativity? It turns out, some of history’s greatest authors took their squabbles and rivalries and spun them into literary gold—kind of like turning bitter lemons into timeless lemonade. From Dante’s fiery underworld grudges to Fitzgerald’s thinly veiled marital dramas, these writers didn’t just pen stories; they served up some epic clapbacks that keep their foes spinning in the pages for centuries. So, if you think your petty grudges are a waste of energy, think again—sometimes, they’re just the spark for your next masterpiece! Curious who turned revenge into art? Dive in and see which famous authors made enemies immortal through ink and wit. LEARN MORE

Countless authors have used bitter rivalries and petty squabbles as inspiration for their greatest works. Whether it was through biting satire or thinly veiled fictional portrayals, some famed writers managed to sublimate their personal vendettas into beloved works of literature—which will humiliate their adversaries for as long as their books are read. Here are just a few of them.

1. Dante Alighieri // The Divine Comedy 
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald // Tender Is The Night
3. Truman Capote //  “La Côte Basque, 1965” and Answered Prayers
4. Alexander Pope // “The Dunciad” 
5. Philip Roth // I Married a Communist 
6. Aristophanes // The Clouds
7. Ernest Hemingway // The Sun Also Rises
8. James Joyce // Ulysses 

Dante Alighieri // The Divine Comedy 

Despite being one of the most influential figures in Western literature, Dante Alighieri was not above holding steadfast to petty gripes. The Italian poet used his magnum opus The Divine Comedy to take shots at adversaries like Filippo Argenti and Pope Boniface VIII. 

Argenti was a prominent member of the Black Guelphs political faction that had exiled Dante from Florence in 1302. Dante depicts him in The Divine Comedy as a wrathful spirit condemned to eternal torture in the Greek underworld’s River Styx. Dante waxes poetic about the sadistic glee he’s taken in Argenti’s damnation while depicting his grisly fate in lurid detail.

Later in the story, Dante encounters Pope Nicholas III in the eighth Circle of Hell, where he’s buried headfirst in stones with flames licking at his feet. Nicholas III mistakes Dante for Pope Boniface VIII, Nicholas III’s successor, who was associated with the Black Guelphs. In this scene, Dante is implying that Boniface had already been condemned to hell for supporting the faction that had exiled him.

F. Scott Fitzgerald // Tender Is The Night

In his fourth and final novel Tender Is the Night, published in 1936, F. Scott Fitzgerald leaves his readers with a thinly veiled, self-pitying portrait of his turbulent marriage to writer Zelda Fitzgerald. Tender Is The Night takes place on the French Riviera and chronicles the deterioration of the relationship between Dick, an alcoholic psychiatrist, and Nicole, Dick’s wife and one of his former patients. Like Nicole, Zelda came from a wealthy family and struggled with mental illness throughout her life, while Fizgerald, like Dick, frequently battled alcoholism and self-flagellating career frustrations.

In a copy of the book that Fitzgerald had given to Zelda’s psychiatrist (which later sold at auction for $175,000), the author admitted to basing the novel on his marriage, telling the physician that he’d modeled all of Nicole’s erratic behavior off his wife’s own. 

While Tender Is The Night never quite reached the level of acclaim of his other works like The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald considered it his best, and it underwent a critical renaissance in tandem with the posthumous re-evaluation of Zelda’s own work. 

Truman Capote //  “La Côte Basque, 1965” and Answered Prayers

Truman Capote never shied away from controversy throughout his illustrious, decades-spanning career. Quite the contrary, in fact: Capote was notorious for courting it, culminating in the publication of his posthumous novel Answered Prayers in 1986. He pitched the novel to publishers in the late 1950s, but he wouldn’t sign a contract for it until 1966, and continually missed deadlines for the novel’s completion right up to his death in 1984.

In the meantime, Esquire published Capote’s notorious short story “La Côte Basque, 1965” in November 1975, which skewered his famous high society friends and aired their dirtiest laundry. Nearly all of the people he lampooned abandoned him. Yet he still envisioned the story as a chapter in his ever-forthcoming novel, for which he had received a sizable advance from Penguin Random House, though his now-enemies predicted it would obliterate whatever goodwill society still had for him.

Capote promoted Answered Prayers as a juicy roman à clef, but only four completed chapters of the intended seven were ever discovered, coming in at less than 200 pages of work. Theories abound regarding the novel’s ultimate fate, with some even speculating Capote had completed the rest of the novel, salacious details and all, and destroyed it himself before his death. 

Alexander Pope // “The Dunciad”