10 literary one-hit wonders

At the (London) Times Luke Leitch "looks at those authors for whom one novel proved quite enough."

One book on his list:

John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

The author committed suicide in 1969, having given up hope of seeing his comic masterpiece in print. Eventually it was published in 1980. A "second novel", The Neon Bible, followed in 1989 - but this was actually written by Toole as a teenager and, as an adult, rejected as juvenilia.

Read about Number One on Leitch's list.

A Confederacy of Dunces also made an experts' list of five classic funny novels.

--Marshal Zeringue