Elwyn Brooks White dreamed up Stuart Little on a fast train

A closer look

Sometimes the greatest literary inspiration is just sleep deprivation and a rattling train car. E.B. White was asleep on a railway journey in the 1920s when he suddenly dreamed of a tiny, dapper boy who looked exactly like a mouse acting with perfect human etiquette. He jotted the fever dream down upon waking, sat on the idea for over two decades, and eventually turned his bizarre hallucination into a multi-million dollar children's classic.