About Dan Brown,
author of The Da Vinci Code

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1964 (birth) to 1996 (early careers):

Dan Brown was born in 1964 at the time of the summer solstice. He was raised in Exeter, NH, about an hour's drive north of Boston, MA. He attended public schools in Exeter and later attended Phillips Exeter Academy where his father, Richard G. Brown, taught high-school mathematics. After graduating from Amherst College in 1986, he relocated to California where he had some success as a singer, songwriter and musician. He privately produced four collections, including a cassette of children's songs, and a CD of songs for adults. Surprisingly, none of these are currently available. Brown also taught at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. While in Los Angeles, he met Blythe Newlon who was Director of Artist Development at the National Academy of Songwriters. They both relocated to Exeter in 1993, and married in 1997.

Dan Brown taught English in Phillips Exeter Academy from 1992 until he quit in 1996 to give his full attention to writing. Blythe has assisted with the research and promotion of his books.

1998-2003: Four novels:

His first three novels were not spectacular successes:

The three novels together sold a total of about 20,000 copies. Of the three, Angels and Demons was the most successful.

There is a puzzle at the end of the Deception Point novel which generates the message "The Da Vinci Code will surface." This is the name of his fourth novel which was published on 2003-MAR-18 and has become an all time best seller. This popularity created an interest in his earlier novels. All four were on the New York Times list in the same week in 2004.

Doubleday expected that The Da Vinci Code would be a real winner. Even though Brown was at the time a relatively unknown novelist, the company sent out 10,000 advanced copies to critic and booksellers. They shipped 230,000 copies to booksellers in time for a 2003-MAR-18 release. Sales on the first day totaled 6,000 copies. This rose to 23,578 by the end of the first week. It was rated number 1 on the hard-cover fiction bestseller list at the New York Times by the end of the first week. By late 2006-MAR, over 40 million hardcover copies had been sold. It was then published in  paperback format, which sold over a half million copies in its first week of release. A movie patterned after the book will open worldwide on 2006-MAY-19.

Dan Brown recently:

Acording to a 2004 article by David Mehegan of the Boston Globe:

"...the portrait that emerges from published accounts, his website, and friends and editors, is one of a fairly shy writer, a married, 38-year-old former high school teacher from southern New Hampshire who wrote three modestly received novels, then stumbled into superstardom with the fourth. 'He's an extremely charming, very smart, preppy guy,' says [Stephen] Rubin [president and publisher of Doubleday], 'like the college professor you never had. He's impossible not to like'."

"Jason Kaufman, his longtime editor and close friend, says Brown has managed to keep his sanity, and continue writing in the midst of his fantastic success. 'He is the same person he was two years ago,' Kaufman says. 'It's harder for him to walk down the street, but he is remarkably levelheaded about his life'."

His publisher, Random House, survived a 2006 lawsuit for breach of copyright in the UK brought by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. They claimed that Brown plagiarized the architecture and central theme of their 1982 book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail." Random House won the lawsuit. Julian Barnes, author of the Arthur and George series said that all writers research and reinterpret ideas. He told The Christian Science Monitor: "This is how a writer instinctively operates. It's just the same as if you've been told a story by a friend or something happens in your family. It's all fair game." A loss by Random House would have been devastating for the novel publishing industry.

Brown is working on his fifth novel "The Solomon Key." It will deal with the Freemasons and is predicted to be released in 2007. According to Wikipedia, "...puzzles hidden in the bookjacket of The Da Vinci Code (including two referring to the Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia)" give hints about the next novel.

He allegedly has outlines for at least 12 more books.

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

1. Dan Brown's personal web site is at: http://www.DanBrown.com
2. Janet Maslin, "Spinning a thriller from the Louvre," The New York Times, 2003-MAR-17, at: http://www.danbrown.com/
3. David Mehegan, "Thriller instinct: Still perched atop bestseller lists, Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code' is riding a new wave of religious controversy to surprising success," Boston Globe, 2004-MAY-08, at: http://www.boston.com/
4. James Button, "Da Vinci author finds his marriage on trial," The Age (Australia), 2006-MAR-16, at: http://www.theage.com.au/
5. "Dan Brown," Wikipedia, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/

Copyright © 2006 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally posted: 2006-MAY-14
Latest update: 2006-MAY-14
Author: B.A. Robinson