Dave Astor, in the Huffington Post, looks at books by famous authors that they aren't known for yet are better books than the one(s) they are known for.
From the post...
Cather contemporary L.M. Montgomery is primarily known for Anne of Green Gables -- a lovely, moving, funny story about a whip-smart orphan girl who finds a family. But as great as that book is, it doesn't match Montgomery's The Blue Castle. That relatively obscure novel focuses on a young Canadian woman treated badly by family members until a terminal-illness diagnosis changes her life. You'll be totally absorbed as Valancy Stirling comes out of her shell to toss hilarious one-liners at her narrow-minded relatives, and seek independence and love. Why hasn't The Blue Castle received its due? One possible reason is that, by the time this adult-targeted book was published in 1926, Montgomery was pigeonholed as a children's/teen author because of 1908's Anne and its sequels.
Then there's Erich Maria Remarque, whose All Quiet on the Western Front is by far his most famous work. But as superb as that antiwar novel is, Remarque went on to write at least a couple other books that are even better. His best might be 1962's The Night in Lisbon, a mesmerizing novel about a refugee from the Nazis who hears a harrowing, romantic tale from another refugee. Maybe the fact that the 1929-published All Quiet came out when the German-born Remarque was a wunderkind writer of barely 30 has something to do with its incredible cachet. And it didn't hurt that All Quiet was turned into an acclaimed 1930 movie.
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