Although he published his first book at 27, it wasn’t until two decades later, after the release of A Prayer for Owen Meany, that John Irving garnered acclaim for his writing. Such an arduous path isn’t uncommon in the world of literature — while the task of penning a novel is typically rewarding intrinsically, there’s no guarantee of eventual success, and you can almost certainly not bank on immediate rewards (unless you’re Douglas Adams, whose Hitchhiker’s Guide was written when he was only 28).

According to the below infographic created by blinkbox, it’s typical for an author’s breakout book to be written mid-career. This goes not only for classic writers like Tolstoy and C.S. Lewis, but also contemporary writers like Danielle Steel who focus on mass-market titles. Check it out below to see who was the most and least prolific, who made it big at a young age, and whose popularity took decades to bubble up.

[via Blinkbox Books]