Though it can be hard to remember between tweeting at your favorite writer and joining a Facebook event page for a reading, there was a time when many authors led reclusive lives with minimal self-promotion.

Bookish has rounded up a list of some of the most private (Salinger, Pynchon)—and their modern-day, super-public opposites (John Green, Susan Orlean).

We can’t help but think Twitter might have actually been a good way for Emily Dickinson to meet people without leaving the house. (And her poems would have been a smash in the days of LiveJournal.)