Noah Joad, the brother of Tom Joad the main protagonist in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, is probably autistic.
Quote:
Noah moved slowly, spoke seldom, and then so slowly that people who did not know him often thought him stupid. He was not stupid, but he was strange. [...] He worked and slept in a curious rhythm that nevertheless sufficed him. He was fond of his folks, but never showed it in any way. [...] He was a stranger to the world, but he was not lonely.
There is a fascinating discussion about Tom Joad being autistic illustrated with passages which feature him in Steinbeck's novel here:
http://www.biodiverseresistance.blogspo ... -noah.html .
Writers of fiction before autism and AS had permeated into popular consciousness and became fairly well-known, and who knew nothing about autism, who feature characters on the autism spectrum in their work, were not influenced by any knowledge or beliefs about autism. With modern writers, in say the last ten to twenty years, there is always the possibility that they have been influenced at some level of awareness by what they know about autism, or by their ideas of autism. So that makes the possibility that in works written when autism was not known, or little known, there are fictional characters who may be on the autism spectrum more interesting than in newer works.