E. L. James E. L. James Erika Leonard (née Mitchell; born 7 March 1963), known by her pen name E. L. James, is an English author. She wrote the bestselling erotic romance trilogy "Fifty Shades of Grey", "Fifty Shades Darker", and "Fifty Shades Freed", along with the companion novels "" and ""; and under the name Snowqueen's Icedragon the Twilight fan fiction "Master of the Universe" that was the basis for the Fifty Shades trilogy. The combined novels have sold over 125 million copies worldwide, over 35 million copies in the United States and set the record in the United Kingdom as the
Fifty Shades (novel series) However, the books have also been largely panned by critics, with the first entry in particular "being ridiculed by virtually every critic who has read it." Since 2015 the series has been expanded with a parallel set of novels "as told by Christian": "" follows the events of "Fifty Shades of Grey" but from the perspective of Christian Grey, while "" (2017) does the same for the plot of "Fifty Shades Darker". Salman Rushdie said about the book: "I've never read anything so badly written that got published. It made "Twilight" look like "War and Peace"." Maureen Dowd described the