Bukowski published his first novel at 51. He had written a couple of stories and poems before his 30s, but spend most of the next 1.5 decade drunk and not writing.
Burroughs published his first noval at 39. He had just written a few articles until then.
Walt Whitman first published a poetry book at 36.
Toni Morrison wrote her first novel at 39.
Bram Stoker wrote Dracula around 50. He worked as a public servant before, and wrote theatre reviews.
Anthony Burgess (of Clockwork Orange fame) first published at 39.
Raymond Chandler worked as a businessman (in the oil industry IIRC) and started writing novels at 51.
Wallace Stevens, celebrated poet, worked office jobs, and first published at 35, but his best work was done in his 50s. He went on to win the Pulitzer price at 75.
Beatrix Potter wrote her first book at 35.
Jules Verne, who went on to write tons of classics, started at 35.
Ian Flemming worked as a spy in Britain, and only started writing his books (James Bond) when he was 44.
In another genre, Martin Rev released his first album (with Suicide) at 39, Leonard Cohen started as a singer/songwriter at 33, and Vi Subversa (nee Frances Sokolov), started singing and performing as the vocalist of the influential Poison Girls punk band at the tender age of 44, and as a mother of two.
>Early means in your teens, early 20s. After that it is near impossible to master the unconscious mastery of the basics of whatever craft you choose.
That presupposes that you need to. Modern painters don't need to learn to learn to paint like Michalangelo to express themselves (and many don't know), modern musicians don't need to go into classical training or even know the scales (e.g. somebody like DJ Shadow and tons of others).
As for writing, it can be more about sensitivity to details and having an interesting story or viewpoint to express, than mastering some genre rules. One can learn most about writing from having read a lot (which is also what most writers advise young writers to do).
Kind of like how you don't need to study CS and study TAoCP to learn to program and write something useful. There are stories that picked up programming later in life and went on to write succesful apps and open source projects.
