Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known…
Roman poet Virgil, also Vergil, originally Publius Vergilius Maro, composed the Aeneid, an epic telling after the sack of Troy of the wanderings of Aene…
Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dub…
Daniel Defoe was an English novelist, journalist, merchant, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in …
Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition t…
James Joyce was an Irish novelist, poet, and a pivotal figure in 20th-century modernist literature, renowned for his highly experimental approach to language and narrative structure, particularly his …
Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, often known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, travel writer, and editor of the…
Evelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note. In fact, his book “The Loom of Youth” (1917) a novel about his old boarding school Sh…
Nancy Mitford, styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social sce…
George MacDonald Fraser is best known for his Flashman series of historical novels, purportedly written by Harry Flashman, a fictional coward and bully originally created by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown…
Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland, nee Tanfield, was an English poet, translator, and dramatist. Precocious and studious, she was known from a young age for her learning and knowledge of languages.
People consider that Russian writer Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (Николай Васильевич Гоголь) founded realism in Russian literature. His works include The Overcoat (1842) and Dead Souls (1842).
Susanna Centlivre (c. 1667–1670 – 1 December 1723), born Susanna Freeman and also known professionally as Susanna Carroll, was an English poet, actress, and "the most successful female playwright of t…
"Jehan de Mandeville", translated as "Sir John Mandeville", is the name claimed by the compiler of a singular book of supposed travels, written in Anglo-Norman French, and published between 1357 and 1…
Edmund John Millington Synge (pronounced /sɪŋ/) was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre. He is best known for the play…
The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics…
Andrew Curran is the author of Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely (Other Press, 2019), named one of the best biographies of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews. Curran is also the author of The Anatomy of Blac…
Sara Mesa is the author of eight works of fiction, including Scar (winner of the Ojo Critico Prize), Four by Four (a finalist for the Herralde Prize), An Invisible Fire (winner of the Premio Málaga de…
Timothy Charles William Blanning, FBA is Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of Cambridge, where he taught from 1992 until 2009. His work focuses on the history of Europe f…
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and the most widely read female author in Turkey. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published seventeen books, eleven of which ar…