Homer (Greek: Όμηρος born c. 8th century BC) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer …
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's…
Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have sur…
Sophocles (497/496 BC-406/405 BC), (Greek: Σοφοκλής; German: Sophokles, Russian: Софокл, French: Sophocle, Catalan: Sòfocles) was an ancient Greek tragedian, known as one of three …
Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots …
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternativel…
Tim O'Brien is an American novelist who served as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Much of his writing is about wartime Vietnam, and his work later in life often explores the postwar lives of its veteran…
Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890…
Thomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He mo…
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…
Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564) was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. The foremost Elizabethan tragedian next to William Shakespeare, he is known …
Elmore John Leonard lived in Dallas, Oklahoma City and Memphis before settling in Detroit in 1935. After serving in the navy, he studied English literature at the University of Detroit where he entere…
Works of Irish poet Seamus Justin Heaney reflect landscape, culture, and political crises of his homeland and include the collections Wintering Out (1972) and Field Work (1979) as well as a tr…
(c. 1553 or 1554 – November 1606) An English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known …
Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. Hi…
Edith Caroline Rivett (who wrote under the pseudonyms E.C.R. Lorac, Carol Carnac, Carol Rivett, and Mary le Bourne) was a British crime writer. She was born in Hendon, Middlesex (now London). She atte…
Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major Norwegian playwright largely responsible for the rise of modern realistic drama. He is often referred to as the "father of modern drama." Ibsen is held to be the greates…
Suzanne Underwood Rhodes is the author of two previous volumes of poetry, What a Light Thing, This Stone and Weather of the House, and has published two collections of creative prose, A Welcome Shore …
