Timeline

1965 England/UK More

J. K. Rowling, Writer Rowling first thought of Harry while riding a train back in 1990. "Harry just strolled into my head fully formed." She worked on the book for several years, finding quiet...

1965 Dramatists More

Nikki Schreiber Nikki Schreiber is a full-time writer who has lived and worked in a number of different countries. She is based in Edinburgh where her children go to the Steiner School....

1958 Dramatists More

Roddy Doyle, Irish novelist Roddy Doyle, Irish novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. Born in Dublin, Ireland. Doyle's work is rooted in his experience as a schoolteacher in working-class Dublin. I...

1956 England/UK More

Anthony Gottlieb, Writer Anthony Gottlieb is Executive Editor of The Economist and a former departmental fellow in philosophy at Birkbeck College, London University. He studied philosophy at Cam...

1952 Literature More

Orhan Pamuk, Turkish Novelist Ferit Orhan Pamuk is a Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist. Pamuk is closely associated with post-modern literature. His long-standing popularity in his home country was...

1952 - 2001 Adams More

Douglas Adams, Writer Douglas Adams was the creator of all the various manifestations of The Hitchhiker?s Guide to the Galaxywhich started life as a BBC Radio 4 series. Since its first airing...

1948 Scientists More

Alexander McCall Smith Over the past twenty years, Smith has written more than fifty books, including specialist academic titles, short story collections, and a number of immensely popular chil...

1947 Literature More

Stephen King, Writer Stephen King is a popular American author of horror stories and one of the best-selling writers worldwide. His work bears the mark of the 19th century Gothic tradition, o...

1941 - 1995 Activists More

Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigerian Author Ken Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian author, journalist, government official and political organizer who was brutally executed by the Nigerian dictatorship in response to a very...

1932 Italy More

1931 1970s More

1929 - 1945 1940s More

Umberto Eco Back in the 1970s, long before the cyberpunk era or the Internet boom, an Italian academic was dissecting the elements of codes, information exchange and mass communicati... Toni Morrison Toni Morrison (born Chloe Anthony Wofford), is a Nobel Prize-winning American author, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, a... Anne Frank On 12 June, 1942, Anne Frank received a diary from her parents as a 13th birthday present. She called it Kitty and as she started to document her innermost feelings and t...

1928 Literature More

1925 Dramatists More

1925 - 1998 Brazil More 1924 - 1987 African American More

Robert Maynard Pirsig, Writer Robert Maynard Pirsig is the author of the cult classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In the early Sixties, following a slow dance through hell with depres... Gore Vidal, Writer Gore Vidal is a novelist, essayist, playwright, and provocateur whose career has spanned six decades, beginning in the years immediately following World War II and contin... Carlos Castaneda, Don Juan Teachings Carlos Castaneda was an author of a series of books that claimed to describe his training in traditional Native American shamanism, which he referred to as a form of "sor... James Baldwin, Writer Baldwin was a groundbreaking African-American author known for his novel Go Tell it on the Mountain. He dealt with social taboos such as racism and homosexuality at a tim...

1921 - 1996 Dramatists More

George Mackay Brown, Bard of Orkney George Mackay Brown was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist, whose work has a distinctly Orcadian character. Born in Stromness in the Orkney Islands, Mackay Brown is co...

1918 - 2008 Dramatists More

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian Writer Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist, dramatist and historian. Through his writings, he made the world aware of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's labour ca...

1917 - 1993 Dramatists More

Anthony Burgess Anthony Burgess was an English novelist and critic. He was also active as a composer, librettist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, essayist, travel writer, bro...

1916 - 1990 Novelists More

Roald Dahl, Writer Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter, born in Wales of Norwegian parents, who rose to prominence in the 1940s with works for both childr...

1915 - 2005 Dramatists More

Arthur Miller, Playwright In the period immediately following the end of World War II, American theater was transformed by the work of playwright Arthur Miller. Profoundly influenced by the Depres...

1914 - 1943 1940s More

Etty Hillesum, the girl that learned to kneel Like Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum was a Dutch Jew living in Amsterdam. She died in Auschwitz in 1943, at the age of 29. She began a diary nine months after Hitler invaded t...

1912 - 1990 Who More

Lawrence Durrell Lawrence Durrell was born in India in 1912. His books include The Alexandria Quartet, Bitter Lemons, Reflections on a Marine Venus and The Dark Labyrinth. He died...

1912 - 1992 Artists More

John Cage, American Composer John Milton Cage was an American experimental music composer, writer and visual artist. He is most widely known for his 1952 composition 4'33", whose three movements are...

1909 - 1955 Poets More

James Agee, Writer James Agee (1909) Agee was an American novelist, screenwriter, journalist, poet, and film critic who worked for Fortune, Time, and The Nation. His first major book, Let...

1909 - 1964 1950s More

Ian Fleming, Creator of James Bond Fleming is the creator of the fictional superspy James Bond. Bond is a suave, lady-killing British agent who travels the globe, battles super-villains bent on world domin...

1908 - 1986 Philosophers More

Simone de Beauvoir Born and educated in Paris, Simone de Beauvoir was among the first women permitted to complete a program of study at the École Normale Supérieure. Through her lifelong fr...

1907 - 1964 Biology More

Rachel Carson Author of Silent Spring (1962), Under the Sea-Wind (1941), The Sea Around Us (1952), The Edge of the Sea (1955). Rachel Louise Carson was a writer, scientist, and ecologi...

1906 - 1995 Beckett More

Samuel Beckett Timeline In the 1950s and 1960s, Beckett's playwriting continued with a series of masterpieces, including Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape, and Happy Days. He involved himself in variou...

1903 - 1950 England/UK More

George Orwell English novelist, essayist and critic, famous for his political satires ANIMAL FARM (1945), an anti-Soviet tale, and NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (1949), which shows that the des... Antoine de Saint-Exupéry French aviator and writer, real life hero who looked at adventure and danger with poet's eyes - sometimes from the viewpoint of a child. Saint-Exupéry's most famous work...

1900 - 1944 Pilots More

1900 - 1949 1900s More

Mitchell, Wrote Gone with the Wind Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell was the American author who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her immensely successful novel, Gone with the Wind, that was published in 1936....

1899 - 1961 Hemingway More

Ernest Hemingway Bigger than life. A complicated icon. He was an American voice in America's century: bold, exuberant, blustery. He honed his craft at The Kansas City Star. Then he went...

1898 - 1936 Poets More

J. Slauerhoff, Poet Jan Jacob Slauerhoff was a Dutch poet and novelist. He is considered one of the most important Dutch language writers. Slauerhoff attended HBS(secondary school) in Harlin...

1898 - 1945 Activists More

Anton de Kom, Surinamese Activist Cornelis Gerard Anton de Kom was a Surinamese resistance fighter and anti-colonialist author. On May 10, De Kom was sent to The Netherlands without trial and exiled fr...

1898 - 1956 Dramatists More

Bertolt Brecht, Poet Bertolt Brecht, German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer, one of the most prominent figures in the 20thcentury theatre. In his works Brecht have been concerned w...

1898 - 1963 England/UK More

C. S. Lewis, Writer Clive Staples "Jack" Lewis, commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis, was a British writer and scholar. Lewis's works are diverse and include medieval literature, Christian ap...

1894 - 1963 1940s More

Aldous Huxley, Writer Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer who emigrated to the United States, living in Los Angeles until his death in 1963. He was a member of the famous Huxley family...

1892 - 1973 Tolkien More

J.R.R. Tolkien, Writer John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on the 3rd January, 1892 at Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State. In 1920 Tolkien was appointed Reader in English Language at the Univ...

1890 - 1976 1920s More

Agatha Christie, Mystery Author From the 1920s until the 1970s Agatha Christie was the world's most popular mystery author, reportedly selling more than one billion books worldwide. While other mystery...

1889 - 1981 Actors More

Abel Gance, French Film Director Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse, La Roue, and the monumental Napoléon. He...

1888 - 1935 Soldiers More

T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO, known professionally as T.E. Lawrence and, later, T.E. Shaw, but most famously as "Lawrence of Arabia," gained interna...

1888 - 1965 Dramatists More

T. S. Eliot American-English poet T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. A leader of the modernist movement in poetry, he is most famous...

1883 - 1924 Austria More

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka, b. Prague, Bohemia (then belonging to Austria), has come to be one of the most influential writers of this century. Virtually unknown during his lifetime, th...

1882 - 1941 Computer/ICT More 1882 - 1941 Activists More

James Joyce James Joyce is at once Dublin's most local and most international writer. In his novels the city gains a universal identity like Homer's Mediterranean or Biblical Jerusal... Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf, British novelist, also distinguished feminist essayist, critic, and a central figure of the Bloomsbury group. During the inter-war period Woolf was at...

1882 - 1944 Literature More

Hendrik Willem van Loon Hendrik Willem van Loon, a Dutch-American author and illustrator, was the first winner of the Newbery Medal for The Story of Mankind. He was beloved by the public during...

1879 - 1940

Leon Trotsky, Revolutionary

Communists

Became a revolutionary in 1896. Later worked with Lenin on

More

Iskra in 1902. He broke with Lenin the next year over the

nature of the revolutionary party and aligned himself...

1878 - 1967

Carl Sandburg

Poets

American poet, historian, and novelist Carl Sandburg was

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born in Galesburg, Illinois, the second of seven children. Before discovering his true calling, Sandburg worked a...

1875 - 1932

Edgar Wallace, Writer

England/UK

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was a prolific British crime

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writer, journalist and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and countless articles in newspapers and jou...

1875 - 1940 Canada More

John Buchan, Writer John Buchan is most famous for The Thirty-Nine Steps and Greenmantle, and his thrillers and short stories are all in print today. The list of his published books is well...

1875 - 1950 1910s More

Burroughs, Creator of Tarzan - 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs is best remembered as the creator of the world famous character of Tarzan, one of the indispensable icons of popular culture. Burroughs also publishe...

1875 - 1955 Germany More

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann was a German novelist, social critic, philanthropist and essayist, lauded principally for a series of highly symbolic and often ironic epic novels and mi...

1874 - 1925

Amy Lowell, Poet

Poets

Although she never attended college because her family did

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not consider it proper for a woman to pursue a higher education, Amy Lowell would go on to become a critically...

1874 - 1963

Robert Frost

Poets

American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) is perhaps best

More

known for his poem "The Road Not Taken," published in 1916 in Mountain Interval, a collection of his early poetry....

1871 - 1922 1900s More

Marcel Proust Marcel-Valentin-Louis-Eugène-Georges Proust was a French intellectual, novelist, essayist and critic, best known as the author of In Search of Lost Time (in French À la r...

1868 - 1926 Explorers More

Gertrude Bell, Uncrowned Queen of Iraq Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was a British writer, traveler, political analyst, and administrator in Arabia. She was

awarded the Order of the British Empire. Bell and...

1868 - 1963

Du Bois, Civil Rights Leader

Poets

W.E.B. Du Bois was an early African-American civil rights

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leader and scholar and the first non-white person to receive a doctorate from Harvard University. He was an outs...

1866 - 1943 Conservation More

Beatrix Potter, Author of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter was the author and illustrator of a popular series of children's books that includes The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), The Tailor of Gloucester (1903) and T...

1866 - 1946

H. G. Wells, Father of Science Fiction

England/UK

Herbert George Wells was an English writer best known for

More

such science fiction novels as The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, and The Island of Doc...

1865 - 1936

Rudyard Kipling

Poets

Rudyard Kipling, (1865-1936), English short-story writer,

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novelist and poet, remembered for his celebration of British imperialism and heroism in India and Burma. Kipling...

1865 - 1939 Dramatists More

William Butler Yeats, Irish Poet William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, mystic and civil servant. Yeats was one of the driving forces behind the Irish Literary Revival and was co-founder of t...

1865 - 1945

Arthur Symons

Poets

British poet, critic and magazine editor Arthur Symons was

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born in Wales, but spent much of his adulthood and academic years in France and Italy. In addition to many coll...

1863 - 1923

Louis Couperus

Poets

Louis Marie-Anne Couperus was a Dutch novelist and poet of

More

the late 19th and early 20th Century. He is usually considered one of the foremost figures in Dutch literature....

1861 - 1925 Dramatists More

Rudolf Steiner, Founder Anthroposophy Rudolf Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, architect, playwright, educator, and social thinker. He is the founder of anthroposophy, "a movement based o...

1860 - 1904 Dramatists More

Anton Chekhov, Russian Playwright Anton Chekhov wrote both plays and short stories. He is generally listed in the first rank of Russian playwrights and in the high second rank (a notch below Pushkin and T...

1860 - 1937

J. M. Barrie, Creator of Peter Pan

Dramatists

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, more commonly

More

known as J. M. Barrie, was a Scottish novelist and dramatist. He is best remembered for creating Peter Pan, the b...

1859 - 1930

Doyle, Creator of Sherlock Holmes

1900s

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, British author and creator of Sherlock

More

Holmes, born in Edinburgh. Educated at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, he received a medical degree in 18...

1858 - 1940 Novelists More

Selma Lagerlöf, The Adventures of Nils Selma Lagerlöf was a Swedish author and the first woman writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Known internationally for Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sveri...

1857 - 1941

Baden-Powell, Founder Scouting - 1907

Soldiers

Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-

More

Powell OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB, also known as B-P, was a Lieutenant-General in the British Army, writer, and founder of...

1856 - 1950 Dramatists More

George Bernard Shaw, Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright and critic. He revolutionized the Victorian stage, then dominated by artificial melodramas, by presenting vigorous dramas of ideas....

1854 - 1900 Dramatists More

Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde, Irish poet and dramatist whose reputation rests on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere's Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Among Wild...

1853 - 1895

José Martí, Leader Cuban Independence

Poets

José Julián Martí Pérez was a leader of the Cuban

More

independence movement as well as a renowned poet and writer. Active in the Cuban independence movement from boyhood, he...

1850 - 1893 Dramatists More

Guy de Maupassant Guy de Maupassant, French novelist and short-story writer, of an ancient Norman family. He worked in a government office at Paris and became known c.1880 as the most bril...

1850 - 1894

Stevenson, Writer of Jekyll and Hyde

1880s

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh’s New Town

More

in 1850. He died 44 years later on a small Samoan island in the Pacific. During his short life he travelled the wo...

1847 - 1911 Journalists More

Joseph Pulitzer, Publisher Joseph Pulitzer was a Hungarian-American publisher best known for posthumously establishing the Pulitzer Prizes and (along with William Randolph Hearst) for originating y...

1847 - 1912 1910s More

Bram Stoker Bram (Abraham) Stoker was born November 8, 1847 in Dublin, Ireland. His father was a civil servant and his mother was a charity worker and writer. Stoker was a sick...

1841 - 1904 Explorers More

Stanley, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Sir Henry Morton Stanley was a journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone. Stanley travelled to Zanzibar and outfit...

1838 - 1913 Environment More

John Muir Writer, conservationist. America's most famous and influential conservationist, John Muir was the founder of the Sierra Club and a major influence on conservation policy...

1837 - 1920 Journalists More

Abraham Kuyper, Dutch Theologian Abraham Kuijper generally known as Abraham Kuyper, was a Dutch politician, journalist, statesman and theologian. He founded the Anti-Revolutionary Party and was prime min...

1835 - 1910 Industrial Age More

Mark Twain, Writer of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain, pseud. of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, American author, b. Florida, Mo. As humorist, narrator, and social observer, Twain is unsurpassed in American literature....

1832 - 1898 Mathematicians More

Lewis Carroll, Author Alice in Wonderland The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman, and photographer. H...

1830 - 1886 Poets More

Emily Dickinson American poet Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts where she would remain for almost her entire life. As a result of her reclusive ten...

1830 - 1907 1870s More

Hector Malot, Writer of Sans Famille Hector Malot, writer of children's stories, whose novel Sans famille (Nobody's Boy, 1878) is one of the great popular classics of French culture. The moral and didactic a...

1828 - 1905 1900s More

Jules Verne, Pioneer of Science Fiction Jules Verne, French writer and pioneer of science fiction, whose best known works today are Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea(1870) and Around the World in Eighty D...

1828 - 1906 Dramatists More

Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian Dramatist Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828, in the little village of Skien. After a brief flirtation with poetic drama, he would go on to become Norway's...

1828 - 1910 Anarchists More

Leo Tolstoy, Russian Writer Count Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist and philosopher, considered one of the world's greatest writers. About 1876 the doubts that had beset Tolstoy since youth, fed by h...

1827 - 1879 Belgium More

De Coster, Writer of Thyl Ulenspiegel Charles-Theodore-Henri De Coster was a Belgian novelist whose efforts laid the basis for a native Belgian literature. His masterpiece was The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel a...

1821 - 1867 Poets More

Charles Baudelaire, Poet Charles Baudelaire was a 19th century French poet, translator, and literary and art critic whose reputation rests primarily on Les Fleurs du mal; (1857;The Flowers of Evi...

1821 - 1880 France More

Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flauber, French novelist. Flaubert is regarded as one of the supreme masters of the realistic novel. He was a scrupulous, slow writer, intent on the exact word (l...

1821 - 1881

Dostoevsky, Writer

1880s More

The Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born in the Hospital for the poor in Moscow on October 30, 1821. He was to be the second of seven children. The last...

1820 - 1887

Multatuli, Eduard Douwes Dekker

1860s

Multatuli is the pseudonym of Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820-

More

1887). After 18 years of civil service in the Dutch East Indies, he returned to Europe in 1856 a disillusioned m...

1819 - 1891 Sailors More

Herman Melville, Writer of Moby Dick American author, best-known for his novels of the sea and his masterpiece MOBY-DICK (1851), a whaling adventure dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne. "I have written a wicked...

1819 - 1892

Walt Whitman

Poets

American poet, journalist, and essayist Walt Whitman was

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born in West Hills, Long Island, New York on May 31, 1819. Although very controversial when first published in 18...

1819 - 1900

John Ruskin

Poets

John Ruskin was an English author, poet and artist, although

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more famous for his work as art critic and social critic. Ruskin's thinking on art and architecture became th...

1816 - 1855

Charlotte Brontë, and Sisters

Poets

The Brontë sisters were left much to themselves, and they

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began to write about an imaginary world they had created. This escapist writing, transcribed in tiny script on s...

1813 - 1855

Søren Kierkegaard, Father of Existentialism

Philosophers

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a profound and prolific writer

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in the Danish "golden age" of intellectual and artistic activity. His work crosses the boundaries of philosophy...

1812 - 1870 Dickens More

Charles Dickens Dickens' ability to capture the imagination of his audience, many of them new to fiction due to a rise in literacy during the industrial revolution, was due largely to hi...

1812 - 1889

Robert Browning

Poets

English poet Robert Browning was born in a suburb of

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London on May 7, 1812. He wrote his first book of poetry at the age of twelve, and was fluent in four languages by th...

1809 - 1849

Edgar Allan Poe

Poets

Best known for his poems and short fiction, Edgar Allan Poe

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deserves more credit than any other writer for the transformation of the short story from anecdote to art....

1809 - 1892

Alfred Tennyson, Poet

Poets

Alfred Tennyson, English poet often regarded as the chief

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representative of the Victorian age in poetry. Tennyson succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1850. Alfred...

1806 - 1861

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Poets

Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning published her first

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poem in 1820, at the age of fourteen. In 1826, she published her first collection of poems, entitled "An Ess...

1805 - 1875 1830s More

Hans Christian Andersen Andersen's literary fame grew rapidly from the mid-1830's, when his novels enjoyed widespread circulation in Germany. From 1839 onwards it was the fairy-tales that create...

1803 - 1882

Emerson, Founder Transcendentalism

Poets

Philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson was founder of

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transcendentalism, Emerson believed in the power of intuition over scientific reason and in the strength of nature...

1802 - 1870 France More

Alexandre Dumas, French Writer Alexandre Dumas was one of the most famous French writers of the 19th century. Dumas is best known for historical adventure novels like The Three Musketeers and The

1802 - 1885 Dramatists More

1799 - 1850 France More

Count... Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, novelist, poet, and dramatist, is one of the most important of French Romantic writers. Among his bestknown works are The Hunchback of Notre Dame(1831... Honore de Balzac Honoré de Balzac, prolific French journalist and author wrote La Comédie Humaine (“The Human Comedy”). While Balzac also had ambitions for life in the theatre and politic...

1797 - 1851 1810s More

Mary Shelley, Writer of Frankenstein Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English Romantic novelist, biographer and editor, best known as the writer of Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). Shelley was 21...

1795 - 1821 Poets More

John Keats, Poet John Keats lived only twenty-five years and four months (1795-1821), yet his poetic achievement is extraordinary. His writing career lasted a little more than five years...

1792 - 1827 Poets More

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley, English Romantic poet who rebelled against English politics and conservative values. Shelley drew no essential distinction between poetry and politi...

1788 - 1824 Poets More

Lord Byron, Poet George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron, was among the most famous of the English 'Romantic' poets; his contemporaries included Percy Shelley and John Keats. He was al...

1783 - 1859 1820s More

Irving, Writer of Rip Van Winkle Washington Irving, American author Washington Irving is best known for his short stories which include "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle." Also a historia...

1780 - 1831 Historians More

Carl von Clausewitz, Military Historian Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz was a Prussian soldier, military historian and military theorist. He is most famous for his military treatise Vom Kriege, translated...

1778 - 1830 England/UK More

William Hazlitt William Hazlitt was an English writer remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, often esteemed the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnso...

1776 - 1822 Composers More

E. T. A. Hoffmann, Composer & Writer Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, better known by his pen name E. T. A. Hoffmann, was a Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman a...

1775 - 1817 England/UK More

Jane Austen, English Novelist Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works include Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion and Emma. Her biting social commentary and masterful use of...

1775 - 1862 Poets More

Bahadur Shah II, Last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah II, also known as Zafar (his name as an Urdu poet), last Mughal emperor of India (1837–57). A political figurehead, he was completely controlled by the Briti...

1772 - 1834 Poets More

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English lyrical poet, critic, and philosopher, whose Lyrical Ballads,(1798) written with William Wordsworth, started the English Romantic movemen...

1771 - 1832 Poets More

Sir Walter Scott, Scottish Writer & Poet Sir Walter Scott, Scottish writer and poet and one of the greatest historical novelists. Ivanhoe (1819) set in the reign of Richard I is perhaps the best known of Scott's...

1770 - 1850 Poets More

William Wordsworth, Poet William Wordsworth, British poet, credited with ushering in the English Romantic Movement with the publication of Lyrical Ballads(1798) in collaboration with Samuel Taylo...

1759 - 1796

Robert Burns, Scotland's Greatest Poet

Poets

Robert Burns, Scotland's greatest poet, was born on 25th

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January 1759 in a two roomed thatched cottage at Alloway, near Ayr, where his father, William Burnes, ran a small...

1759 - 1797 Activists More

Mary Wollstonecraft, Feminist Wollstonecraft's lasting place in the history of philosophy rests upon A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). In this classical feminist text, she appealed to egali...

1759 - 1805 Dramatists More

Friedrich von Schiller, German Writer Johann Christoph Friedrich (later: von) Schiller, was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and dramatist. During the last several years of his life (1788–1805), Schille...

1757 - 1827

William Blake, Poet and Painter

Poets

William Blake was a British poet, painter, visionary mystic,

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and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination ov...

1749 - 1832 Dramatists More

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe German poet, novelist, playwright, courtier, and natural philosopher, one of the greatest figures in Western literature. Throughout his life Goethe was interested in a va...

1740 - 1814

Marquis de Sade

Enlightenment

Donatien Alphonse François de Sade was a French aristocrat

More

and writer of philosophy-laden and often violent pornography, as well as some strictly philosophical works; muc...

1737 - 1794

Edward Gibbon

England/UK

English historian and scholar, the supreme historian of the

More

Enlightenment, who is best-known as the author of the monumental 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', o...

1737 - 1809 Revolutionaries More

Thomas Paine, Founding Father USA Thomas Paine, intellectual, scholar, revolutionary, and idealist, is widely recognized as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A radical pamphleteer, Paine a...

1729 - 1781 Enlightenment More

Gotthold Lessing, German Dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, the first of the truly German dramatists, was born in a Lutheran clergyman's family. As was a frequent custom in clergymen's families, his fathe...

1725 - 1785 Casanova More

Casanova, World's Greatest Lover Giacomo Girolamo Casanova. The myth of the world's greatest lover comes largely from Casanova's own pen - a 12volume autobiography documents his seductions in extensive...

1725 - 1807 Christians More

John Newton, Author of Amazing Grace John Newton was an English clergyman and hymn writer. Until 1755, his life was spent chiefly at sea, where he eventually became the captain of a slave ship plying the wat...

1713 - 1784 Historians More

Denis Diderot, Editor of the Encyclopédie Diderot is best remembered as the general editor of the Encyclopédie (Encyclopedia) and as one of its main contributors. The project absorbed most of his energies from 17...

1709 - 1784

Samuel Johnson, English author

Poets

Samuel Johnson was the leading literary scholar and critic of

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his time, Johnson helped to shape and define the Augustan Age. He was equally celebrated for his brilliant a...

1694 - 1778 Humanists More

Voltaire, Author and Philosopher "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Francois Marie Arouet (pen name Voltaire) was born on November 21, 1694 in Paris. Voltaire'...

1688 - 1744

Alexander Pope, Poet

Poets

Alexander Pope is considered one of the greatest English

More

poets of the eighteenth century. Born to a Roman Catholic

1667 - 1745 England/UK More

family in 1688, Pope was educated mostly at home, in pa... Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish writer who is famous for works like Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, and A Tale of a Tub. Swift is probably the foremost prose sat...

1660 - 1731 England/UK More

Daniel Defoe, Author of Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe, English novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist, is most famous as the author of Robinson Crusoe (1719), a story of a man shipwrecked alone on an island. Alon...

1639 - 1699 Dramatists More

Jean Racine, French Dramatist Jean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "big three" of 17th century France (along with Molière and Corneille), and one of the most important literary figures in th...

1631 - 1700 Dramatists More

John Dryden John Dryden was an English poet, dramatist, and critic. He first came to public notice in 1659 with his Heroic Stanzas, commemorating the death of Oliver Cromwell. The fo...

1622 - 1673 Dramatists More

1613 - 1680 Enlightenment More

Molière, Master of Comic Satire Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known as Molière, was a French theatre writer, director, stage manager, actor, and allaround man of theatre, one of the masters of comic s... François de La Rochefoucauld, Writer François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, le Prince de Marcillac, was a noted French author of maxims and memoirs, as well as an example of the accomplished 17th-century nobl...

1608 - 1674 Poets More

John Milton, Writer of Paradise Lost Milton, John, one of the greatest poets of the English language. While Milton was at Cambridge he wrote poetry in both Latin and English, including the ode "On the Mornin...

1596 - 1687 Poets More

Constantijn Huygens, Poet/Composer Constantijn Huygens was a Dutch poet and composer, Secretary to two Princes, and the father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens. He is often considered a member of what i...

1587 - 1679 Poets More

Joost Van Den Vondel Netherlands poet and convert, born at Cologne, 17 Nov. 1587, of parents whose residence was originally at Antwerp. Of his early youth nothing is known. In his eighth or n...

1585 - 1618 Dramatists More

Bredero, Dutch Dramatist & Poet Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero is considered the major Dutch poet of his generation, particularly for his spontaneous love sonnets. The first Dutch master of comedy, Bredero...

1584 - 1648 Poets More

Tirso de Molina, Creator of Don Juan Tirso de Molina, pseudonym of Gabriel Téllez, one of the outstanding dramatists of the Golden Age of Spanish literature. The most powerful dramas associated with his n...

1581 - 1647 Poets More

Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, Poet Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft was a Dutch poet, dramawriter and historian by profession. He was the son of the famous plural mayor of Amsterdam, P. C. Hooft. He travelled thr...

1580 - 1645 Poets More

Francisco de Quevedo, Spanish Writer Quevedo was a Spanish satirist, novelist and poet and one of the great writers of the Spanish Golden Age. His Los sueños is a brilliant and bitterly satiric account of th...

1577 - 1660 Poets More

Jacob Cats, Dutch Poet Cats was contemporary with Hooft and Vondel and other distinguished Dutch writers in the golden age of Dutch literature, but his Orangist and Calvinistic opinions separat...

1564 - 1593 Dramatists More

Christopher Marlowe, Dramatist and Poet Christopher Marlowe, English dramatist and poet, b. Canterbury. Probably the greatest English dramatist before Shakespeare, Marlowe was educated at Cambridge and he went... William Shakespeare All about William Shakespeare, surely the world's most performed and admired playwright, was born in April, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, about 100 miles nor...

1564 - 1623 Dramatists More

1552 - 1599 Poets More

Edmund Spenser, The Prince of Poets Spenser was known to his contemporaries as 'the prince of poets', as great in English as Virgil in Latin. He left behind him masterful essays in every genre of poetry, fr...

1552 - 1618 Poets More

Sir Walter Raleigh, Writer and Explorer Sir Walter Raleigh is a famed English writer, poet, courtier and explorer. He was responsible for establishing the first English colony in the New World, on June 4, 1584,...

1547 - 1616 Poets More

Miguel de Cervantes, Creator Don Quixote Spanish novelist, playwright, and poet, the creator of Don Quixote, the most famous figure in Spanish literature. Miguel de Cervantes, born in Alcalá de Henares in 1...

1542 - 1591 Poets More

St. John of the Cross Saint John of the Cross (San Juan de la Cruz) was a major figure in the Catholic Reformation, a Spanish mystic and Carmelite friar born at Fontiveros, a small village nea...

1538 - 1598 Netherlands More

Marnix van St. Aldegonde, Wilhelmus Philips van Marnix, lord of St Aldegonde, was a Dutch writer and statesman, and the probable author of the text of the Dutch national anthem, the Wilhelmus. He was born a...

1524 - 1580 Poets More

Luís de Camões, Portugese Poet Luís Vaz de Camões, Portugal's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Homer, Virgil, and Dante. Poet and great Epic, he wrote a considerable amo...

1503 - 1566 Astrologer More

Nostradamus Nostradamus, Latinized name of Michel de Nostredame, was one of the world's most famous authors of prophecies. He is best known for his book Les Propheties, the first edi...

1494 - 1553 Christians More

Rabelais, Writer Gargantua & Pantagruel François Rabelais, French writer, priest, humanist, doctor. His fame rests on the five comic novels (one of doubtful authenticity) known collectively as Gargantua and Pan...

1478 - 1535 Christians More

Sir Thomas More Sir Thomas More (later canonized St. Thomas More) is famous for his book Utopia (1515) and for his martyrdom. As Chancellor to Henry VIII he refused to sanction Henry's d...

1474 - 1566 Christians More

Bartolomé de Las Casas, Missionary Bartolomé de Las Casas, Spanish missionary and historian, called the apostle of the Indies. He went to Hispaniola with his father in 1502, and eight years later he was or...

1469 - 1527 Index Librorum More

Niccolò Machiavelli In 1498, Niccolò Machiavelli began his career as an active politician in the independent city-state of Florence, engaging in diplomatic missions through France and German...

1379 - 1471 Christians More

Thomas a Kempis Thomas is the great author of the world famous book, "The Imitation of Christ." His name will be remembered until the end of time, because of this famous work. Priests, n...

1343 - 1400 Poets More

Chaucer, Father of English Poetry Geoffrey Chaucer, author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat (courtier), and diplomat. Chaucer is best known as the author of The Canterbury Tales. He is sometimes credited wi...

1313 - 1375 Poets More

Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio was a Italian author and poet, the greatest of Petrarch's disciples, an important Renaissance humanist in his own right and author of a number of notab...

1304 - 1374 Poets More

Petrarch, Poet Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca), Italian scholar, poet, and humanist, a major force in the development of the Renaissance, famous for his poems addressed to Laura, an idea...

1265 - 1321 Poets More

Dante, Writer of Divina Commedia Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 in Florence, Italy. He was exiled from the city for life. For 20 years Dante lived in exile, wandered Europe, and wrote one of the greate...

1235 - 1291 Poets More

Jacob van Maerlant, Poet Jacob van Maerlant (or Merlant) is known as the greatest Flemish poet of the Middle Ages. He was born about 1235 and died sometime after 1291. Of his life little is known...

1221 - 1274 Christians More

Saint Bonaventure Saint Bonaventure was the eighth Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, commonly called the Franciscans. He was a scholastic theologian and medieval philosopher,...

1207 - 1273 Poets More

Rumi, Sufi Mystic Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi was a great Persian poet and Sufi mystic. His Masnavi-ye Manavi is a 6-volume poem regarded by many Sufis as second in importance only to the Q...

1193 - 1280 Christians More

St. Albert the Great, Albertus Magnus Albertus Magnus, also known as Saint Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, was a Dominican friar who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for t...

773 - 819 Poets More

Liu Zongyuan, Poet and Writer Liu Zongyuan was a Chinese writer and poet who lived in Chang'an in the Tang dynasty. Along with Han Yu, he was a founder of the Classical Prose Movement. He was traditio...

772 - 846 Poets More

Bai Juyi, Chinese Poet Bai Juyi or Po Chü-i was a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty. He wrote over 2,800 poems, which he had copied and distributed to ensure their survival. He is most notable f...

730 - 804 Christians More

Alcuin, Minister of Charlemagne Minister of education under Charlemagne in 781. English nobility. Spiritual student of Saint Colgan. Deacon. Head of the York cathedral school c.770. Established schools...

712 - 770 Poets More

Du Fu, The Poet-Sage Du Fu or Tu Fu was a prominent Chinese poet during the Tang Dynasty. Along with Li Po (Li Bai), he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets. His own greates...

701 - 762 Poets More

Li Bai, The Poet Immortal Li Bai or Li Po was a Chinese poet who lived during the Tang Dynasty. Called the Poet Immortal, Li Bai is often regarded, along with Du Fu, as one of the two greatest poe...

560 - 636 Christians More

Isidore of Seville Saint Isidore of Seville was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and has the reputation of being one of the great scholars of the early middle ages. All the...

484 - 585 Statesmen More

Cassiodorus, Roman Statesman Cassiodorus was a Roman statesman, great writer and (later) monk, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. He spent his career trying...

55 - 120 Historians More

Tacitus, Roman Historian One of the greatest historians of ancient Rome, Cornelius Tacitus is a primary source for much of what is known about life the first and second centuries after the life o...

46 - 120 Historians More

Plutarch, Writer / Historian Plutarch is the most famous biographer of the ancient world and the author of a famous collection now known as Plutarch's Lives. Plutarch's original title was Parallel Li...

23 - 79 Historians More

Pliny the Elder, Writer 1st Encyclopedia Gaius Plinius Cecilius Secundus, known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman scholar, encyclopedist, and nationalist who was born in Novum Comum in Gallia Cisalpine (today Como...

4 BC - 65 Dramatists More

Seneca, Philosopher Seneca, Roman philosopher, dramatist, and statesman, who was one of the most eminent writers of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was born Lucius Annaeus Seneca in C...

43 BC - 17 Poets More

Ovidius, Roman Poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso). Roman poet, noted especially for his ARS AMATORIA and METAMORPHOSES. Ovid was the first major writer to grow up under the empire. He died far...

59 BC - 17 Historians More

Livius, Roman Historian Livy or Titus Livius, Roman historian. His lifework was a history of the city, written in 142 books; Books 11 – 20 and 46 – 142 have been lost, and those after Book 45 ar...

65 BC - 8 BC Poets More

Horace, Roman Poet Horace was a Roman poet who lived from 65 to 8 B.C. We call him Horace in English, but to his contemporaries and fellow countrymen he was Quintus Horatius Flaccus. Among...

70 BC - 1 BC Poets More

Virgil, Roman Poet Virgil's most famous and significant contribution to the classical canon is undoubtedly his Aeneid. Indeed, this is the work of Virgil's most influential to the Divine C...

80 BC - 15 BC Architects More

Vitruvius, Author De Architectura Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer active in the 1st century BC. Vitruvius is the author of De architectura, known today as The Ten Books...

106 BC - 43 BC Philosophers More

Cicero, Roman Philosopher Cicero was born in 106 BC, six years before the birth of Julius Caesar, into a wealthy family, though none of his family served as senators. He received the Roman equival...

145 BC - 90 BC Historians More

Sima Qian, Chinese Historian Sima Qian was a Prefect of the Grand Scribes of the Han Dynasty. He is regarded as the father of Chinese historiography because of his highly praised work, Shiji, an over...

427 BC - 355 BC Historians More

Xenophon, Greek Historian Xenophon was a soldier, mercenary and Athenian student of Socrates and is known for his writings on the history of his own times, the sayings of Socrates, and the life of...

460 BC - 404 BC Historians More

Thucydides, Greek Historian Thucydides was an ancient Greek historian, and the author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens. This w...

480 BC - 406 BC Dramatists More

Euripides, Greek Tragedian Born about 480 BC, somewhere in the vicinity of Athens, Euripides, the son of Mnesarchides, was destined from the beginning to be a misunderstood poet. He presented his f...

495 BC - 405 BC Dramatists More

Sophocles, Greek Playwright Born in 495 B.C. about a mile northwest of Athens, Sophocles was to become one of the great playwrights of the golden age. The son of a wealthy merchant, he would enjoy a...

500 BC Historians More

Herodotus, World's First Historian The Greek researcher and storyteller Herodotus of Halicarnassus was the world's first historian. In The Histories, he describes the expansion of the Achaemenid empire und...

510 BC Poets More

Parmenides, Philosopher Parmenides of Elea was a Greek philosopher and poet, born of an illustrious family about BCE. 510, at Elea in Lower Italy, and is is the chief representative of the Eleat...

525 BC - 456 BC Dramatists More

Aeschylus, Father of Tragedy The "Father of Tragedy", Aeschylus was born in the city of Eleusis. Immersed early in the mystic rites of the city and in the worship of the Mother and Earth goddess Deme...

600 BC Poets More

Epimenides of Knossos Epimenides of Knossos was a semi-mythical 6th century BC Greek seer and philosopher-poet, who is said to have fallen asleep for fifty-seven years in a Cretan cave sacred...

620 BC Poets More

Aesop, Greek Poet THE LIFE and History of Aesop is involved, like that of Homer, the most famous of Greek poets, in much obscurity. Sardis, the capital of Lydia; Samos, a Greek island; Me...

800 BC Poets More

Homer, Greek Poet No one is exactly sure who Homer was. Theories abound, and some even think he never existed. Regardless, he is traditionally recognized as the original creator of two e...