Famous writers

A list of famous writers / authors / poets throughout

history.

William Shakespeare (1564 1616) English poet and

playwright. Famous plays include Macbeth, Romeo and
Juliet, Merchant of Venice and Hamlet.Shakespeare is
widely considered the seminal writer of the English
language.

Jonathan Swift (1667 1745) Anglo-Irish writer born in

Dublin. Swift was a prominent satirist, essayist and author.
Notable works include Gullivers Travels (1726), A Modest
Proposal and A Tale of a Tub.

Samuel Johnson (1709 1784) British author best known

for his compilation of the English dictionary. Although not
the first attempt at a dictionary, it was widely considered to
be the most comprehensive setting the standard for later
dictionaries.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 1832) German poet,

playwright, and author. Notable works of Goethe
include: Faust, Wilhelm Meisters
Apprenticeship and Elective Affinities.

Jane Austen (1775 1817) English author who wrote

romantic fiction combined with social realism. Her novels
include: Sense and Sensibility (1811),Pride and
Prejudice (1813) and Emma (1816).

Honore de Balzac (1799 1850) French novelist and short

story writer. Balzac was an influential realist writer who
created characters of moral ambiguity often based on his
own real life examples. His greatest work was the collection
of short stories La Comdie humaine.

Alexandre Dumas (1802 1870) French author of historical

dramas, including The Count of Monte Cristo (1844),
and The Three Musketeers (1844). Also prolific author of
magazine articles, pamphlets and travel books.

Victor Hugo (1802 1885) French author and poet. Hugos

novels include Les Misrables, (1862) and Notre-Dame de
Paris (1831).

Charles Dickens (1812 1870) English writer and social

critic. His best known works include novels such as Oliver
Twist, David Copperfield and A Christmas Carol.

Charlotte Bronte (1816 1855) English novelist and poet,

from Haworth. Best known novel Jane Eyre (1847).

Emily Bronte (1818 1848) English novelist. Emily Bronte is

best known for her novel Wuthering Heights (1847), and her
poetry.

George Eliot (1819 1880) Pen name of Mary Ann Evans.

Wrote novels, The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas
Marner (1861), Middlemarch (187172), andDaniel
Deronda (1876)

Leo Tolstoy (1828 1910) Russian novelist and moral

philosopher. Famous works include the epic novels War
and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina(1877). Tolstoy also
became an influential philosopher with his brand of
Christian pacificism.

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) Russian novelist, journalist

and philosopher. Notable works include Notes from
Underground, Crime and Punishment andThe Idiot

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) Oxford mathematician and

author. Famous forAlice in Wonderland, Through the
Looking Glass, and poems like The Snark.

Mark Twain (1835 1910) American writer and humorist,

considered the father of American literature. Famous
works include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) English novelist and poet. Hardy

was a Victorian realist who was influenced by Romanticism.
He wrote about problems of Victorian society in
particular, declining rural life. Notable works include: Far
from the Madding Crowd (1874), Tess of the
dUrbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895).

Oscar Wilde (1854 1900) Irish writer and poet. Wilde

wrote humorous satirical plays, such as The Importance of
Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Grey.

Kenneth Graham (1859 1932) Author of the Wind in the

Willows (1908), a classic of childrens literature.

George Bernard Shaw (1856 1950) Irish playwright and

wit. Famous works include: Pygmalion (1912), Man and
Superman (1903) and Back to Methuselah(1921)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 1930) British author of

historical novels and plays. Most famous for his short stories
about the detective Sherlock Holmes, such as The Hound
of the Baskervilles (1902) and Sign of Four (1890).

Beatrix Potter (1866 1943) English conservationist and

author of the imaginative childrens books, such as the Tales
of Peter Rabbit (1902).

Marcel Proust (1871 1922) French author. Best known for

epic novel l la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost
Time) published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927.

William Somerset Maugham 1874 1965) British novelist

and writer. One of most popular authors of 1930s. Notable
works included The Moon and Sixpence (1916), The Razors
Edge (1944), and Of Human Bondage (1915)

P.G.Wodehouse (1881 1975) English comic writer. Best

known for his humorous and satirical stories about the
English upper classes, such as Jeeves and
Wooster and Blandings Castle.

Virginia Woolf (1882 1941) English modernist writer,

member of the Bloomsbury group. Famous novels
include: Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927)
and Orlando (1928).

James Joyce (1882 1941) Irish writer from Dublin. Joyce

was one of most influential modernist avant-garde writers
of the Twentieth Century. His novelUlysses (1922), was
ground-breaking for its stream of consciousness style. Other
works include Dubliners (1914) and Finnegans Wake (1939).

D H Lawrence (1885 1930) English poet, novelist and

writer. Best known works include: Sons and Lovers, The
Rainbow, Women in Love and Lady Chatterleys Lover (1928)
which was banned for many years.

Agatha Christie (1890 1976) British fictional crime writer.

Many of her books focused on series featuring her
detectives Poirot and Mrs Marple.

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 1973) Professor of Anglo-Saxon and

English at Oxford University. Tolkien wrote the best selling
mythical trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Other works include,
The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, and a translation
of Beowulf.

Vera Brittain (1893 1970) British writer best known for her
autobiography Testament of Youth (1933) sharing her
traumatic experiences of the First World War.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 1940) American author. Iconic

writer of the jazz age. Notable works include The Great
Gatsby (1925), and Tender Is the Night (1934) cautionary
tales about the Jazz decade and the American Dream
based on pleasure and materialism.

Enid Blyton (1897 1968) British childrens writer, known

for her series of childrens books The Famous Five and The
Secret Seven. Blyton wrote an estimated 800 books over 40
years.

C.S. Lewis (1898 1963) Irish / English author and professor

at Oxford University. Lewis is best known for The Chronicles
of Narnia, a childrens fantasy series. Also well known as a
Christian apologist.

Ernest Hemingway (1899 1961) Ground breaking

modernist American writer. Famous works included For
Whom The Bell Tolls (1940) and A Farewell to Arms (1929).

Vladimir Nabokov (1899 1977) Russian author

of Lolita (1955) and Pale Fire (1962)

Barbara Cartland (1901 2000) One of most prolific and

best selling authors of the romantic fiction genre. Some
suggest she has sold over 2 billion copies worldwide.

John Steinbeck (1902 1968) American writer who

captured the social change experienced in the US around
the time of the Great Depression. Famous works include
Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes of Wrath
(1939) and East of Eden (1952).

George Orwell (1903 1950) English author. Famous

works include Animal Farm, and 1984. Both stark
warnings about the dangers of totalitarian states, Orwell
was also a democratic socialist who fought in the Spanish
Civil War, documenting his experiences in Homage to
Catalonia (1938).

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) Irish avant garde, modernist

writer. Beckett wrote minimalist and thought provoking
plays, such as Waiting for Godot(1953) and Endgame
(1957). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1969.

Albert Camus (1913 1960) French author, journalist, and

philosopher. Associated with existentialism and absurdism.
Famous works included The Myth of Sisyphus, The
Stranger and The Plague.

Roald Dahl (1916 1990) English author, best known for his
childrens books, such as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory, James and The Giant Peachand The BFG.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918 2008) Russian author,

historian and political critic. Solzhenitsyn was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 for his work in exposing
the nature of Soviet totalitarianism. e.g, The Gulag
Archipelago (1965-67).

J.D. Salinger (1919 2010) American author. Most

influential novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Wrote many
short stories for New Yorker magazine, such as A Perfect
Day for Bananafish

Joseph Heller (1923 1999) American novelist, who wrote

satirical and black comedy. His most famous work is Catch
22 (1961) a satire on the futility of war.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927 2014) Colombian author.

Wrote: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn
of the Patriarch (1975) andLove in the Time of
Cholera (1985). Nobel Prize in Literature (1982).

Anne Frank (1929 1945) Dutch-Jewish diarist. Known for

her diary Anne Frank Published posthumously by her
father recalling her life hiding from Gestapo in occupied
Holland.

Salman Rushdie (1947 ) Anglo-Indian author. His works

combine elements of magic realism, satire and historical
fiction often based on Indian sub-continent. Notable
works include Midnights Children (1981), Shame (1983) and
Satanic Verses (1988).

Stephen King (1947 ) American author of contemporary

horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and
fantasy. One of the best selling authors of modern times.

George R.R Martin (1948 ) American author of epic

fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, his international
best-selling series of fantasy, adapted for the screen as a
Game of Thrones.

Douglas Adams (1952 2001) British writer of humorous

and absure science fiction. Adams wrote a best selling
trilogy (of five books) The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
which began as a BBC play.

J.K.Rowling (1965 ) British author of the Harry Potter

Series which has become the best selling book series of all
time. Her first book was Harry Potter and the Philosophers
Stone (1997). Rowling has also published adult fiction, such
as The Casual Vacancy (2012) and The Cuckoos
Calling (2013)

Khaled Hosseini (1965 ) Afghan born American writer.

Notable works include: The Kite Runner (2003) A Thousand
Splendid Suns (2007) And the Mountains Echoed (2013

Poets

Homer (c. 8th Century B.C. ) Considered the greatest of the

ancient Greek poets. Homer was the author of the two epic
poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Sappho ( c 570 BC) One of the first published female writers.

Much of her poetry has been lost but her immense
reputation has remained. Plato referred to Sappho as one of
the great ten poets.

Virgil (70 BC 19 BC) Roman poet. Wrote three

epics Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the Aeneid.

Dante Alighieri (12651321) Italian poet of the Middle Ages.

His Divine Comedy, is one of most influential European
works of literature. Dante is also called the Father of the
Italian language.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 1400) Considered the Father of

English Literature. Best known for Canterbury Tales (1475).

John Milton (1608 1674) English poet. Best known for his
epic poemParadise Lost (1667), written in blank verse
telling the Biblical story of mans fall. Also
wrote Areopagitica (1644) in defence of free speech.

William Blake (1757 1827) English mystic and romantic

poet, wrote Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.
Also hand-painted many of his works.

William Wordsworth (1770 1850) English romantic poet

from Lake District, many poems related to natures, such as
his Lyrical Ballads.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 1834) English romantic

poet. Author ofThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kublai
Khan.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 1822) English romantic poet.

Famous works include Queen Mab and Prometheus
Unbound

John Keats (1795

1821) English Romantic Poet, best known for his Odes, such
as Ode to a Nightingale, Endymion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 1882) American

Transcendentalist poet and writer.

Alfred Tennyson (1809 1892) Popular Victorian poet,

wrote Charge of the Light Brigade, Ulysses, although In
Memoriam A.H.H.

Walt Whitman (1819 1892) American poet. Wrote Leaves

of Grass, a ground breaking new style of poetry.

Emily Dickinson (1830 1886) American female poet. Led

secluded lifestyle, and left legacy of many short vivid
poems, often on themes of death and immortality.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861 1941) Indian poet. Awarded

Nobel Prize for Literature for his work Gitanjali.

Robert Frost (1874 1963) Influential American poet, one

of most highly regarded of the Twentieth Century. Most
famous work The Road Not Taken (1916)

Maya Angelou (1928 2014 ) Modern American poet and

writer.

Other categories of writers:

More Famous Poets Other poets, including W.B. Yeats,

Wilfred Owen, Rumi, Czeslaw Milosz

Famous philosophers including Aristotle, Immanuel Kant,

Baruch Spinoza, Rene Descartes, John Stuart Mill, Thomas
Paine and David Hume.

Famous Economist writers including Adam Smith, John

Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman.

Political / social activist writers People who have written

about political and human rights. Including Olaudah
Equiano, Frederick Douglass, Nelson Mandela, William
Wilberforce and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Spiritual writers including St Teresa of Avila, Sri

Aurobindo, Meister Eckhart, Desiderius Erasmus, St Therese
of Lisieux and Swami Vivekananda.

Female authors Female authors, including the Bronte

sisters, Maya Angelou, Jane Austen and J.K. Rowling.