Writers

The details on this page are largely biographical, not directly about their works.

Groups

John Osborne, Kingsley Amis, John Braine, Alan Sillitoe, Colin Wilson – 1950s		Angry Young Men
Led by (Giles) Lytton Strachey; included Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, Bertrand Russell at al (from 1906)		Bloomsbury Group
Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs et al – 1950s		The Beat Movement
Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, John Suckling, Richard Lovelace et al – court of Charles II		The Cavalier Poets
William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey		The Lake Poets
Imaginary English country gentleman written about by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in The Spectator		Sir Roger de Coverley

Early pen names of the Brontë sisters:

Anne		Acton Bell
Charlotte		Currer Bell
Emily		Ellis Bell

UK Children's Laureate

The post of UK Children's Laureate was created in 1999 to celebrate outstanding achievement in the field of children's literature – writing or illustrating, or both.

1999–2000	Illustrator of eighteen Roald Dahl books		Quentin Blake
2001–3	Writer of Madame Doubtfire, Goggle–Eyes, and Flour Babies		Anne Fine
2003–5	Creator of War Horse		Michael Morpurgo
2005–7	Creator of Tracy Beaker, and the most–borrowed author from British public libraries		Jacqueline Wilson
2007–9	Writer of humorous ppoems for children, and the novel We're Going on a Bear Hunt		Michael Rosen
2009–11	Writer and illustrator: author of Gorilla, creator of Willy (Willy the Wimp, Willy the Champ, etc.)		Anthony Browne
2011–13	Author of rhyming stories for children, including The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom and Stick Man		Julia Donaldson
2013–15	Author of the Noughts and Crosses series of novels for young adults, uses the setting of a fictional dystopia to explore racism		Malorie Blackman
2015–17	Author and illustrator: creator of Ottoline (Brown), Alienography and Goth Girl		Chris Riddell
2017–19	Author and illustrator of the Charlie and Lola books (I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato), and the Clarice Bean and Ruby Redfort series		Lauren Child
2019–21	Author of the How to Train Your Dragon and Emily Brown series		Cressida Cowell
2022–4	Poet and children's author		Joseph Coelho

Individuals

The Little Mermaid (statue in Copenhagen harbour) is a memorial to		Hans Christian Andersen
Son of a famous schoolmaster and historian (Thomas), first used the term 'philistine' as a condemnation of middle class values		Matthew Arnold
US sci–fi author, defined the so–called Three Laws of Robotics; used the pen name Paul French for some works (the Lucky Starr Series) early in his career		Isaac Asimov
Much of what we know about her life comes from her letters to her older sister Cassandra – who also drew the only surviving portrait of her		Jane Austen
Philosopher and essayist; became Lord Chancellor and Baron Verulam 1618, Viscount St. Albans 1621		Francis Bacon
Once played a girlfriend of Ken Barlow in Coronation Street		Beryl Bainbridge
Scottish novelist: added the middle initial M to his name when writing science fiction (died in 2013, aged 59)		Iain Banks
Booker Prize winning novelist: previously (in the 1980s) wrote four crime novels using the pen name Dan Kavanagh		Julian Barnes
Eloped with Robert Browning in 1846, after he wrote to tell her how much he loved her poetry (she was 40, he was 34; her father, a wealthy sugar planter, objected to any of his children marrying) and lived with him thereafter in Italy; died in Florence in 1861, aged 55		Elizabeth Barrett
Irish writer, Nobel Prize 1969: settled in Paris in 1939 (aged 33) after falling out with his mother, and subsequently wrote all his works in French as well as English; a member of the French Resistance during WWII, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1949		Samuel Beckett
The only Nobel laureate to appear in Wisden Cricketer's Almanack (played for Dublin University in two games against Northamptonshire, in the 1920s)
English writer and caricaturist, lived at Rapallo in Italy from 1910 until his death in 1956		Sir Max Beerbohm
The first female professional author in English (according to Virginia Woolf); also worked as a spy against the Dutch for Charles II		Aphra Behn
Born near Paris in 1870, to an English mother and a French father; his mother's great grandfather was Joseph Priestley; grew up in England, naturalised in 1902		Hilaire Belloc
Refused an honorary degree from Oxford because the university had accepted a £3 million donation from "bully" Rupert Murdoch		Alan Bennett
Wrote about the 'Five Towns' of the Potteries (Stoke–on–Trent, Staffordshire)		Arnold Bennett
Gave his name to an omelette containing smoked haddock, hollandaise sauce and cheese, which was perfected to his taste by chefs at the Savoy Hotel, London, while he was staying there to write a novel in the 1920s
Popular English novelist, 1875–1956; invented and gave his name to a an irregular form of humorous biographical verse		E. C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
Died in 1984 with his teddy bear Archibald Ormsby–Gore in his arms, along with his toy elephant Jumbo		John Betjeman
Compiler of The Devil's Dictionary; also wrote the short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge; disappeared in 1913, aged 71, while travelling with rebel troops in Mexico		Ambrose Bierce
The first Children's Laureate (1999): author of many books, but probably best known as the illustrator of those of Roald Dahl		Quentin Blake
Published two books (Three Boys and a Circus and Children of Kidillin) in 1940, and four more in 1943, under the pen name Mary Pollock (her middle name and her first married surname); second married name was Mrs. Darrell Waters		Enid Blyton
Dr. Johnson's biographer (born Edinburgh 1740; died London 1795)		James Boswell
(Along with fellow novelist Angus Wilson), co–founded a renowned Creative Writing course at the University of East Anglia, in 1970, on which their students included Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro		Malcolm Bradbury
Died of blood poisoning, caused by an insect bite, on a French hospital ship moored off the Greek island of Skyros, while sailing to the Dardanelles in 1915; buried on Skyros		Rupert Brooke
Governor General of Canada, 1935–40; created 1st Baron Tweedsmuir after George V insisted that the post should be held by a peer		John Buchan
Popular English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician: coined the phrases "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the sword", "dweller on the threshold", and the well–known opening line "It was a dark and stormy night"		Edward Bulwer–Lytton
Poet, born in 1692 at what is now the Old Wellington Inn, Manchester (then an office, with accommodation upstairs); invented a revolutionary system of shorthand, and wrote the lyrics to Christians, Awake as a Christmas present for his daughter Dorothy (Dolly)		John Byrom
Suffered from a deformity of the foot, generally referred to as "club foot" (possibly as a result of polio ); coached as a boxer by 'Gentleman' Jackson, champion of England; kept a pet bear in his rooms at Trinity College, Cambridge (in protest at the rule that prevented him keeping his beloved dog Boatswain there); died of a fever at Missolonghi, after a soaking in an open boat, while sailing to fight for Greek independence (1824)		Lord Byron
The first person to be honoured by a London 'blue plaque' (1867)
Algerian–born writer and philosopher; helped found the underground newspaper Combat, 1943; Nobel Prize for literature 1957; once played in goal for Algiers		Albert Camus
Czech playwright, dramatist, essayist, publisher, literary reviewer, and art critic: best known for his satirical science fiction novel War with the Newts (1936) and the 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossums Universal Robots), which introduced the word 'robot'; his work was described by Arthur Miller as "prophetic assurance mixed with surrealistic humour and hard–edged social satire: a unique combination"; died on Christmas Day 1938, aged 47		Karel Čapek
Music critic for The Guardian, 1927–40, and from 1951; Sydney Herald 1941–47; also a prolific writer on cricket; knighted in 1967; died in 1975, aged 86		Neville Cardus
Second to win the Booker Prize twice, after J. M. Coetzee (Oscar and Lucinda 1988, True History of the Kelly Gang 2001)		Peter Carey
Lectured in Maths at Christ Church College, Oxford, 1852–78; invented the word ladder		Lewis Carroll
Died in 1992, aged 51, from lung cancer; her penultimate novel, Nights at the Circus (1984) was selected in 2012 as the best ever winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize		Angela Carter
Author and diplomat under Napoleon (1768–1848) – said to be the founder of Romanticism in French literature – gave his name to a cut of steak (said to have been created by his chef)		Francois–René, vicomte de Chateaubriand
English poet, committed suicide by taking arsenic, aged 17, 1770; his death was the subject of a famous 1856 painting by Henry Wallis (modelled by fellow poet George Meredith)		Thomas Chatterton
First person to be buried in Poets' Corner (Westminster Abbey)		Geoffrey Chaucer
Qualified as a doctor in 1884; supported his family with earnings from comic writing before becoming known for more serious works		Anton Chekhov
London–born Irish nationalist and author of The Riddle of the Sands (1903 – an " influential espionage novel", to paraphrase Wikipedia): executed in 1922, during the Irish Civil War, by the authorities of the Irish Free State; his son (of the same name) was President of Ireland from 1973–4		Erskine Childers
Born in Torquay in 1890; worked as a hospital dispenser in WWI; disappeared in 1926, and was identified 11 days later, after an extensive police search, at the Swan Hotel, Harrogate; died in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, in 1976		Agatha Christie
Wrote under her first married surname (her maiden name was Miller); her second marriage was to the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan (she was Lady Mallowan); wrote romantic fiction under the pen–name Mary Westmacott
Named by Guinness World Records as the best–selling novelist of all time (approx. 2 billion copies)
English poet, 1793–1864, certified insane 1837; died in a Northampton asylum		John Clare
Military historian, and future Member of Parliament: took the theatre director Joan Littlewood to court to get credited for the scenes from his book The Donkeys, which Littlewood had included in the satirical musical Oh, What a Lovely War!		Alan Clark
British–born sci–fi writer, lived in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) from 1956 until his death in 2008 aged 90; predicted geostationary satellites and space elevators		Arthur C. Clarke
Presented his Mysterious World, World of Strange Powers and Mysterious Universe on television in the 1980s and 90s
First to win the Booker Prize twice (Life & Times of Michael K 1983, Disgrace 1999) – see also Peter Carey		J. M. Coetzee
Born Edinburgh 1859; qualified as a doctor, senior physician in a field hospital in the 2nd Boer War; said to have introduced steel helmets into the British Army; featured in Julian Barnes's 2005 novel Arthur & George (based on a true story)		Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Born 1867 in what is now Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), into a noble and highly patriotic, but impoverished Polish family; orphaned at age 11, moved to Krakow to live with an uncle. Joined a British merchant ship aged 31		Joseph Conrad
Tragically I was an Only Twin (2003) is a posthumous collection of the "complete" writings of		Peter Cook
Prolific, best–selling English novelist: took inspiration from her deprived youth in the town of South Shields, Co. Durham (now Tyne & Wear), where many of her novels were set; most borrowed author from public libraries in the UK, 1980–2004; died in 1998, aged 91		Catherine Cookson
US crime writer, caused controversy in 2002 by claiming that the painter Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper		Patricia Cornwell
English crime writer, 1908–73, wrote over 600 novels under 28 pseudonyms including some westerns and romances (as Margaret Cooke). Created Gideon of the Yard, featured in the 1960s BBC series Gideon's Way		John Creasey
The Oxford Press published a dictionary in 2016, including several words that he made up (such as frobscottle, lickswishy and wondercrump) to celebrate the centenary of the birth of		Roald Dahl
Italian poet, met Beatrice (Portinari) when he was 9 and she was 8; his love for her survived both her marriage to another man, and her death, although he hardly knew her		Dante Alighieri
Poet Laureate 1968–72; wrote detective stories under pseudonym Nicholas Blake; died in 1972 at the home of Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard, where he and his family were staying; buried at his request in the same graveyard as the heart of Thomas Hardy (Stinsford, near Dorchester)		Cecil Day–Lewis
French dramatist, swordsman and duellist (1619–55), whose life was greatly embellished by Edmond Rostand's 1897 play (he was actually quite proud of his large nose)		Cyrano de Bergerac
Soldier, merchant and government agent before becoming a novelist; fought in the Duke of Monmouth's army at Sedgemoor; spent three days in the pillory for seditious libel in 1703, but (according to legend) was pelted with nothing but flowers; described by Pope as "[standing] earless on high" (while in the pillory) – leading to a myth that he had no ears, or had them cut off		Daniel Defoe
Born in Manchester, 1785; was greatly influenced by Wordsworth and Coleridge, whom he sought out in the Lake District; became editor of the Westmorland Gazette in 1818, but resigned less than 18 months later after the proprietors expressed their dissatisfaction with his working practices; lived in Dove Cottage, Grasmere (Wordsworth's home from 1799 to 1805) from 1810 to 1820 and at Fox Ghyll, near Rydal, from 1820 to 1825; best known for his memoir Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821); moved to Edinburgh in 1828, and died there in 1859; was a major influence on Beaudelaire and Poe		Thomas de Quincey
Born at 393 Old Commercial Road, Portsmouth, on 7 Feb 1812; married Catherine Hogarth; left her after 22 years of marriage after meeting Ellen Ternan, an actress 27 years his junior (the extent of their intimacy is not definitely known); bought Gads Hill Place, a large house in Higham, Kent, in 1856; he and Ternan were involved in the Staplehurst rail crash of 1865, when 10 people were killed; died at Gads Hill in 1870 (on the fifth anniversary of the crash)		Charles Dickens
US poet from Amherst, Massachusetts (1830–86): lived a reclusive life, often wrote about death and immortality, died of Bright's disease aged 55		Emily Dickinson
Poet who became Dean of St. Paul's in 1621		John Donne
Widely regarded as the best British travel writer of his generation, once once described as "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene": born in London 1915, died in 2011; works include an unfinished trilogy describing his 1933–4 journey on foot from London to Constantinople: Vol.1 A Time of Gifts (1977), Vol. 2 Between the Woods and the Water (1986)		Patrick Leigh Fermor
Novelist who initiated the Bow Street Runners (when a magistrate at Bow Street)		Henry Fielding
Credited with coining the phrase The Jazz Age to describe 1920s America, as epitomised in his works		F. Scott FitzGerald
The Last Tycoon (published posthumously in 1941) was the last, unfinished novel by
Grandson of the painter Ford Madox Brown, born Ford Madox Hueffer; founded the English Review and the Transatlantic Review		Ford Madox Ford
Served as private secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas, 1921; wrote the novel Maurice, about homosexual love, published posthumously 1971 (written almost 60 years earlier) and filmed 1987		E. M. Forster
Jockey to the Queen Mother, 1953–7; rode her horse Devon Loch, which collapsed in the 1956 Grand National; after retirement and the success of his autobiography (The Sport of Queens, 1957) took to writing novels on a racing theme; wrote exactly one novel each year (1962–2000), except that in 1998 it was a short story collection; five more books 2006–10 in collaboration with his son Felix, who continued the series after his death (in 2010); became Britain's most popular author, in terms of number of books borrowed from public libraries (1996)		Dick Francis
German Jewish teenager, kept a secret diary in WWII		Anne Frank
Silence Dogood, Caelia (sic) Shortface, Martha Careful, Busy Body, Anthony Afterwit, Alice Addertongue, Richard Saunders, Polly Baker and Benevolus were pen names used at different times, and in different contexts, by		Benjamin Franklin
Born London 1810; spent much of her childhood living with an aunt in Knutsford, Cheshire; wrote all of her novels except the first in a rented villa on Plymouth Grove, Manchester; also wrote a famous biography of Charlotte Bronte		Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
Controversial French writer and activist, 1910–86; author of The Thief's Journal		Jean Genet
American 'Beat poet' (1926–97), best known for his 1956 poem Howl, which was unsuccessfully tried for obscenity: said to have coined the term "flower power" in 1965, in order to transform anti–war protests into peaceful, affirmative spectacles		Allen Ginsberg
Had a park in Moscow (opened 1928) named after him (which itself gave its name to a famous book and film); his second name is a nickname that means "bitter"		Maksim Gorky
American author (1872–1939) of adventure stories, particularly Westerns; his best–selling novel was Riders of the Purple Sage (1912)		Zane Grey
The fictional town of Clanton, Missouri is the setting for several novels by		John Grisham
British journalist and historian: was the first journalist to enter Port Stanley during the Falklands War (1982); editor of the Daily Telegraph, 1986–95		Max Hastings
Born 1899; Nobel prize 1954; died in 1961 of a self–inflicted gunshot wound; his father, sister and brother also committed suicide; subject of Papa: a personal memoir (1976), whose author (son Gregory) underwent gender re–assignment surgery in 1995 aged 64, becoming Gloria		Ernest Hemingway
Name shared by a 20th century US novelist and one of the Cavalier Poets		Robert Herrick
Took his pen name from a Scottish goalkeeper, who played for Birmingham City FC from 1965 to 1971		James Herriot
English poet (1844–89): converted to Catholicism 1866, ordained as a Jesuit priest 1877, professor of Greek Literature at University College Dublin, 1884–9; work published posthumously through Robert Bridges		Gerard Manley Hopkins
Funeral procession in 1885, from the Arc de Triomphe to the Panthéon, was attended by an estimated two million people		Victor Hugo
Frequently used the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon (American, 1785–1859)		Washington Irving
Born in New York, 1843; having travelled in Europe with his family as a child, and attempted to support himself as a freelance writer in Rome and Paris, he settled in London around 1875; took British citizenship shortly before his death in 1916; his brother William was an eminent psychologist and philosopher, a professor at Harvard, and his sister Alice a famous diarist		Henry James
Shared his house in Gough Square, London, with his negro servant Frank, housekeeper Anna Williams (a minor poet who was going blind) and his two cats, Hodge and Lily		Dr. Samuel Johnson
Life and works commemorated by Bloomsday on June 16th each year		James Joyce
Spent six nights in 1904 in the Martello Tower at Sandycove, Dublin, and set the opening scene of his most famous novel there; it was opened as a museum to him in 1962
Studied surgery at Guy's Hospital, 1815; died in Rome of tuberculosis, 1821		John Keats
Wrote unauthorised biographies of Jacqueline Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra and Nancy Reagan, and the British royal family		Kitty Kelley
Wiltshire–born clergyman, whose diaries of rural life in the 1870s (in the Welsh borders) were published in 1938 – 59 years after his death		Francis Kilvert
Has also written under the pen name Richard Bachman – in order to publish more books and avoid "saturating" his market		Stephen King
Born in Bombay, in 1865; named after a lake in Staffordshire (a popular tourist resort, where his parents had met and courted); lived at Bateman's, (East) Sussex, for his last 30 years; wrote the first Christmas speech for broadcast, for George V, 1932; used red golf balls so he could play in the snow		Rudyard Kipling
Born in Budapest; member of the Graf Zeppelin Arctic Expedition; imprisoned by Franco; served in the French Foreign Legion and the British Pioneer Corps; awarded the CBE		Arthur Koestler
Swedish journalist, author of Zlatan Ibrahimović's 2011 biography I am Zlatan Ibrahimović, and of The Girl in the Spider's Web (2015), the fourth book in the Millennium series, originally by Stieg Larsson		David Lagercrantz
Only daughter of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough; married a future prime minister (Lord Melbourne – but she died, aged 42, before he inherited the title); famous for her infatuation with Lord Byron; published the novel Glenarvon anonymously		Lady Caroline Lamb
Worked as University Librarian at the University of Hull, from 1955 until his death (aged 63) in 1985; jazz critic of the Daily Telegraph, 1961–71		Philip Larkin
Wrote novels in the style of contemporary girls' school fiction under the pen name Brunette Coleman, while at Oxford during World War II; they were not published, and only became known to the public some seven or eight years after his death in 1985, when they were mentioned in a biography by Andrew Motion
Died at Vence, South of France, in 1930; exhumed in 1935, and cremated; the ashes were partly scattered on the Mediterranean and partly reburied in New Mexico (where his widow had settled and eventually remarried)		D. H. Lawrence
Born 1812 in Holloway, London, the 21st child of a stockbroker; published a book of illustrations of parrots aged 19; settled in Sanremo, on the Italian Riviera, and died there aged 75		Edward Lear
Russian novelist, poet and painter – best known for the short novel A Hero of Our Time – killed in 1841, aged 26, in a duel with a fellow army officer who took offence at one of his jokes		Mikhail Lermontov
Spanish poet and dramatist, killed (shot) by Falange militia at the start of the Spanish Civil War (August 1936)		Federico Garcia Lorca
US sci–fi writer, 1890–1937, developed a cult following for his "Cthulhu Mythos"		H. P. Lovecraft
Cavalier Poet, twice jailed for his Royalist activities – author of the Lucasta collection and To Althea, from prison (Stone walls do not a prison make …)		Richard Lovelace
English dramatist and poet of the Elizabethan period, noted for his blank verse; often alleged to have worked as a government spy; fatally stabbed above the eye by Ingram Frizer at Eleanor Bull's tavern in Deptford, east London, in an argument over a bill (1593, aged 29); the inquest ruled self defence, but conspiracy theories persist that he was assassinated in connection with a charge of blasphemy for which he had appeared before the Privy Council ten days earlier		Christopher Marlowe
Columbian Nobel laureate and 'champagne socialist': born in 1927, he lived in "more or less compulsory exile" from 1954 (according to his Nobel biography), in Paris, Barcelona, New York and Mexico City; died in 2014, aged 87		Gabriel García Márquez marquez
Poet, represented Hull in parliament from 1659 until his death in 1678		Andrew Marvell
Born in Paris, in 1874; studied medicine in London; worked in Russia for the British intelligence service during WWI		W. Somerset Maugham
Said to have coined the word "ecdysiast", (from a technical term for moulting) in response to a striptease artist who wanted a more dignified name for her occupation		H. L. Mencken
English comic–book writer, born 1953 in Northampton, best known for his work in Watchmen (1986–7), V for Vendetta (1988–9) and From Hell (1989–96); often described as "the best graphic novel writer in history". He doesn't do the illustrations!		Alan Moore
As a Times correspondent, reported the first successful ascent of Everest (1953); later became one of the first people in the public eye to undergo gender reassignment surgery and transition to life as a woman; known for the Pax Britannica trilogy (a history of the British Empire), and portraits of cities including Oxford, Venice, Trieste, Hong Kong, and New York; died in 2020, aged 94		James (Jan) Morris
2013 autobiography controversially first published (reportedly at the author's insistence) as a Penguin Classic; 2015 debut novel List of the Lost described in a Times review as "the worst novel I remember reading", and won the Literary Review's Bad Sex Award		Morrissey
Defence lawyer in obscenity trials involving Last Exit to Brooklyn, Oz magazine, Gay News, and Virgin Records (over the title of the Sex Pistols' first LP) – but not (according to his biographer) Lady Chatterley's Lover		John Mortimer
Booker–winning novelist: taught philosophy at St. Anne's College, Oxford, from 1948 to 1963		Iris Murdoch
American novelist who was also a serious amateur lepidopterist – and claimed that had there been no revolution in Russia, he might well have taken the subject up professionally		Vladimir Nabokov
Made cameo appearances in several of his works, as a character named Vivian Darkbloom – an anagram of his actual name
Chilean Communist poet, exiled to Italy 1948–52, Nobel laureate 1971; portrayed in the 1994 film Il Postino		Pablo Neruda
Born in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, in 1965, with cerebral palsy caused by asphyxiation at birth; typed with a pointer attached to his forehead; Dam Burst of Dreams, a collection of poetry, published in 1981; 1987 autobiography Under the Eye of the Clock (written in the third person) won the Whitbread Prize; attended the same school as members of U2 (starting just as they were leaving) – their song Miracle Drug (on the album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, 2004) was about him; choked to death in 2009 when a piece of food became lodged in his airway		Christopher Nolan
Named in 2012 as the second biggest selling author of all time, by value of books sold, after J. K. Rowling (you may be surprised to see him described as an author)		Jamie Oliver
Disowned his daughter Oona in 1943, for marrying Charlie Chaplin, when she was 18 and he was 54; died in 1953, and never saw her again		Eugene O'Neill
English playwright murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell, 1967		Joe Orton
Wrote an article (first published in the London Evening Standard, 1946) describing his ideal pub, which he named The Moon Under Water		George Orwell
Lived intermittently in a remote farmhouse on the Scottish island of Jura, from 1946 until his death in 1950, aged 46, from a pulmonary embolism; wrote what was arguably his most famous book (Nineteen Eighty–Four) there
Diagnosed with shell shock in 1917; met Siegfried Sassoon while recuperating at Edinburgh; returned to the front following the (non–fatal) shooting of Sassoon, seeing it as his duty to tell of the horrors of the war; killed in 1918, during the crossing of the Sambre–Oise Canal, exactly one week before the signing of the Armistice; his mother received news of his death on Armistice Day; posthumously awarded the Military Cross; greatly influenced by Sassoon, who promoted and edited his works after his death (Sassoon is nevertheless considered to be an inferior poet); poems featured in Britten's War Requiem		Wilfred Owen
Award–winning food writer who is the godson of Prince Charles		Tom Parker Bowles
Best–known work was not published for more than 120 years after his death in 1703, because it was written in shorthand which was only decoded then		Samuel Pepys
Records, in the work referred to above, how he began it after breakfasting on the remains of a turkey
14th–century Italian poet, and an early scholar of antiquity – developed the concept of the Dark Ages, and is often credited with initiating the Renaissance; particularly admired for his sonnets, in praise of his idealised lover Laura (a married woman, she refused to become his mistress, and died of the plague when he was in his mid–40s)		Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca)
Yorkshire schools inspector, best known for his semi–autobiographical novels about life in the Yorkshire Dales (The Other Side of the Dales, etc.)		Gervase Phinn
Victoria Lucas was a pen–name of		Sylvia Plath
Inventor of detective fiction (Murders in the Rue Morgue, 1841)		Edgar Allan Poe
"I am His Highness's dog at Kew. Pray tell me sir, whose dog are you?" – inscription on the collar of a dog given to Frederick, Prince of Wales (son of George II), in 1736, by		Alexander Pope
Children's author and illustrator: married her solicitor William Heelis in 1913, aged 47, despite the disapproval of her upper–middle–class family		Beatrix Potter
Indicted for treason by the US government for his pro–Fascist broadcasts during WWII; committed to a mental hospital until 1958		Ezra Pound
The UK's best–selling author of the 1990s; knighted in 2009; his 2011 novel was at the time of its release the third–fastest–selling hardback adult–readership novel since records began in the UK, (55,000 copies in the first three days); diagnosed with early–onset Alzheimer's disease in 2007; died in 2015, a few weeks before his 67th birthday		Terry Pratchett
Born in Bradford in 1894; his left–wing beliefs brought him into conflict with the government, and influenced the birth of the Welfare State; broadcast a series of short propaganda radio shows that were credited with strengthening civilian morale during the Battle of Britain (1940), but which were eventually cancelled by the BBC for being too critical of the Government; died in Stratford–on–Avon in 1984		J. B. Priestley
Double–barrelled surname of the twins Christine and Diana, and their elder sister Josephine, who between them wrote over 160 'pony' books (many had the word 'pony' in their titles; Diana alone wrote approximately 100) – most popular in the 1950s and 60s; also wrote a joint autobiography, entitled Fair Girls and Grey Horses (1996)		Pullein–Thompson
Russian poet, novelist and dramatist, born 1799, killed in a duel 1837		Alexander Pushkin
Second wife was Trotsky's secretary, whom he met while working in Russia		Arthur Ransome
Best known as a crime novelist, has published thrillers under the pen name Barbara Vine		Ruth Rendell
French "decadent" poet, born 1854, described by Victor Hugo as "an infant Shakespeare", but gave up writing before the age of 20; travelled widely, and died of cancer aged 37		Arthur Rimbaud
The Man who Invented Sex: 2007 biography of		Harold Robbins
Won the Smarties Book Prize three years running (1997–9); withdrew her later books from contention to give others a chance		J. K. Rowling
Writes crime fiction under the pen name Robert Galbraith (from 2012)
Put under police protection by the British government after a fatwā calling for his assassination was issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on 14 February 1989; knighted in 2007		Salman Rushdie
English writer and critic, 1819–1900: an early champion of Turner and the Pre–Raphaelites; see also Whistler in Artists; long associated with Oxford University, where he was appointed the first Slade Professor of Fine Art in 1869 and established a school of drawing in 1871; a college founded in Oxford in 1899 to provide higher education for people of limited means (not part of the University) was and is named after him; lived at Brantwood, on the shores of Coniston Water; died there in 1900; commemorated by a monument on Friar's Crag, Derwentwater		John Ruskin
Poet and novelist, inspired Virginia Woolf's androgynous hero Orlando		Vita Sackville–West
French writer, real name Amandine Dupin, had extra–marital affairs with Chopin and others after leaving her husband of nine years		George Sand
Lived at Witham, Essex, from 1929 until her death in 1957		Dorothy L. Sayers
Commemorated by a famous monument, just over 200ft (61m) high, in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh – completed 1844, 8 years after his death		Sir Walter Scott
Married Anne Hathaway; left his second–best bed to her in his will. (Consensus is that this was not such a slight as might appear: it was common to leave the bulk of one's property to one's children, and Shakespeare is known to have left most of his property to his daughter Susannah, having disinherited his other daughter, Judith, because he disapproved of her marriage. His son, Judith's twin brother Hamnet, died of the plague 20 years earlier. The best bed would have been reserved for guests, so the second–best one was probably their marital bed; it was probably quite valuable anyway)		William Shakespeare
The first person to win a Nobel Prize (Literature, 1925) and an Oscar (for the screenplay of Pygmalion) (Bob Dylan was the second); lived at Ayot St. Lawrence, Herts; died 1950, aged 94, after falling from an apple tree; represented his university as a boxer (middleweight); left part of his fortune to found a phonetic alphabet; wrote music reviews for the Pall Mall Gazette under the pseudonym Corno di Bassetto (Italian for basset horn) from 1885, before he was famous		George Bernard Shaw
Creator of the television shows The Patty Duke Show (1963–6), I Dream of Jeannie (1965–70) and Hart to Hart (1979–84); published his first novel The Naked Face in 1970, and went on to write 17 more novels before his death in 2007 – becoming the seventh best–selling fiction writer of all time (between Georges Simenon and Enid Blyton)		Sidney Sheldon
Sent down from Oxford in 1811 for publishing a pamphlet entitled The necessity of Atheism; drowned while sailing near La Spezia (Italy), 1822; buried in Rome		Percy Bysshe Shelley
English chemist, novelist and civil servant (1905–80): delivered a famous and influential lecture in 1959, entitled The Two Cultures, about the breakdown in communication between scientists and "literary intellectuals" in the 20th century		C. P. Snow
Deported from the Soviet Union, 1974; Soviet citizenship restored 1990, returned to Russia 1994		Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Novelist who had a pet poodle called Charley		John Steinbeck
First editor of the Dictionary of National Biography; father of Virginia Woolf		Sir Leslie Stephen
Original drummer of Genesis (before they were famous); in later life became a successful author of "good life abroad" books		Chris Stewart
Settled in Samoa, 1888, in search of a healthier climate; died there 1894 and is buried there		Robert Louis Stevenson
Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, from 1714 until his death in 1745; the proceeds from the first performance of Handel's Messiah (1742) were donated, at his request, to local charities and hospitals for the mentally ill; left the bulk of his fortune (£12,000) to found a mental hospital		Jonathan Swift
Elizabethan courtier and poet, one of the most prominent figures of his time and author of the hugely influential Defence of Poesy (a.k.a. An Apology for Poetry)		Sir Philip Sydney
Born in Worcester, 1973: writes chick–lit using her first name, and psychological thrillers using her initials		C. L. (Cally) Taylor
The first writer to receive a peerage		Alfred Lord Tennyson
English poet – best–known work probably Adlestrop; shot through the chest at the Battle of Arras in April 1917 (on Easter Monday), soon after arriving in France on active service		Edward Thomas
Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo–Saxon at Oxford, 1925–45; Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, 1945–59 (also at Oxford)		J. R. R. Tolkien
Invented the pillar box (while working in the Civil Service)		Anthony Trollope
Born just after Halley's Comet appeared in 1835; predicted in 1909 that he would "go out" with it in 1910; died of a heart attack on the day after it appeared at its brightest in 1910		Mark Twain
First of three volumes of autobiography published 2010 – 100 years after his death, according to his wishes (parts were published in his lifetime and have been republished many times since)
Worked as a Mississippi riverboat pilot, and took his pen name from the leadsman's cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms (12 feet), which was safe water for a steamboat (the leadsman was the sailor who sounded the depth)
English writer, 1717–97: son of a prime minister (often said to be Britain's first)		Horace Walpole
Coined the word "serendipity"
Author of The Castle of Otranto (1764) – generally regarded as the first gothic novel
Spent part of his childhood at Uppark, a country house in West Sussex, where his mother was a lady's maid; his father was a professional cricketer, albeit not a very successful one, and also worked at Uppark as a gardener		H. G. Wells
Stood as Labour candidate for Parliament, twice, in the 1920s
Fled to Paris on release from jail, under the pseudonym Sebastian Melmoth; also used his prison number C33 (C three three) as a pseudonym		Oscar Wilde
Daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen; founded the Hogarth Press in 1917		Virginia Woolf
Drowned herself in 1941 by filling her overcoat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home in Sussex. Left a note for her husband: "Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again ... I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good ... " Her body was found three weeks later
Major figure in the Irish Literary Revival ("Celtic Twilight"); co–founder of the Abbey Theatre; Nobel Prize for Literature 1923; appointed to the first Irish Senate in 1922, reappointed in 1925		W. B. Yeats
Buried at Drumcliff, County Sligo (in the shadow of the Dartry Mountains), where his epitaph reads "Cast a cold eye / On life, on death / Horseman, pass by!" – the closing lines of his poem Under Ben Bulben
Wrote an open Letter to the French government over the Dreyfus affair, entitled J'accuse		Emile Zola

© Haydn Thompson 2017–24