Learn more about the masterminds behind history's most famous works of literature. Find information about the people who inspired authors, like Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Virginia Woolf. Explore each author's portfolio of written works and memorable quotes. Search by name, nationality or awards won.
Charles John Huffam Dickens, FRSA , pen-name "Boz", was one of the most popular English novelists of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous social...
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Никола́евич Толсто́й, Russian pronunciation: [lʲɛv nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ tɐlˈstoj]...
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the high fantasy...
Eric Arthur Blair , who used the pseudonym George Orwell, was an English writer. His work is marked by a profound consciousness of social injustice, an intense dislike of...
Ernest Miller Hemingway was a novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, and one of the veterans of World War I...
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (Russian: Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский, Russian pronunciation: [ˈfʲodər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ dəstɐˈjɛfskʲɪj], sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, Dostoievsky...
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose realism, biting social commentary and masterful use of free indirect speech, burlesque and irony have earned her a place as one...
John Steinbeck III was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and the novella Of Mice and Men, published...
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, satirist, lecturer and writer. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures...
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish expatriate writer, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He is best known for...
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a...
William Faulkner , was an American author. One of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, he was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize...
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a prolific and genre-bending American author. The novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy and science...
Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century. During...
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish playwright, poet, and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the...
Alexandre Dumas, père , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical...
Ayn Rand , born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum , was a Russian-born American novelist, philosopher,...
William Somerset Maugham, CH was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer . He was one of the most popular authors of...
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, essayist and critic, best known as the author of À la recherche du temps...
Franz Kafka was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, Austria-Hungary, presently...
Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, short-story writer, editor and literary critic, and is considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales...
Jerome David "J. D." Salinger is an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. He has not published...
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie Kt. is an Indian-British novelist and essayist. He first achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight's Children , which won the Booker Prize in 1981....
Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE , commonly known as Agatha Christie, was an English crime writer of novels, short stories and plays. She also wrote...
The Authors category includes a list of over 9,000 writers of famous or influential works of literature. The entire list can be browsed by popularity, or filtered by nationality or type of award won. Each author is represented by a photo, a short description of the author and a link to a detailed page. Each detail page includes a large amount of data and information about the author, including fast biographical facts, image galleries and written works by the author. Author information may also include characters created by the author, famous quotes by the author, works adapted to film and frequently asked questions about the author. In many cases, the user can explore further articles about many of these pieces of information (such as book titles and people influenced by the author).