Ray Bradbury

Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres. Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois , the fourth son of businessman and Civil War... veteran Major George Tyler Burroughs and his wife Mary Evaline Burroughs . His middle name is from his paternal grandmother, Mary Rice Burroughs . Burroughs was educated at a number of local schools, and during the Chicago influenza epidemic in 1891, he spent a half year at his brother's ranch on the Raft River in Idaho. He then attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and then the Michigan Military Academy. Graduating in 1895, and failing the entrance exam for the United States Military Academy , he ended up as an enlisted soldier with the 7th U.S. Cavalry in Fort Grant, Arizona Territory. After being diagnosed with a heart problem and thus found ineligible to serve, he was discharged in 1897.
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Herbert George "H.G." Wells was a British author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games. Together with... Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback, Wells has been referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction". Wells's earliest specialized training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context. He was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often sympathizing with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he sometimes indicated on official documents that his profession was that of "Journalist." Many of his novels, particularly those of his middle period , had nothing to do with science fiction. They described lower-middle class life , and this work sometimes led Wells to be touted as a worthy successor to Charles Dickens.
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William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38... plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later.
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Stanley Grauman Weinbaum was an American science fiction author. His career in science fiction was short but influential. His first story, "A Martian Odyssey", was published to great acclaim in July 1934, but he would be dead from lung cancer within eighteen months. Weinbaum was born in... Louisville, Kentucky and attended school in Milwaukee. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison, first as a chemical engineering major but later switching to English as his major, but contrary to common belief he did not graduate. On a bet, Weinbaum took an exam for a friend, and was later discovered; he left the university in 1923. He is best known for the groundbreaking science fiction short story, "A Martian Odyssey", which presented a sympathetic but decidedly non-human alien, Tweel. Even more remarkably, this was his first science fiction story . Isaac Asimov has described "A Martian Odyssey" as "a perfect Campbellian science fiction story, before John W. Campbell.
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