Roald Dahl

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature. He was born in Bombay, in the... Bombay Presidency of British India, and was taken by his family to England when he was five years old. Kipling is best known for his works of fiction, including The Jungle Book , Just So Stories , Kim , many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" ; and his poems, including Mandalay , Gunga Din , The White Man's Burden and If— . He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works are said to exhibit "a versatile and luminous narrative gift". Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society. Thackeray, the only child, was born in Calcutta, India, where his father, Richmond Thackeray , was secretary to the... board of revenue in the British East India Company. His mother, Anne Becher was the second daughter of Harriet Becher and John Harman Becher, who was also a secretary for the East India Company. William's father died in 1815, which made his mother to send him back to England in 1816 . The ship on which he travelled made a short stopover at St. Helena where the imprisoned Napoleon was pointed out to him. Once in England he was educated at schools in Southampton and Chiswick and then at Charterhouse School, where he was a close friend of John Leech. He disliked Charterhouse, parodying it in his later fiction as "Slaughterhouse.
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Captain Frederick Marryat was an English Royal Navy officer, novelist, and a contemporary and acquaintance of Charles Dickens, noted today as an early pioneer of the sea story. He is now known particularly for the semi-autobiographical novel Mr Midshipman Easy and his children's novel The Children... of the New Forest, and for a widely used system of maritime flag signalling, known as Marryat's Code. Marryat was born in London, the son of Joseph Marryat, a "merchant prince" and member of Parliament. After trying to run away to sea several times, he was permitted to enter the Royal Navy in 1806, as a midshipman on board HMS Imperieuse, a frigate commanded by Lord Cochrane . Marryat's time aboard the Imperieuse included action off the Gironde, the rescue of a fellow midshipman who had fallen overboard, captures of many ships off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, and the capture of the castle of Montgat. When the Imperieuse shifted to operations in the Scheldt, in 1809, Marryat contracted malaria, and returned to England on HMS Victorious, 74 guns.
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Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie was a Norwegian novelist, poet, and playwright who is considered to have been one of the Four Greats of 19th century Norwegian literature, together with Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Alexander Kielland. Jonas Lie was born at Hokksund in Øvre Eiker,... in the county of Buskerud, Norway. Five years after his son's birth, Lie's father was appointed sheriff of Tromsø, which lies within the Arctic Circle, and young Jonas Lie spent six of the most impressionable years of his life at that remote port. He was sent to the naval school at Fredriksværn; but his defective eyesight caused him to give up a life at sea. He transferred to the Bergen Cathedral School in Bergen, and in 1851 entered the University of Christiania, where he made the acquaintance of Ibsen and Bjørnson. He graduated in law in 1857, and shortly afterwards began to practice at Kongsvinger, a town located between Lake Mjøsa and the border with Sweden. Clients were not numerous at Kongsvinger and Lie found time to write for the newspapers and became a frequent contributor to some of the Christiania journals.
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