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William Shakespeare 19th century

•Shakespeare was a respected poet and


playwright in his own day.

•The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed


Shakespeare's genius.

•His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly


studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural
and political contexts throughout the world.
Victor Hugo
(1802 –1885)

•Victor Hugo was a French poet, novelist and


playwright and a leading supporter of the
Romantic Movement in France.

•His best novels include Les Miserables and


Notre-Dame de Paris (in English, The
Hunchback of Notre Dame) and Les Travailleurs
de la Mer.

•He is regarded as the leading figure in the


history of French literature and politics.
Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)
•Was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, who
was also associated with the American Romantic Movement.
•He was better known for his tales of mystery and macabre. He
was amongst the earliest American practitioners of short story
and was generally considered as the inventor of the detective-
fiction genre.
•Poe is also credited for his
contribution in the emerging genre of
science fiction.
•He became famous for his popular
poems like, "The Raven" and
"Annabel Lee".
Henry Van Dyke
(1852-1933)
•A multitalented personality, Henry Van Dyke
was an American author, educator, and
clergyman, known for his works which included
short stories, poems, and essays.

•He was an influential writer and contributed


in various other fields such as religion,
literature, education, diplomacy, public service,
and nature.

• His important works include "The Poetry of


Tennyson" ,"The Other Wise Man" and "The
First Christmas Tree“.
Mario Puzo
(1920-1999)
•Mario Puzo was an Italian-
American author and
screenwriter who introduced
and acquired fame for his
• Mario Puzo wrote his first mastery in the crime fiction.
novel The Dark Arena
during the World War and
brought him the fame that
was followed by his second
and third novel The
Fortunate Pilgrim and The
Runaway Summer of Davie
Shaw respectively.
Mark Twain
(1835-1910)
•Samuel Langhorne
Clemens, better
known by his pen
name Mark
Twain…
•was an American author, essayist, lecturer and humorist who
wrote a series of famous books including Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
•Mark's first important work . Most of all, the author is
known for his notable and insightful satires that gained him
reverence from both critics as well as his contemporaries
who call him the 'father of the English literature'.
Emily Brontë is best known for
authoring the novel Wuthering Heights.
She was the sister of Charlotte and Anne
Brontë, also famous authors.

Also having written much poetry, Emily Bronte’s


works did not receive wide acclaim until after her
death at the age of thirty. Wuthering Heights is still in
print today and has inspired numerous television and
feature film adaptations. As with most of the Bronte
sister’s popular novels, people have tried to find
biographical parallels in them. Emily has been
characterised to mythic proportions as deeply
spiritual, free-spirited and reclusive as well as
intensely creative and passionate, an icon to tortured
genius.
Very prolific British author of mystery novels and short stories,
creator of Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective, and Miss Jane
Marple. Christie wrote more than 70 detective novels under the
surname of her first husband, Colonel Archibald Christie. She
also published a series of romances and a children's book.

Born on September 15, 1890, in Torquay,


England, Agatha Christie published her first
novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in
1920, and went on to become one of the
most famous writers in history, with mysteries
like Murder at the Vicarage, Partners in
Crime and Sad Cypress. She sold billions of
copies of her work, and was also a noted
playwright and romance author. She died on
January 12, 1976
Renowned Victorian author Lewis Carroll was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson on
January 27, 1832, in Daresbury, Cheshire, England. The son of a clergyman, Carroll was the
third child born to a family of eleven children. From a very early age he entertained himself and
his family by performing magic tricks and marionette shows, and by writing poetry for his
homemade newspapers. In 1846 he entered Rugby School, and in 1854 he graduated from
Christ Church College, Oxford. He was successful in his study of mathematics and writing, and
remained at the college after graduation to teach. His mathematical writings include An
Elementary Treatise on Determinants (1867), Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879),
and Curiosa Mathematica (1888). While teaching, Carroll was ordained as a deacon; however,
he never preached.

He also began to pursue photography,


often choosing children as the subject of
his portraits. One of his favorite models
was a young girl named Alice Liddell, the
daughter of the Dean at Christ’s Church,
who later became the basis for Carroll’s
fictional character, Alice. He abandoned
both photography and public speaking
between 1880 and 1881, and focused on
his writing.
Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 in
London, England. He became a merchant
and participated in several failing
businesses, facing bankruptcy and
aggressive creditors. He was also a prolific
political pamphleteer which landed him in
prison for slander. Late in life he turned his
pen to fiction and wrote Robinson Crusoe,
one of the most widely read and influential
novels of all time. Defoe died in 1731.

Defoe took a new literary path in 1719, around the age


of 59, when he published Robinson Crusoe, a fiction
novel based on several short essays that he had
composed over the years. A handful of novels followed
soon after—often with rogues and criminals as lead
characters—including Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack,
Captain Singleton, Journal of the Plague Year and his
last major fiction piece, Roxana (1724).
Ernest Hemingway Author (1899–1961)
Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway is seen as one of the great
American 20th century novelists, and is known for works like A
Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea.
Hemingway left behind an impressive body of work and an iconic
style that still influences writers today. His personality and
constant pursuit of adventure loomed almost as large as his
creative talent.

When asked by George Plimpton about the


function of his art, Hemingway proved once
again to be a master of the "one true
sentence": "From things that have happened
and from things as they exist and from all
things that you know and all those you
cannot know, you make something through
your invention that is not a representation
but a whole new thing truer than anything
true and alive, and you make it alive, and if
you make it well enough, you give it
immortality."
Charles Dickens Author (1812–1870

Charles Dickens was the well-loved and prolific


British author of numerous works that are now
considered classics.
British novelist Charles Dickens was born on
February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England. Over
the course of his writing career, he wrote the
beloved classic novels Oliver Twist, A Christmas
Carol, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, A Tale
From 1849 to 1850, Dickens worked of Two Cities and Great Expectations. On June 9,
on David Copperfield, the first work of 1870, Dickens died of a stroke in Kent, England,
its kind; no one had ever written a leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood,
novel that simply followed a character unfinished.
through his everyday life. In writing it,
Dickens tapped into his own personal
experiences, from his difficult
childhood to his work as a journalist.
Although David Copperfield is not
considered Dickens’ best work, it was
his personal favorite. It also helped
define the public’s expectations of a
Dickensian novel.
Herman Melville Poet, Author (1819–1891
Herman Melville wrote the classic American novel Moby-Dick (1851), a whaling adventure
which is regarded as one of the greatest literary works of all time.
Herman Melville was an American author born on August 1, 1819 in New York, New York.
The author penned many books and later in life wrote poetry. Best known for his novel Moby
Dick, Melville was only heralded as one of America’s greatest writers after his death on
September 28, 1891. The Library of Congress honored him as its first writer to collect and
publish.
Thomas Hardy Poet, Author (1840–1928)
Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet
who set his work--including The Return of the
Native and Far from the Madding Crowd--in the
semi-fictionalized county of Wessex.

He was born in Dorset, England in 1840. As a


novelist he is best known for his work set in the
semi-fictionalized county of Wessex including,
Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure.
He was also an accomplished poet. Hardy died
in 1928. His ashes are in the Poets' Corner of
Westminster Abbey and his heart is buried in
Stinsford with his first wife.
Oscar Wilde Writer (1854–1900)

Born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Irish writer Oscar Wilde is best known for the novel
The Picture of Dorian Gray and the play The Importance of Being Earnest, as well as for
his infamous arrest and imprisonment for being different.

Author Oscar Wilde published several acclaimed works, including The Picture of
Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.
Virginia Woolf Author, Journalist (1882–1941)

English Writer Virginia Woolf became famous for her nonlinear prose style,
especially noted in her novels Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.

Born into a privileged English household in 1882, writer Virginia Woolf was raised
by free-thinking parents. She began writing as a young girl and published her first
novel, The Voyage Out, in 1915. Her nonlinear, free form prose style inspired her
peers and earned her much praise. She was also known for her mood swings and
bouts of deep depression.
Jack London Author, Journalist (1876–1916

Jack London was a 19th century American author and journalist, best known for the
adventure novels White Fang and The Call of the Wild.

Jack London was born John Griffith Chaney on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco,
California. After working in the Klondike, London returned home and began publishing
stories.
His novels, including The Call of the Wild, White Fang and Martin Eden, placed London
among the most popular American authors of his time. London, who was also a journalist
and an outspoken socialist, died in 1916.
William Golding Author (1911–1993)
William Golding was born September 19, 1911, in
Saint Columb Minor, Cornwall, England.
In 1935 he started teaching English and philosophy
in Salisbury. He temporarily left teaching in 1940 to
join the Royal Navy.
In 1954 he published his first novel, Lord of the Flies.
In 1983, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature.
On June 19, 1993, he died in Perranarworthal,
Cornwall, England.
British novelist William Golding
wrote the critically acclaimed
classic Lord of the Flies, and
was awarded the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1983.
James Joyce Author (1882–1941)
James Joyce was an Irish, modernist writer who wrote in
a ground-breaking style that was known both for its
complexity and explicit content.
Joyce was one of the most revered writers of the
20th century, whose landmark book, Ulysses, is
often hailed as one of the finest novels ever written.
His exploration of language and new literary forms
showed not only his genius as a writer but spawned
a fresh approach for novelists, one that drew heavily
on Joyce's love of the stream-of-consciousness James Joyce was born on February 2,
technique and the examination of big events 1882 in Dublin, Ireland. He
through small happenings in everyday lives. published "Portrait of the Artist" in
1916 and caught the attention of
Ezra Pound. With "Ulysses," Joyce
perfected his stream-of-
consciousness style and became a
literary celebrityJ. He died in 1941.

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