Greatest Authors
by rosen_hokage_rosen | created - 10 Jul 2014 | updated - 25 Jun 2015 | PublicNot in particular order!!!
1. Dante Alighieri
Writer | Junkie Hell
Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 into the lower nobility of Florence, to Alighiero di Bellincione d'Alighiero, a moneylender. A precocious student, Dante's education focused on rhetoric and grammar. He also became enamored with a young girl, Beatrice Portinari, whose death in 1290 threw a grieving ...
2. William Shakespeare
Writer | The Tragedy of Macbeth
William Shakespeare's birthdate is assumed from his baptism on April 25. His father John was the son of a farmer who became a successful tradesman; his mother Mary Arden was gentry. He studied Latin works at Stratford Grammar School, leaving at about age 15. About this time his father suffered an ...
3. J.R.R. Tolkien
Writer | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
English writer, scholar and philologist, Tolkien's father was a bank manager in South Africa. Shortly before his father died (1896) his mother took him and his younger brother to his father's native village of Sarehole, near Birmingham, England. The landscapes and Nordic mythology of the Midlands ...
4. George R.R. Martin
Writer | Game of Thrones
George R.R. Martin is an American novelist and short-story writer in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres, a screenwriter, and television producer. He is known for his international bestselling series of epic fantasy novels, A Song of Ice and Fire, which was later adapted into the HBO ...
5. Robert Jordan
Writer | The Wheel of Time
Robert Jordan was born on October 17, 1948 in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. He was a writer, known for The Wheel of Time (2021), The Age of Legends and The Wheel of Time (1999). He died on September 16, 2007 in Charleston, South Carolina, USA.
6. Lev Tolstoy
Writer | Anna Karenina
Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in his ancestral estate Yasnaya Polyana, South of Moscow, Russia. He was the fourth of five children in a wealthy family of Russian landed Gentry. His parents died when he was a child, and he was brought up by his elder brothers and ...
7. Aleksei Tolstoy
Writer | Aelita
Aleksei Tolstoy was born on January 10, 1883 in Nikolayevsk, Samara Governorate, Russian Empire [now Pugachyov, Saratov Oblast, Russia]. He was a writer, known for Aelita, the Queen of Mars (1924), Khromoy barin (1929) and Peter the First (1937). He was married to Julia V.Rozhansky, Lyudmila ...
8. F. Scott Fitzgerald
Writer | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
"There are no second acts in American lives," wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, who himself went from being the high priest of the Jazz Age to a down-and-out alcoholic within the space of 20 years, but not before giving the world several literary masterpieces, the most famous of which is "The Great Gatsby...
9. Stephen King
Writer | Maximum Overdrive
Stephen Edwin King was born on September 21, 1947, at the Maine General Hospital in Portland. His parents were Nellie Ruth (Pillsbury), who worked as a caregiver at a mental institute, and Donald Edwin King, a merchant seaman. His father was born under the surname "Pollock," but used the last name ...
10. Agatha Christie
Writer | Les petits meurtres d'Agatha Christie
Agatha was born as "Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller" in 1890 to Frederick Alvah Miller and Clara Boehmer. Agatha was of American and British descent, her father being American and her mother British. Her father was a relatively affluent stockbroker. Agatha received home education from early childhood ...
11. Arthur Conan Doyle
Writer | Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer of Irish descent, considered a major figure in crime fiction. His most famous series of works consisted of the "Sherlock Holmes" stories (1887-1927), consisting of four novels and 56 short stories. His other notable series were the "Professor Challenger" ...
12. J.K. Rowling
Writer | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2
Joanne Rowling was born in Yate, near Bristol, a few miles south of a town called Dursley ("Harry Potter"'s Muggle-family). Her father Peter Rowling was an engineer for Rolls Royce in Bristol at this time. Her mother, Anne, was half-French and half-Scottish. They met on a train as it left King's ...
13. Ernest Hemingway
Writer | To Have and Have Not
Ernest Hemingway was an American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize (1953) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1954) for his novel The Old Man and the Sea, which was made into a 1958 film The Old Man and the Sea (1958).
He was born into the hands of his physician father. He was the second of six ...
14. Alexandre Dumas
Writer | The Count of Monte Cristo
His paternal grandparents were Marie Cessete Dumas (a Haitian slave) and Marquis Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie. Antoine disapproved of their son, Thomas-Alexandre, joining the French army under the "Davy de la Pailleterie" name, so Thomas-Alexandre used his mother's surname instead. He became a ...
15. Alexandre Dumas fils
Writer | Traviata '53
Alexandre Dumas fils was born on July 27, 1824 in Paris, France. He was a writer, known for Traviata '53 (1953), Camille (1921) and Zorro: New Orleans (2020). He was married to Henriette Régnier de la Briére and Baroness Nadejda "Nadine" (von Knorring) Naryschkine. He died on November 27, 1895 in ...
16. Jane Austen
Writer | Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen was born on December 16th, 1775, to the local rector, Rev. George Austen (1731-1805), and Cassandra Leigh (1739-1827). She was the seventh of eight children. She had one older sister, Cassandra. In 1783 she went to Southampton to be taught by a relative, Mrs. Cawley, but was brought ...
17. James Fenimore Cooper
Writer | The Last of the Mohicans
Favorite writer of generations of Americans, Cooper was born on Tuesday, September 15th, 1789, and grew up on his family's huge wooded settlement, in Cooperstown, New York, which his father, William Cooper, a prominent Federalist, had founded before this son's birth. His days as a Yale student were...
18. Jules Verne
Writer | 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Jules Gabriel Verne (1828-1905) was one of the most famous French novelists of all time. His major work is the "Extraordinary Journeys", a series of more than sixty adventure novels including "Journey to the Center of the Earth", "Around the World in 80 Days", "20.000 Leagues under the Seas" and "...
19. Robert Louis Stevenson
Writer | Muppet Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer from Edinburgh. His most popular works include the pirate-themed adventure novel "Treasure Island" (1883), the poetry collection "A Child's Garden of Verses" (1885), the Gothic horror novella "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr ...
20. Victor Hugo
Writer | Les Misérables
Although Hugo was fascinated by poems from childhood on, he spent some time at the polytechnic university of Paris until he dedicated all his work to literature. He was one of the few authors who were allowed to reach popularity during his own lifetime and one of the leaders of French romance.
After...
21. Karl May
Writer | Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses
Karl May was born on February 25, 1842 in Hohenstein-Ernstthal, Kingdom of Saxony [now Saxony, Germany]. He was a writer, known for Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses (1920), Caravan of Death (1920) and Durch die Wüste (1936). He was married to Klara Plöhn and Emma Pollmer. He died on March ...
22. Charles Dickens
Writer | Great Expectations
Charles Dickens' father was a clerk at the Naval Pay Office, and because of this the family had to move from place to place: Plymouth, London, Chatham. It was a large family and despite hard work, his father couldn't earn enough money. In 1823 he was arrested for debt and Charles had to start ...
23. Daniel Defoe
Writer | Robinson Crusoe on Mars
Born the eldest son and third child of James and Mary Defoe, Defoe received a very good education, as his father intended him to become a Presbyterian minister, but he chose to become a merchant instead. In 1684 he joined the army of the rebel Duke of Monmouth, but when the rebellion failed, Defoe ...
24. Jack London
Writer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Jack London was the best-selling, highest paid and most popular American author of his time.
He was born John Griffith Chaney, on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco. He was raised by his mother Flora Wellman and his stepfather John London (he didn't know who his father was until his adulthood). ...
25. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Soundtrack | Valkyrie
Johann Wolfgang Goethe was born on 28 August 1749 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany as son of a lawyer. After growing up in a privileged upper middle class family, he studied law in Leipzig from 1765 to 1768, although he was more interested in literature. As he was seriously ill, he had to interrupt ...
26. Anton Chekhov
Writer | Kis Uykusu
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in 1860, the third of six children to a family of a grocer, in Taganrog, Russia, a southern seaport and resort on the Azov Sea. His father, a 3rd-rank Member of the Merchant's Guild, was a religious fanatic and a tyrant who used his children as slaves. Young Chekhov...
27. Edgar Allan Poe
Writer | Stonehearst Asylum
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, named David Poe Jr., and his mother, named Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, were touring actors. Both parents died in 1811, and Poe became an orphan before he was 3 years old. He was adopted by John Allan, a tobacco ...
28. John Steinbeck
Writer | Lifeboat
John Steinbeck was the third of four children and the only son born to John Ernst and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. His father was County Treasurer and his mother, a former schoolteacher. John graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and attended classes at Stanford University, leaving in 1925 ...
29. Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich
Writer | Die Söhne der großen Bärin
Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich, born Elisabeth Charlotte Henrich, was one of the most important classical scholars of East Germany. She was born in Munich, raised in Stuttgart and later in Berlin. She studied at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University, today the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In 1925 she ...
30. H. Rider Haggard
Writer | The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
H. Rider Haggard was born on June 22, 1856 in Bradenham, Norfolk, England, UK. H. Rider was a writer, known for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, King Solomon's Mines (1985) and Allan Quatermain. H. Rider was married to Mariana Louisa Margitson. H. Rider died on May 14, 1925 in London, England...
31. Emilio Salgari
Writer | I misteri della giungla nera
Emilio Salgari was born on August 21, 1862 in Verona, Austrian Empire [now Verona, Veneto, Italy]. He was a writer, known for Mystery of the Black Jungle (1954), Carthage in Flames (1960) and El corsario negro (1944). He was married to Ida Peruzzi. He died on April 25, 1911 in Turin, Piedmont, ...
32. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Writer | The Double
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow, Russia. He was the second of seven children of Mikhail Andreevich and Maria Dostoevsky. His father, a doctor, was a member of the Russian nobility, owned serfs and had a considerable estate near Moscow where he lived with his ...
33. Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra
Writer | Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes' baptism occurred on October 9, 1547, at Alcala de Henares, Spain, so it is reasonable to assume he was born around that time, and Alcala de Henares has long claimed itself as his birthplace. The son of Rodrigo de Cervantes, an itinerant and not-too-successful surgeon, Miguel ...
34. Honoré de Balzac
Writer | Intimità proibita di una giovane sposa
Honoré de Balzac was a French writer whose works have been made into films, such as, Cousin Bette (1998) starring Jessica Lange, and television serials, such as Cousin Bette (1971), starring Margaret Tyzack and Helen Mirren.
He was born on March 20, 1799, in Tours, France. His father, Bernard ...
35. Stendhal
Writer | The Red and the Black
A foremost French writer of the Romantic era, Stendhal was born Marie-Henri Beyle in Grenoble, France in 1783. A loyal Bonapartist he followed Napoleon closely during his military campaigns Stendhal's novels reflect his intense love of Italy, his political convictions and the moral and ...
36. Alexander Pushkin
Soundtrack | Florence Foster Jenkins
Born to noble parents (his father Sergei was a retired major, and his mother, Nadezhda, was the granddaughter of an ennobled Ethiopian general) on the 26th of May, 1799 in Moscow, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin became involved with a liberal underground revolutionary group that saw him exiled to the ...
37. George Orwell
Writer | Nineteen Eighty-Four
Born the son of an Opium Agent in Bengal, Eric Blair was educated in England (Eton 1921). The joined the British Imperial Police in Burma, serving until 1927. He then travelled around England and Europe, doing various odd jobs to support his writing. By 1935 he had adopted the 'pen-name' of 'George...
38. John Steinbeck
Writer | Lifeboat
John Steinbeck was the third of four children and the only son born to John Ernst and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. His father was County Treasurer and his mother, a former schoolteacher. John graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and attended classes at Stanford University, leaving in 1925 ...
39. Mark Twain
Writer | Big River
Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri in 1835, grew up in Hannibal. He was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River. Throughout his career, Twain served as a writer, lecturer, reporter, editor, printer, and prospector. Twain took his pen name from an alert cry used on his...
40. Guy de Maupassant
Writer | La criada de la granja
Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5, 1850 in Château de Miromesnil, France. He was a writer, known for La criada de la granja (1953), Pierre & Jeanne and Black Sabbath (1963). He died on July 6, 1893 in Paris, France.
41. Emily Brontë
Writer | Wuthering Heights
The dreamiest of the talented Brontë clan, Emily Jane Brontë was born in 1818. Her mother died when she was barely more than a toddler, and Emily and her younger sister, Anne, became very close. Along with their other siblings, 'Charlotte Bronte' and Branwell Bronte, they invented the make-believe ...
42. Emilio Salgari
Writer | I misteri della giungla nera
Emilio Salgari was born on August 21, 1862 in Verona, Austrian Empire [now Verona, Veneto, Italy]. He was a writer, known for Mystery of the Black Jungle (1954), Carthage in Flames (1960) and El corsario negro (1944). He was married to Ida Peruzzi. He died on April 25, 1911 in Turin, Piedmont, ...
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