Poets
-
W.H. Auden (1907 - 1973): TopicUS poet born in England, noted for his lyrical technique.
-
Sir John Betjeman (1906 - 1984): TopicPoet, broadcaster, and writer on architecture, born in London, UK.
-
Seamus Heaney (1939 - 2013): TopicNorthern Irish poet and critic; poetry collections include The Haw Lantern (1987); Nobel prize for literature 1995.
-
Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998): TopicPoet, born in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire, N England, UK.
-
Louis MacNeice (1907 - 1963): TopicIrish-born British poet whose works, published in Blind Fireworks (1929) and other collections, treat social issues in a detached, often ironic manner.
-
Roger McGough (1937 - ): TopicEnglish poet, dramatist, songwriter, and performer.
-
Dylan Thomas (1914–1953): Topic
Welsh poet, born in Swansea.
Science Fiction
-
Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001): TopicWriter, born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, EC England, UK.
-
Brian Aldiss (1925-2017): TopicScience-fiction writer and novelist, born in East Dereham, Norfolk, E England, UK.
-
Arthur Clarke (1917 - 2008): Topic
British writer, scientist, and underwater explorer noted for his stories of space exploration. His works include 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
-
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963): TopicBritish writer. His best-known work, Brave New World (1932), paints a grim picture of a scientifically organized utopia.
-
H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946): TopicEnglish novelist and writer on social and political problems; one of the first authors of science fiction; author of The War of the Worlds (1898) and The Time Machine (1895).
Fantasy
-
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015): TopicWriter, born in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, SC England, UK.
-
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 - 1973): Topic
Born in South Africa, where his father was a bank manager, Tolkien came to England at the age of three.
Mystery & Detective Fiction
-
G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936): TopicEnglish novelist, essayist, and poet. He wrote numerous short stories featuring a Catholic priest, Father Brown, who solves crimes by drawing on his knowledge of human nature.
-
Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1796): Topic
Agatha Christie was one of the most celebrated writers of detective stories, many of which have been made into films, TV series, and plays.
-
Dorothy Sayers (1893 - 1957): TopicBritish writer known for her detective stories, usually featuring the amateur investigator Lord Peter Wimsey.
Essayists, Memoirs & Reformers
-
Vera Mary Brittain (1893 - 1970): TopicThe English socialist and feminist Vera Brittain has an enduring reputation as the author of one of the most moving accounts of the individual experience of war in Testament of Youth (1933).
-
T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935): Topic
British soldier, scholar, and translator.
Novelists
-
Sir Kingsley Amis (1922 - 1995): TopicNovelist and poet, born in London, UK.
-
Martin Amis (1949 - ): TopicEnglish novelist and journalist. His works are characterized by their sharp black humour and depict the absurdity and excesses of modern society.
-
Arnold Enoch Bennett (1867 - 1931): TopicNovelist, born near Hanley, Staffordshire, C England, UK.
-
Anthony Burgess (1917 - 1993): TopicEnglish novelist, critic, and composer.
-
Angela Carter (1940 - 1992): TopicBy the time of her early death Angela Carter had established herself as one of the most individual voices in British contemporary fiction.
-
Ford Madox Ford (1873 - 1939): TopicBritish writer and editor whose most important novels, The Good Soldier (1915) and the tetralogy Parade's End (1924-1928), examine the bonds of conjugal and adulterous relationships.
-
E. M. Forster (1879 - 1970): TopicEnglish novelist, short-story writer, and critic.
-
John Galsworthy (1867 - 1933): Topic
English novelist and dramatist.
-
Sir William Golding (1911 - 1993): TopicEnglish novelist. His work is often principally concerned with the fundamental corruption and evil inherent in human nature.
-
Robert Graves (1895-1985): TopicPoet and novelist, born in London, UK.
-
Graham Greene (1904-1991): TopicBritish writer particularly known for his novels, such as The Power and the Glory (1940), which reflect his ardent Catholic beliefs.
-
D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930): TopicBritish writer whose fiction concerns the struggle for human fulfillment within a dehumanizing industrialized society. His novels include Sons and Lovers (1913), Women in Love (1920), and Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). He also wrote literary criticism and psychoanalytical works.
-
John le Carré (1931 - ): TopicNovelist, born in Poole, Dorset, S England, UK.
-
Alistair Maclean (1922 - 1987): TopicScottish author Born in Glasgow, he was educated at Glasgow University and served in the Royal Navy (1941-46).
-
Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965): Topic
Novelist, playwright, and short-story writer, born in Paris, France.
-
Patrick O'Brian (1914 - 2000): TopicBritish novelist, born near London as Richard Patrick Russ.
-
George Orwell (1903 - 1950): Topic
Pen-name of Eric Arthur Blair, an English writer.
-
Anthony Powell (1905 - 2000): TopicNovelist, born in London, UK. He studied at Oxford, worked in publishing and journalism before WW2, and by 1936 had published four satirical novels, beginning with Afternoon Men (1931).
-
Dame Muriel Spark (1918 - 2006): TopicBritish novelist and writer; her novels include Memento Mori (1959), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), The Takeover (1976), A Far Cry from Kensington (1988), Symposium (1990), and Reality and Dreams (1996).
-
Evelyn Waugh (1903 - 1966): Topic
English novelist. His early satirical novels include Decline and Fall (1928), Vile Bodies (1930), A Handful of Dust (1934), and Scoop (1938).
-
Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941): Topicnée Stephen, English author.
-
P. G. Wodehouse (1881 - 1975): TopicBritish writer known for his humorous novels and stories that feature the aristocrat Bertie Wooster and his butler Jeeves.
Dramatists
-
Sir Noël Coward (1899 - 1973): Topic
English author, actor, and composer; noted for comedies such as Blithe Spirit (1941) and Private Lives (1930).
-
Michael Frayn (1933 - ): TopicPlaywright, novelist, and translator, born in London, UK.
-
John Osborne (1929 - 1994): TopicBritish dramatist. His plays include Look Back in Anger (1956), containing the prototype of the angry young man, Jimmy Porter, The Entertainer (1957), and Inadmissible Evidence (1964).
-
Arnold Wesker (1932-2016): TopicPlaywright, born in London, UK, of a Russian father and Hungarian mother.
-
Harold Pinter (1930 - 2008): TopicEnglish dramatist. His plays, such as The Caretaker (1960), The Homecoming (1965), Landscape (1968), and Ashes to Ashes (1996), are noted for their equivocal and halting dialogue.
-
Tom Stoppard (1937 - ): TopicBritish playwright, born in Czechoslovakia: his works include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1967), Travesties (1974), Hapgood (1988), and Invention of Love (1997).