Literature

Poets, novelists, and playwrights whose words shaped cultures and endured across centuries.

Homer

750 BCE–650 BCE · Author of the Iliad and the Odyssey

Sappho

630 BCE–570 BCE · Greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece

Aesop

620 BCE–564 BCE · Ancient Greek storyteller credited with Aesop's Fables

Sophocles

496 BCE–406 BCE · Greek tragedian of Oedipus Rex

Virgil

70 BCE–19 BCE · Author of the Aeneid, Rome's greatest poet

Horace

65 BCE–8 BCE · Roman lyric poet of carpe diem

Ovid

43 BCE–17 · Roman poet of the Metamorphoses

Li Bai

701–762 · Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty

Murasaki Shikibu

973–1014 · Author of The Tale of Genji

Rumi

1207–1273 · Persian poet, Sufi mystic

Dante Alighieri

1265–1321 · Author of The Divine Comedy

Geoffrey Chaucer

1343–1400 · Author of The Canterbury Tales

Miguel de Cervantes

1547–1616 · Author of Don Quixote

William Shakespeare

1564–1616 · Greatest playwright in the English language

Molière

1622–1673 · French playwright and actor

Matsuo Bashō

1644–1694 · Japanese master of haiku

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1749–1832 · German poet and author of Faust

Friedrich Schiller

1759–1805 · German poet of the Ode to Joy

Jane Austen

1775–1817 · Pride and Prejudice

Jacob Grimm

1785–1863 · Grimm's Fairy Tales

Lord Byron

1788–1824 · Romantic poet of Don Juan and Childe Harold

Mary Shelley

1797–1851 · Author of Frankenstein

Heinrich Heine

1797–1856 · German Romantic poet

Alexander Pushkin

1799–1837 · Father of Russian literature

Honoré de Balzac

1799–1850 · French novelist of La Comédie humaine

Victor Hugo

1802–1885 · Les Misérables, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Alexandre Dumas

1802–1870 · Author of The Three Musketeers

George Sand

1804–1876 · French novelist famous under a male pen name

Hans Christian Andersen

1805–1875 · The Little Mermaid, fairy tales

Edgar Allan Poe

1809–1849 · Master of the macabre, The Raven

Charles Dickens

1812–1870 · A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist

Charlotte Brontë

1816–1855 · Author of Jane Eyre, eldest Brontë sister

Emily Brontë

1818–1848 · Wuthering Heights

Herman Melville

1819–1891 · Moby-Dick

Walt Whitman

1819–1892 · Leaves of Grass, father of free verse

Fyodor Dostoevsky

1821–1881 · Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov

Charles Baudelaire

1821–1867 · French poet of Les Fleurs du mal

Jules Verne

1828–1905 · 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Leo Tolstoy

1828–1910 · War and Peace, Anna Karenina

Henrik Ibsen

1828–1906 · Norwegian playwright of A Doll's House

Emily Dickinson

1830–1886 · Reclusive poetic genius

Mark Twain

1835–1910 · Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Émile Zola

1840–1902 · French novelist who wrote J'Accuse

Oscar Wilde

1854–1900 · The Picture of Dorian Gray, wit and charm

George Bernard Shaw

1856–1950 · Irish playwright of Pygmalion

Arthur Conan Doyle

1859–1930 · Creator of Sherlock Holmes

Anton Chekhov

1860–1904 · Russian playwright and short-story master

Rabindranath Tagore

1861–1941 · First non-European Nobel laureate in Literature

Rudyard Kipling

1865–1936 · Author of The Jungle Book, Nobel laureate

H.G. Wells

1866–1946 · The War of the Worlds, science fiction pioneer

Maxim Gorky

1868–1936 · Russian writer of The Lower Depths

Marcel Proust

1871–1922 · In Search of Lost Time

Thomas Mann

1875–1955 · German novelist of The Magic Mountain

Virginia Woolf

1882–1941 · Mrs Dalloway, modernist pioneer

James Joyce

1882–1941 · Ulysses, literary revolutionary

Franz Kafka

1883–1924 · The Metamorphosis, surreal fiction

T. S. Eliot

1888–1965 · The Waste Land, Nobel-winning modernist poet

Agatha Christie

1890–1976 · Best-selling mystery novelist ever

J.R.R. Tolkien

1892–1973 · The Lord of the Rings, Middle-earth

Aldous Huxley

1894–1963 · Author of the dystopian novel Brave New World

F. Scott Fitzgerald

1896–1940 · The Great Gatsby

C. S. Lewis

1898–1963 · Author of The Chronicles of Narnia

Ernest Hemingway

1899–1961 · The Old Man and the Sea, Nobel laureate

Jorge Luis Borges

1899–1986 · Labyrinths, Ficciones, master of the short story

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

1900–1944 · Aviator and author of The Little Prince

George Orwell

1903–1950 · 1984, Animal Farm

Pablo Neruda

1904–1973 · Chilean poet and Nobel laureate

Naguib Mahfouz

1911–2006 · Egyptian novelist and Nobel laureate

Albert Camus

1913–1960 · Author of The Stranger, Nobel laureate

Roald Dahl

1916–1990 · Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

James Baldwin

1924–1987 · Go Tell It on the Mountain, civil rights essayist

Gabriel García Márquez

1927–2014 · One Hundred Years of Solitude

Maya Angelou

1928–2014 · I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Chinua Achebe

1930–2013 · Things Fall Apart, landmark of modern African literature

Toni Morrison

1931–2019 · Beloved, Nobel Prize in Literature

Sylvia Plath

1932–1963 · The Bell Jar, confessional poetry

Wole Soyinka

1934–present · First African Nobel laureate in Literature

Haruki Murakami

1949–present · Norwegian Wood, surreal modern fiction

J. K. Rowling

1965–present · Author of the Harry Potter series

Key Events in Literature

1321 Dante completes The Divine Comedy

1387 Chaucer begins The Canterbury Tales

1605 Cervantes publishes Don Quixote

1623 Shakespeare's First Folio published

1667 Milton publishes Paradise Lost

1719 Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe

1755 Samuel Johnson publishes A Dictionary of the English Language

1813 Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice

1818 Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein

1847 Charlotte Bronte publishes Jane Eyre

1851 Herman Melville publishes Moby-Dick

1862 Victor Hugo publishes Les Miserables

1866 Dostoevsky publishes Crime and Punishment

1869 Tolstoy publishes War and Peace

1884 Mark Twain publishes Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1899 Joseph Conrad publishes Heart of Darkness

1922 James Joyce publishes Ulysses

1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes The Great Gatsby

1929 Virginia Woolf publishes A Room of One's Own

1949 George Orwell publishes Nineteen Eighty-Four

1955 Gabriel Garcia Marquez begins literary career

1960 Harper Lee publishes To Kill a Mockingbird

1967 Garcia Marquez publishes One Hundred Years of Solitude

1988 Toni Morrison publishes Beloved

Sources

Homer — Wikipedia
Sappho — Wikipedia
Aesop — Wikipedia
Sophocles — Wikipedia
Virgil — Wikipedia
Horace — Wikipedia
Ovid — Wikipedia
Li Bai — Wikipedia
Murasaki Shikibu — Wikipedia
Rumi — Wikipedia
Dante Alighieri — Wikipedia
Geoffrey Chaucer — Wikipedia
Miguel de Cervantes — Wikipedia
William Shakespeare — Wikipedia
Molière — Wikipedia
Matsuo Bashō — Wikipedia
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — Wikipedia
Friedrich Schiller — Wikipedia
Jane Austen — Wikipedia
Jacob Grimm — Wikipedia
Lord Byron — Wikipedia
Mary Shelley — Wikipedia
Heinrich Heine — Wikipedia
Alexander Pushkin — Wikipedia
Honoré de Balzac — Wikipedia
Victor Hugo — Wikipedia
Alexandre Dumas — Wikipedia
George Sand — Wikipedia
Hans Christian Andersen — Wikipedia
Edgar Allan Poe — Wikipedia
Charles Dickens — Wikipedia
Charlotte Brontë — Wikipedia
Emily Brontë — Wikipedia
Herman Melville — Wikipedia
Walt Whitman — Wikipedia
Fyodor Dostoevsky — Wikipedia
Charles Baudelaire — Wikipedia
Jules Verne — Wikipedia
Leo Tolstoy — Wikipedia
Henrik Ibsen — Wikipedia
Emily Dickinson — Wikipedia
Mark Twain — Wikipedia
Émile Zola — Wikipedia
Oscar Wilde — Wikipedia
George Bernard Shaw — Wikipedia
Arthur Conan Doyle — Wikipedia
Anton Chekhov — Wikipedia
Rabindranath Tagore — Wikipedia
Rudyard Kipling — Wikipedia
H. G. Wells — Wikipedia
Maxim Gorky — Wikipedia
Marcel Proust — Wikipedia
Thomas Mann — Wikipedia
Virginia Woolf — Wikipedia
James Joyce — Wikipedia
Franz Kafka — Wikipedia
T. S. Eliot — Wikipedia
Agatha Christie — Wikipedia
J. R. R. Tolkien — Wikipedia
Aldous Huxley — Wikipedia
F. Scott Fitzgerald — Wikipedia
C. S. Lewis — Wikipedia
Ernest Hemingway — Wikipedia
Jorge Luis Borges — Wikipedia
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry — Wikipedia
George Orwell — Wikipedia
Pablo Neruda — Wikipedia
Naguib Mahfouz — Wikipedia
Albert Camus — Wikipedia
Roald Dahl — Wikipedia
James Baldwin — Wikipedia
Gabriel García Márquez — Wikipedia
Maya Angelou — Wikipedia
Chinua Achebe — Wikipedia
Toni Morrison — Wikipedia
Sylvia Plath — Wikipedia
Wole Soyinka — Wikipedia
Haruki Murakami — Wikipedia
J. K. Rowling — Wikipedia