Biography
List of Famous Personalities of the world.
- Marilyn Monroe (1926 – 1962) American actress / singer / model.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865) US President during American civil war
- Mother Teresa (1910 – 1997) Catholic missionary nun / charity worker
- John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963) US President
- Martin Luther King (1929 – 1968) – American civil rights campaigner
- Nelson Mandela (1918 – ) – South African President anti-apartheid campaigner.
- Winston Churchill (1874- 1965) – British Prime Minister during WWII
- Bill Gates (1955 – ) American businessman, founder of Microsoft
- Muhammad Ali (1942 – ) American Boxer and civil rights campaigner.
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869 – 1948) Leader of Indian independence.
- Margaret Thatcher (1925 – ) British Prime Minister.
- Charles de Gaulle (1890 – 1970) French resistance leader and President.
- Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1506) – Italian explorer
- George Orwell (1903 – 1950) British author of 1984, Animal farm
- Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) British scientist proposed theory of evolution.
- Elvis Presley (1935 – 1977) American pop singer.
- Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) German scientist – theory of relativity.
- Paul McCartney (1942 – ) British musician, member of Beatles.
- Plato (423 BC – 348 BC) Greek philosopher
- Queen Elizabeth II (1926 – ) British monarch since 1954.
- Queen Victoria ( 1819 –1901) British Queen during Nineteenth Century
- John M Keynes (1883 – 1946) British economist.
- Mikhail Gorbachev (1931 – ) Russian President during end of Cold War.
- Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) Indian Prime Minister
- Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) Italian, painter, scientist, polymath
- Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) – French chemist and microbiologist.
- Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910 ) – Russian author and philosopher.
- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) – Spanish modern artists
- Vincent Van Gogh (1853 – 1890) Dutch artist
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 – 1945) – US President 1932 – 1945.
- Pope John Paul II (1920 – 2005) Polish Pope.
- Thomas Edison ( 1847 – 1931) – American inventor
- Rosa Parks (1913 – 2005) – American civil rights activist
- Aung San Suu Kyi (1945 – ) Burmese opposition leader.
- Lyndon Johnson (1908 – 1973) – US President 1963-69
- Ludwig Beethoven (1770 – 1827) – German composer
- Oprah Winfrey (1954 – ) US media celebrity.
- Indira Gandhi (1917 – 1984) – Third Prime Minister of India.
- Eva Peron (1919 – 1952) – First Lady of Argentina
- Benazir Bhutto (1953 – 2007) – Prime Minister of Pakistan
- Desmond Tutu (1931 – ) South African Bishop and opponent of apartheid
- Dalai Lama (1938 – ) Spiritual and political leader of Tibetans
- Walt Disney (1901 – 1966) American film producer
- Neil Armstrong (1930 – 2012) US Pilot , first person to land on moon.
- Donald Trump (1946 – ) Businessman, politician
- Peter Sellers (1925 – 1980) British film actor and comedian
- Barack Obama (1961- ) US President
- Malcolm X (1925 – 1965) American Black nationalist leader
- J.K.Rowling (1965 – ) British author of Harry Potter series.
- Richard Branson (1950 – ) British entrepreneur founder of Virgin.
- Pele (1940 – ) Brazilian footballer, considered greatest of 20th Century.
- Angelina Jolie (1975 – ) Actress, director, humanitarian.
- Jesse Owens (1913-1980) US track athlete won 4 golds at 1936 Olympics.
- Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961) American author
- John Lennon (1940 – 1980) British popstar and member of the Beatles.
- Henry Ford (1863 – 1947) US Industrialist
- Haile Selassie (1892 – 1975) head of state of Ethiopia
- Joseph Stalin (1879 – 1953) Soviet leader from 1924-1953.
- Lord Baden Powell (1857 – 1941) British Founder of scout movement
- Michael Jordon (1963 – ) US Basketball star.
- George Bush jnr (1946 – ) US President 2000-2008.
- V.Lenin (1870-1924) – Leader of Russian Revolution 1917.
- Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982) Swedish actress. Featured in Casablanca.
- Fidel Castro (1926-) Cuban revolutionary leader.
- Oscar Wilde (1854- 1900) Irish author, poet, playwright.
- Coco Chanel (1883-1971) – French Fashion designer
- Pope Francis (1936 – ) – First pope from the Americas.
- Amelia Earhart (1897– 1937) – Female aviator
- Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945) – leader of Nazi Germany 1933-45.
- Sting (1951 – ) British musician.
- Mary Magdalene (4 BC – 40AD) – devotee of Jesus Christ
- Alfred Hitchcock (1899 – 1980) – English / American film producer
- Michael Jackson (1958 – 2009) – American Pop singer
- Madonna (1958 – ) American Pop singer
- Mata Hari (1876-1917) Dutch exotic dancer, executed as spy.
- Cleopatra (69 -30 BC) Queen of Egypt.
- Grace Kelly (1929-1982) American actress and later Princess of Monaco.
- Steve Jobs (1955 – 2012) Key figure in Apple computers
- Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004) – US President (1981-1989).
- Lionel Messi (1987- ) Argentinian footballer
- Babe Ruth (1895 – 1948) American baseball player
- Bob Geldof (1951 – ) – Irish musician, charity worker
- Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) Russian Marxist revolutionary
- Roger Federer (1981 – ) Swiss Tennis player
- Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) Austrian psychoanalyst
- Woodrow Wilson (1856 – 1924) US president.
- Mao Zedong (1893-1976) Leader of Chinese Communist revolution
- Katherine Hepburn (1907-2003) – American actress.
- Audrey Hepburn (1929 – 1993) British actress and humanitarian.
- David Beckham (1975 – ) English footballer
- Tiger Woods (1975 – ) American golfer
- Usain Bolt (1986 – ) – Jamaican athlete. Record holder at 100m and 200m
- Carl Lewis (1961 – ) – US athlete and Olympian
- Prince Charles (1948 – ) Heir to British throne
- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929 – 1994) – American wife of JF Kennedy
- C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963) – British author
- Billie Holiday (1915 – 1959) American jazz singer.
- J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973) – British author of Lord of the Rings
- Billie Jean King (1943 – ) – American tennis players and campaigner for equality.
- Anne Frank (1929-1945) – Dutch Jewish author who died in Holocaust.
More famous people
- Simon Bolivar (1783 – 1830) ‘Liberator’ of Latin America.
- Marie Antoinette (1755 – 1793) French Queen, executed during the French revolution
- Christiano Ronaldo – Portuguese footballer.
- Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) – English suffragette.
- Emile Zatopek – Czech athlete
- Lech Walesa – Polish leader of Solidarity movement
- Julie Andrews – British singer
- Florence Nightingale – British nurse
- Marie Curie – Polish / French scientist
- Stephen Hawking – British scientist
- Tim Berners Lee (1955- ) English creator of World Wide Web
- Lance Armstrong (1971- ) American cyclist.
- Shakira – Colombian singer
- Jon Stewart (1962 – ) – American comic and tv presenter New York.
- Wright Brothers – Orville and Wilbur Wright who made first flight in 1903.
- Roman Abramovich – Russian oligarch.
- Tom Cruise (1962 ) – American actor
- Rupert Murdoch – Media owner of News Corporation.
- Al Gore – US presidential candidate and environmental campaigner
- Sacha Baron Cohen (1971 – ) – English comedian
- George Clooney (1961 – ) – American actor and political activist.
- Paul Krugman – American Nobel Prize winning economist
- Jimmy Wales – American creator of Wikipedia
- Brad Pitt (1963 – ) Actor
- Kylie Minogue – Australian singer and actress
- Malala Yousafzai – (1997- ) Pakistani human rights activist.
- Stephen King (1947 – ) Contemporary horror and fantasy writer
Indian Famous Personalities
- Dhirubhai Ambani
- JRD Tata
- Jamsetji Tata
- Adi Godrej
- Anil Ambani
- Dr. K. Anji Reddy
- Azim Premji
- Bhai Mohan Singh
- B.M. Munjal
- Ekta Kapoor
- Ghanshyam Das Birla
- Karsanbhai Patel
- Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
- K.P. Singh
- Kasturbhai Lalbha
- A.M. Naik
- Analjit Singh
- Anand Mahindra
- Biki Oberoi
- Captain Gopinath
- Kumar Mangalam Birla
- Lalit Suri
- M.S. Oberoi
- Mukesh Ambani
- Nandan Nilekani
- Narayana Murthy
- Naresh Goyal
- Dr. Pratap Reddy
- Rahul Bajaj
- Ramalinga Raju
- Ratan Tata
- Raunaq Singh
- Shiv Nadar
- Subhash Chandra
- Chanda Kochhar
- Deepak Parekh
- Harish Manwani
- Karan Bilimoria
- K.V. Kamath
- Y.C Deveshwar
- Subroto Roy
- Sunil Mittal
- Tulsi Tanti
- Verghese Kurien
- Vijay Mallya
- Mallika Srinivasan
- Naina Lal Kidwai
- Shahnaz Hussain
- Sulajja Firodia Motwani
- Shobhana Bhartia
- Aditya Vikram Birla
- Gulshan Kumar
- Vaman Srinivas Kudva
- S.L. Kirloskar
- Lalit Modi
- Ronnie Screwvala
- Shikha Sharma
- T.V Sundaram Iyengar
- T.V. Mohandas Pai
Leaders
- Annie Besant
- Aruna Asaf Ali
- Aurobindo Ghose
- Bal Gangadhar Tilak
- Shaheed Bhagat Singh
- Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
- Chandrashekhar Azad
- Dadabhai Naoroji
- Gopal Krishna Gokhale
- Jawaharlal Nehru
- Lala Lajpat Rai
- Lal Bahadur Shastri
- Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
- Motilal Nehru
- Dr. Rajendra Prasad
- C.N. Annadurai
- Jyoti Basu
- Rajiv Gandhi
- Sardar Patel
- Sarojini Naidu
- Mohan Kumaramangalam
- R. K. Shanmukham Chetty
- Rangarajan Kumaramangalam
- Acharya Narendra Dev
- Bagha Jatin
- Bhulabhai Desai
- Bidhan Chandra Roy
- Chidambaram Subramaniam
- E M S Namboodiripad
- E V Ramasamy
- Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi
- Giani Zail Singh
- Gulzarilal Nanda
- Atal Bihari Vajpayee
- Bhairon Singh Shekhawat
- Biju Patnaik
- E.M.S. Namboodiripad
- Farooq Abdullah
- George Fernandes
- H. D. Deve Gowda
- I.K. Gujral
- Jaswant Singh
- Jayalalithaa Jayaram
- Kanshi Ram
- Lal Krishna Advani
- Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
- Subhas Chandra Bose
- Veer Savarkar
- Kasturba Gandhi
- Madam Cama
- Rajkumari Amrit Kaur
- Sucheta Kriplani
- Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
- Abdul Ghaffar Khan
- Ajmal Khan
- Pattabhi Sitaramayya
- Bipin Chandra Pal
- K.R. Narayanan
- Pramod Mahajan
- Chittaranjan Das
- Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari
- Gopinath Bordoloi
- Jayaprakash Narayan
- K Kamaraj
- MangalPandey
- Siddhartha Shankar Ray
- T.Sadasivam
- T.T. Krishnamachari
- Hasrat Mohani
- Kamala Nehru
- Khudiram Bose
- M. G Ramachandran
- Madan Mohan Malaviya
- Madhavrao Scindia
- Morarji Desai
- N. T. Rama Rao
- Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
- Rafi Ahmed Kidwai
- Lalu Prasad Yadav
- Mamata Banerjee
- Mani Shankar Aiyar
- Manmohan Singh
- Mayawati
- M. Karunanidhi
- Mohammad Hamid Ansari
- Mulayam Singh Yadav
- Narendra Modi
- Naveen Patnaik
- Nithish Kumar
- P. Chidambaram
- Mridula Sarabhai
- Rani Gaidinliu
- S. Srinivasa Iyengar
- Sir Surendranath Banerjee
- Deendayal Upadhyaya
- Dr Zakir Hussain
- Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
- Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
- Ram Manohar Lohia
- V. V. Giri
- Chandra Shekhar
- Chaudhary Devi Lal
- Chempakaraman Pillai
- Indrajit Gupta
- J.B. Kripalani
- P.V. Narasimha Rao
- R. Venkataraman
- Rajesh Pilot
- Vijayaraje Scindia
- V.P. Singh
- Charan Singh
- Ram Prasad Bismil
- Rash Behari Bose
- S. Satyamurti
- Shankar Dayal Sharma
- Shyamji Krishna Varma
- Shyama Prasad Mookerjee
- V O Chidambaram Pillai
- V. K. Krishna Menon
- Vithalbhai Patel
- Y S Rajasekhara Reddy
- Purushottam Das Tandon
- Prakash Karat
- Prakash Singh Badal
- Pranab Mukherjee
- Pratibha Devisingh Patil
- Sharad Pawar
- Sheikh Abdullah
- Sheila Dikshit
- Shivraj Singh Chouhan
- Somnath Chatterjee
- Sonia Gandhi
- Sushma Swaraj
- Uma Bharti
- Yashwant Sinha
Musicians
- Ustad Ali Akbar Khan
- Ustad Amjad Ali Khan
- Hariprasad Chaurasia
- MS Subbulakshmi
- Ravi Shankar
- Shiv Kumar Sharma
- Zakir Hussain
- Ananda Shankar
- AR Rahman
- Beghum Akhtar
- Pandit Debu Chaudhuri
- Sri Lalgudi Jayarama Iyer
- RD Burman
- Swathi Thirunal
- Miyan Tansen
- Tyagaraja
- Allauddin Khan
- Annapurna Devi
- Bismillah Khan
- L. Subramaniam
- Muthuswami Dikshitar
- Indian Singers
- Alisha Chinai
- Alka Yagnik
- Asha Bhosle
- Lata Mangeshkar
- Shubha Mudgal
- Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay
- Talat Mahmood
- Kishore Kumar
- Kundan Lal Saigal
- Mohammed Rafi
- Mukesh
- Geeta Dutt
- Classical Dancers
- Mallika Sarabhai
- Protima Bedi
- Shovana Narayan
- Sonal Mansingh
- Yamini Krishnamurthy
- Rukmini Devi Arundale
- Uday Shankar
- Birju Maharaj
List of Scientists (प्रसिद्द वैज्ञानिकों की जीवनी )
Here is an alphabetical list of some of the most famous scientists in history, the men and women whose crucial discoveries and inventions changed the world:
A
Aage Bohr
Abdul Qadeer Khan
Abu Nasr Al-Farabi
Ada Lovelace
Adalbert Czerny
Agnes Arber
Ahmed Zewail
Al-Battani
Alan Turing
Albert Abraham Michelson
Albert Einstein
Alberto Santos-Dumont
Albrecht von Haller
Aldo Leopold
Alessandro Volta
Alexander Bain
Alexander Brongniart
Alexander Fleming
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Von Humboldt
Alfred Binet
Alfred Blalock
Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Wegener
Alfred Russel Wallace
Amedeo Avogadro
Anaximander
Anders Celsius
Andre Marie Ampère
Andreas Vesalius
Angel Alcala
Antoine Lavoisier
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
Antonio Meucci
Antony Hewish
Archimedes
Aristarchus
Aristotle
Arnold Orville Beckman
Arnold Sommerfeld
Arthur Eddington
Artturi Virtanen
Avicenna
B
B. F. Skinner
Barbara McClintock
Beatrix Potter
Benjamin Cabrera
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Thompson
Bernardo Houssay
Bill Nye
Blaise Pascal
Brahmagupta
Brian Cox
C
C. V. Raman
Carl Bosch
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Carl Sagan
Carolus Linnaeus
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
Charles Babbage
Charles Darwin
Charles Lyell
Charles Sherrington
Chen-Ning Yang
Christiaan Huygens
Christiane Nusslein-Volhard
Clarence Birdseye
Claude Bernard
Claude Levi-Strauss
Clyde Tombaugh
D
Daniel Bernoulli
David Bohm
David Hilbert
Dian Fossey
Dmitri Mendeleev
Dorothy Hodgkin
E
E. O. Wilson
Edmund Halley
Edward Jenner
Edward Teller
Edwin Herbert Land
Edwin Hubble
Elizabeth Blackwell
Emil Adolf Behring
Emil Fischer
Emil Kraepelin
Emile Berliner
Emmy Noether
Empedocles
Enrico Fermi
Eratosthenes
Ernest Lawrence
Ernest Rutherford
Ernesto Illy
Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Ising
Ernst Mach
Ernst Mayr
Ernst Werner von Siemens
Erwin Chargaff
Erwin Schrödinger
Euclid
Evangelista Torricelli
F
Fibonacci – Leonardo of Pisa
Francesco Redi
Francis Bacon
Francis Crick
Francis Galton
Frank Hornby
Franz Boas
Frederick Gowland Hopkins
Frederick Sanger
Frederick Soddy
Friedrich August Kekulé
Friedrich Wöhler
Fritz Haber
G
Galen
Galileo Galilei
Gene Shoemaker
Georg Ohm
George Beadle
George Gamow
George Gaylord Simpson
George Washington Carver
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
Gertrude Elion
Gerty Theresa Cori
Glenn Seaborg
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottlieb Daimler
Grace Murray Hopper
Gregor Mendel
Guglielmo Marconi
Gustav Kirchoff
Gustav Ludwig Hertz
H
Hans Bethe
Hans Christian Oersted
Hans Selye
Harold Urey
Harriet Quimby
Hedy Lamarr
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
Heinrich Hertz
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz
Henri Becquerel
Henrietta Swan Leavitt
Henry Bessemer
Henry Cavendish
Henry David Thoreau
Henry Ford
Henry Moseley
Hermann Rorschach
Hermann von Helmholtz
Homi Jehangir Bhabha
Humphry Davy
I
Ibn Battuta
Ibn Rushd
Inge Lehmann
Irene Joliot-Curie
Isaac Newton
Ivan Pavlov
J
J. Hans D. Jensen
J. J. Thomson
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Jack Horner
Jacques Cousteau
Jagadish Chandra Bose
James Chadwick
James Clerk Maxwell
James Dwight Dana
James Hutton
James Prescott Joule
James Watson
James Watt
Jan Baptist von Helmont
Jane Goodall
Jane Marcet
Jean Andre Deluc
Jean Piaget
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Jim Al-Khalili
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Johannes Kepler
John Archibald Wheeler
John Bardeen
John Dalton
John Locke
John Logie Baird
John Napier
John Needham
John Ray
John von Neumann
Jonas Salk
Joseph Banks
Joseph Henry
Joseph Lister
Joseph Priestley
Justus von Liebig
K
K. Eric Drexler
Karl F. Herzfeld
Karl Landsteiner
Katharine Burr Blodgett
Keisuke Ito
Kip S. Thorne
Konrad Lorenz
Kristian Birkeland
L
Lee De Forest
Leland Clark
Leo Szilard
Leon Foucault
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonhard Euler
Lester R. Brown
Linus Pauling
Lise Meitner
Louis Agassiz
Louis de Broglie
Louis Pasteur
Ludwig Boltzmann
Lucretius
Luigi Galvani
Luis Alvarez
Luther Burbank
Lynn Margulis
M
Mae Carol Jemison
Marcello Malpighi
Marguerite Perey
Maria Gaetana Agnesi
Maria Goeppert-Mayer
Maria Mitchell
Marie Curie
Mario Molina
Mary Anning
Max Born
Max Delbruck
Max Planck
Max von Laue
Michael E. Brown
Michael Faraday
Michio Kaku
Mihailo Petrovic Alas
Mohammad Abdus Salam
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
Murray Gell-Mann
N
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Niccolo Leoniceno
Nicholas Culpeper
Nicolaus Copernicus
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Noam Chomsky
O
Omar Khayyam
Otto Hahn
Otto Haxel
P
Paul Dirac
Paul Ehrlich
Pearl Kendrick
Percy Lavon Julian
Peter Debye
Pierre Curie
Pierre de Fermat
Pierre-Simon Laplace
Prafulla Chandra Ray
Prokop Divis
Pythagoras
R
Rachel Carson
Ramon Barba
Randy Pausch
René Descartes
Richard Feynman
Rita Levi-Montalcini
Robert Bosch
Robert Boyle
Robert Brown
Robert Bunsen
Robert Goddard
Robert Hooke
Robert Koch
Ronald Fisher
Ronald Ross
Rosalind Franklin
Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel
Rudolf Virchow
S
Salim Ali
Sally Ride
Santiago Ramon y Cajal
Sergei Winogradsky
Sheldon Lee Glashow
Shintaro Hirase
Sigmund Freud
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Stephanie Kwolek
Stephen Hawking
Steven Chu
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Svante Arrhenius
Sven Wingqvist
T
Thabit ibn Qurra
Thales of Miletus
Theodor Schwann
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Thomas Alva Edison
Thomas Burnet
Thomas Hunt Morgan
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Midgeley Jr.
Thomas Newcomen
Thomas Willis
Tim Noakes
Timothy John Berners-Lee
Trofim Lysenko
Tycho Brahe
U
V
Virginia Apgar
Vladimir Vernadsky
W
Walter Schottky
Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe
Werner Heisenberg
Wernher Von Braun
Wilbur and Orville Wright
Wilhelm Ostwald
Wilhelm Röntgen
Wilhelm Wundt
Willard Frank Libby
Willard Gibbs
William Bayliss
William Buckland
William Harvey
William Herschel
William Hopkins
William John Swainson
William Ramsay
William Smith
William Thomson
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli
Z
Famous Writers
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) English poet and playwright. Famous plays include Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice and Hamlet. Shakespeare is widely considered the seminal writer of the English language.
Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745) Anglo-Irish writer born in Dublin. Swift was a prominent satirist, essayist and author. Notable works include Gulliver’s Travels (1726), A Modest Proposal and A Tale of a Tub.
Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784) British author best known for his compilation of the English dictionary. Although not the first attempt at a dictionary, it was widely considered to be the most comprehensive – setting the standard for later dictionaries.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) German poet, playwright, and author. Notable works of Goethe include: Faust, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Elective Affinities.
Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) English author who wrote romantic fiction combined with social realism. Her novels include: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Emma (1816).
Honore de Balzac (1799 – 1850) French novelist and short story writer. Balzac was an influential realist writer who created characters of moral ambiguity – often based on his own real life examples. His greatest work was the collection of short stories La Comédie humaine.
Alexandre Dumas (1802 – 1870) French author of historical dramas, including – The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), and The Three Musketeers (1844). Also prolific author of magazine articles, pamphlets and travel books.
Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885) French author and poet. Hugo’s novels include Les Misérables, (1862) and Notre-Dame de Paris (1831).
Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) – English writer and social critic. His best-known works include novels such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and A Christmas Carol.
Charlotte Bronte (1816 – 1855) English novelist and poet, from Haworth. Her best known novel is ‘Jane Eyre’ (1847).
Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) – American poet, writer and leading member of the Transcendentalist movement. Thoreau’s “Walden” (1854) was a unique account of living close to nature.
Emily Bronte (1818 – 1848) English novelist. Emily Bronte is best known for her novel Wuthering Heights (1847), and her poetry.
George Eliot (1819 – 1880) Pen name of Mary Ann Evans. Wrote novels, The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72), and Daniel Deronda (1876)
Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910) Russian novelist and moral philosopher. Famous works include the epic novels – War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Tolstoy also became an influential philosopher with his brand of Christian pacificism.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) Russian novelist, journalist and philosopher. Notable works include Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment and The Idiot
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) Oxford mathematician and author. Famous for Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and poems like The Snark.
Mark Twain (1835 – 1910) American writer and humorist, considered the ‘father of American literature’. Famous works include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) English novelist and poet. Hardy was a Victorian realist who was influenced by Romanticism. He wrote about problems of Victorian society – in particular, declining rural life. Notable works include: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895).
Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) – Irish writer and poet. Wilde wrote humorous, satirical plays, such as ‘The Importance of Being Earnest‘ and ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’.
Kenneth Graham (1859 – 1932) Author of the Wind in the Willows (1908), a classic of children’s literature.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950) Irish playwright and wit. Famous works include: Pygmalion (1912), Man and Superman (1903) and Back to Methuselah (1921)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) British author of historical novels and plays. Most famous for his short stories about the detective – Sherlock Holmes, such as The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) and Sign of Four (1890).
Beatrix Potter (1866 – 1943) English conservationist and author of imaginative children’s books, such as the Tales of Peter Rabbit (1902).
Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922) French author. Best known for epic novel l À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927.
William Somerset Maugham 1874 – 1965) British novelist and writer. One of the most popular authors of 1930s. Notable works included The Moon and Sixpence (1916), The Razor’s Edge (1944), and Of Human Bondage (1915)
P.G.Wodehouse (1881 – 1975) English comic writer. Best known for his humorous and satirical stories about the English upper classes, such as Jeeves and Wooster and Blandings Castle.
Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941) English modernist writer, a member of the Bloomsbury group. Famous novels include Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928).
James Joyce (1882 – 1941) Irish writer from Dublin. Joyce was one of most influential modernist avant-garde writers of the Twentieth Century. His novel Ulysses (1922), was ground-breaking for its stream of consciousness style. Other works include Dubliners (1914) and Finnegans Wake (1939).
D H Lawrence (1885 – 1930) English poet, novelist and writer. Best known works include Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) – which was banned for many years.
Agatha Christie (1890 – 1976) British fictional crime writer. Many of her books focused on series featuring her detectives ‘Poirot’ and Mrs Marple.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973) – Professor of Anglo-Saxon and English at Oxford University. Tolkien wrote the best-selling mythical trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Other works include, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, and a translation of Beowulf.
Vera Brittain (1893 – 1970) British writer best known for her autobiography – Testament of Youth (1933) – sharing her traumatic experiences of the First World War.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940) American author. Iconic writer of the ‘jazz age’. Notable works include The Great Gatsby (1925), and Tender Is the Night (1934) – cautionary tales about the ‘Jazz decade’ and the American Dream based on pleasure and materialism.
Enid Blyton (1897 – 1968) British children’s writer, known for her series of children’s books – The Famous Five and The Secret Seven. Blyton wrote an estimated 800 books over 40 years.
C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963) Irish / English author and professor at Oxford University. Lewis is best known for The Chronicles of Narnia, a children’s fantasy series. Also well known as a Christian apologist.
Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961) Ground breaking modernist American writer. Famous works included For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940) and A Farewell to Arms (1929).
Vladimir Nabokov (1899 – 1977) Russian author of Lolita (1955) and Pale Fire (1962)
Barbara Cartland (1901 – 2000) One of most prolific and best selling authors of the romantic fiction genre. Some suggest she has sold over 2 billion copies worldwide.
John Steinbeck (1902 – 1968) American writer who captured the social change experienced in the US around the time of the Great Depression. Famous works include – Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952).
George Orwell (1903 – 1950) – English author. Famous works include Animal Farm, and 1984. – Both stark warnings about the dangers of totalitarian states, Orwell was also a democratic socialist who fought in the Spanish Civil War, documenting his experiences in “Homage to Catalonia” (1938).
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) Irish avant garde, modernist writer. Beckett wrote minimalist and thought provoking plays, such as ‘Waiting for Godot’ (1953) and ‘Endgame‘ (1957). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969.
Albert Camus (1913 – 1960) – French author, journalist, and philosopher. Associated with existentialism and absurdism. Famous works included The Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger and The Plague.
Roald Dahl (1916 – 1990) English author, best known for his children’s books, such as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, James and The Giant Peach and The BFG.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918 – 2008) Russian author, historian and political critic. Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 for his work in exposing the nature of Soviet totalitarianism. e.g, The Gulag Archipelago (1965-67).
J.D. Salinger (1919 – 2010) American author. Most influential novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Wrote many short stories for New Yorker magazine, such as “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”
Joseph Heller (1923 – 1999) American novelist, who wrote satirical and black comedy. His most famous work is ‘Catch 22’ (1961) – a satire on the futility of war.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927 – 2014) Colombian author. Wrote: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). Nobel Prize in Literature (1982).
Anne Frank (1929 – 1945) Dutch-Jewish diarist. Known for her diary ‘Anne Frank‘ Published posthumously by her father – recalling her life hiding from Gestapo in occupied Holland.
Salman Rushdie (1947 – ) Anglo-Indian author. His works combine elements of magic realism, satire and historical fiction – often based on Indian sub-continent. Notable works include Midnight’s Children (1981), Shame (1983) and Satanic Verses (1988).
Stephen King (1947 – ) American author of contemporary horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. One of the best selling authors of modern times.
George R.R Martin (1948 – ) American author of epic fantasy series – A Song of Ice and Fire, – his international best-selling series of fantasy, adapted for the screen as a Game of Thrones.
Douglas Adams (1952 – 2001) British writer of humorous and absure science fiction. Adams wrote a best selling trilogy (of five books) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – which began as a BBC play.
J.K.Rowling (1965 – ) British author of the Harry Potter Series – which has become the best selling book series of all time. Her first book was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997). Rowling has also published adult fiction, such as The Casual Vacancy (2012) and The Cuckoo’s Calling (2013)
Khaled Hosseini (1965 – ) Afghan born American writer. Notable works include: The Kite Runner (2003) A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) And the Mountains Echoed (2013
Poets
Homer (c. 8th Century B.C. ) Considered the greatest of the ancient Greek poets. Homer was the author of the two epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey.
Sappho ( c 570 BC) One of the first published female writers. Much of her poetry has been lost but her immense reputation has remained. Plato referred to Sappho as one of the great ten poets.
Virgil (70 BC – 19 BC) Roman poet. Wrote three epics Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the Aeneid.
Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, is one of most influential European works of literature. Dante is also called the “Father of the Italian language”.
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 – 1400) Considered the Father of English Literature. Best known for Canterbury Tales (1475).
John Milton (1608 – 1674) English poet. Best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), written in blank verse – telling the Biblical story of man’s fall. Also wrote Areopagitica (1644) in defence of free speech.
William Blake (1757 –1827) English mystic and romantic poet, wrote Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Also hand-painted many of his works.
William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) English romantic poet from Lake District, many poems related to natures, such as his Lyrical Ballads.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834) English romantic poet. Author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kublai Khan.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822) English romantic poet. Famous works include Queen Mab and Prometheus Unbound
John Keats (1795 – 1821) English Romantic Poet, best known for his Odes, such as Ode to a Nightingale, Endymion.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882) American Transcendentalist poet and writer.
Alfred Tennyson (1809 – 1892) Popular Victorian poet, wrote Charge of the Light Brigade, Ulysses, and In Memoriam A.H.H.
Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892) American poet. Wrote Leaves of Grass, a ground breaking new style of poetry.
Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) American female poet. Led secluded lifestyle, and left legacy of many short vivid poems, often on themes of death and immortality.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941) Indian poet. Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature for his work – Gitanjali.
Robert Frost (1874 – 1963) – Influential American poet, one of most highly regarded of the Twentieth Century. Most famous work ‘The Road Not Taken’ (1916)
Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014 ) – Modern American poet and writer.
Other categories of writers:
More Famous Poets – Other poets, including W.B. Yeats, Wilfred Owen, Rumi, Czeslaw Milosz
Famous philosophers – including Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Baruch Spinoza, Rene Descartes, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Paine and David Hume.
Famous Economist writers – including Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman.
Political / social activist writers – People who have written about political and human rights. Including Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, Nelson Mandela, William Wilberforce and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Spiritual writers – including St Teresa of Avila, Sri Aurobindo, Meister Eckhart, Desiderius Erasmus, St Therese of Lisieux and Swami Vivekananda.
Female authors – Female authors, including the Bronte sisters, Maya Angelou, Jane Austen and J.K. Rowling.