Frederick McCarthy Forsyth is an English author, journalist, spy, and occasional political commentator. Forsyth decided to write a novel using similar research techniques to those used in journalism. His first full-length novel, The Day of the Jackal, was published in 1971. It became an international bestseller and gained its author the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. In this book, the Or... Read More
Daphne Du Maurier, also known as ‘Lady Browning’, was a British writer and playwright born on 13th May 1907 in London. She belonged to a creative family where her father and mother both were actors, her uncle was a magazine editor and her grandfather was a writer. This became the base for her literary talent as she started writing when she was very young. As a child, she knew how to stay in the... Read More
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, was an English author and playwright. Although she is classed as a romantic novelist, her stories have been described as "moody and resonant" with overtones of the paranormal. Because her childhood contained many literary and artistic experiences, it was not a surprise that Du Maurier had a very vivid imagination and a profound love for writing and reading... Read More
Daphne du Maurier was a famous English writer and playwright. Her best-known works are Rebecca and The Birds, both of which have been adapted into films by Alfred Hitchcock. She was a prominent literary name in England and was the grand-daughter of the famed cartoonist, George du Maurier. Given her exposure to literary and artistic accomplishments during childhood, it is no surprise that du Mau... Read More
Daphne du Maurier’s novels are famous for their passion, tension and alarmingly candid psychological takes on men and women, often trapped in unhealthily obsessive relationships. Her writing was noted as being so strongly cinematic that Alfred Hitchcock made three films based on her work: Jamaica Inn, The Birds and Rebecca, while Don’t Look Now, the classic horror film by Nicolas Roeg, was base... Read More
Daphne was born into a creative and successful family. Her grandfather was the brilliant artist and writer George du Maurier and her father was Gerald du Maurier, the most famous actor-manager and matinee idol of his day. Her mother, Muriel Beaumont, was also an actress. In 1932 Daphne du Maurier married Frederick Browning, a military man, and they had three children. She lived at Menabilly, th... Read More
British author Daphne du Maurier published her first novel in 1931. From that point on, she produced a variety of novels, short stories, and non-fiction books. This lesson will look at her life and works. It will also define Gothic literature. Author Frank Baker believed that du Maurier had plagiarised his novel The Birds in her short story "The Birds. Du Maurier had been working as a reader fo... Read More
Daphne du Maurier is one of the most successful and prolific authors of the 20th century, with a writing career that spanned more than 40 years. During World War II, though, Browning was stationed in France and du Maurier focused on her second love: Menabilly. She leased the house while Browning was still in France, in spite of the fact that it was almost completely dilapidated. Soon after her... Read More
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, was an English author and playwright. Although she is classed as a romantic novelist, her stories have been described as "moody and resonant" with overtones of the paranormal. Her bestselling works were not at first taken seriously by critics, but have since earned an enduring reputation for the narrative craft. She wrote in a variety of genres and styles;... Read More
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist. In 1983 Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the UK's senior literary organisation. In June 2007, Queen Elizabeth II knighted him for his services to literature. The enormous ambition required by a project of those dimensions is evident in the complex intermixture of themes in The Ground Beneath Her... Read More
Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born British writer whose allegorical novels examine historical and philosophical issues by means of surreal characters, brooding humour, and an effusive and melodramatic prose style. His treatment of sensitive religious and political subjects made him a controversial figure. In 1983 Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the UK's senior lit... Read More
Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay in 1947. His second novel, the critically acclaimed and award-winning Midnight's Children, was published in 1991. Among its honours, it was pronounced the 'Booker of the Bookers,' which recognized it as the best example of that illustrious prize. Malcolm Bradley in The Modern British Novel pronounced the book "a new start for the late-twentieth-century novel."... Read More
Salman Rushdie was the son of a prosperous Muslim businessman in India. He was educated at Rugby School and the University of Cambridge, where he received an M.A. degree in history in 1968. Throughout most of the 1970s, he worked in London as an advertising copywriter. His first published novel, Grimus, appeared in 1975. The Enchantress of Florence opens with a traveller approaching Sikri, the... Read More
Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist best known for the novels Midnight's Children. He studied in India and England, reading History at King's College, Cambridge. His first novel, Grimus, was published in 1975. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent. He combines magical realism with historical fiction; his work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions, and migra... Read More
Iain Banks was a Scottish author. He wrote mainstream fiction under the name Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks, including the initial of his adopted middle name Menzies. The Algebraist, like much of Banks's sci-fi, is a dense character-driven epic complete with alien races, warring cultures, interstellar travel, and humour. The novel takes place in 4034. With the assistance of oth... Read More
Iain Banks was born in Fife in 1954 and was educated at Stirling University, where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. He came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. His first science fiction novel, Consider Phlebas, was published in 1987. He continued to write both mainstream fiction and science fi... Read More
Iain Menzies Banks was a Scottish author, captured readers’ imaginations with thrilling and dark fiction, notably with his twisted literary debut, The Wasp Factory. Considered by some an atrocity of unparalleled perversity, the controversial yet carefully crafted novel portrays the sadistic indulgences of a disturbed young narrator. William Gibson, the New York Times-bestselling author of Spook... Read More
Edwin Abbott Abbott was an English schoolmaster and theologian, most famous as the author of the social satire Flatland, widely noted for its use of mathematical dimensions in religious and political allegories. Flatland depicts a nightmarish dystopia in which living geometrical figures persecute irregular figures and condemn straight lines, or females, to perpetual ignorance and subservience.... Read More
Susan Lillian Townsend was an English writer and humorist whose work encompasses novels, plays and works of journalism. She was best known for creating the character Adrian Mole. Townsend left school at the age of 14 and worked in a variety of jobs including packer for Birds Eye, a petrol station attendant and a receptionist. Working at a petrol station allowed her the chance to read between se... Read More
Tony Victor Parsons is an English journalist, broadcaster, and author. He began his career as a music journalist on the NME, writing about punk music. Later, he wrote for The Daily Telegraph, before going on to write for Daily Mirror for 18 years. Since September 2013, he has written his current column for The Sun. He wrote the first cover story on the Clash, and features of the Sex Pistols, Bl... Read More