Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. During his long life of 88 years, he wrote fifteen novels and one thousand poems. Considered a Victorian realist, Hardy examines the social constraints on the lives of those living in Victorian England, and criticises those beliefs, especially those relating to marriage, education and religion, that limited people's lives and caused unhappiness. Ha... Read More
Charles John Huffam Dickens, an English writer and social critic, edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms. A Christmas Carol, probably the most popul... Read More
Sir Walter Scott was born on 15 August 1771. He was the ninth child of Walter Scott, a Writer to the Signet, and Anne Rutherford. His father was a member of a cadet branch of the Scotts Clan, and his mother descended from the Haliburton family, the descent from whom granted Walter's family the hereditary right of burial in Dryburgh Abbey. As a boy, youth, and young man, Scott was fascinated by... Read More
H.G. Wells was a famous science fiction writer. The science fiction historian John Clute describes Wells as "the most important writer the genre has yet seen", and notes his work has been central to both British and American science fiction. Science fiction author and critic Algis Budrys said Wells "remains the outstanding expositor of both the hope, and the despair, which are embodied in the t... Read More
British writer and journalist Graham Bruce Hancock describes himself as an "unconventional thinker who raises controversial questions about humanity's past". Prior to 1990, his works dealt mainly with problems of economic and social development. Since 1990 his works have focused mainly on speculative connections he makes between various archaeological, historical, and cross-cultural phenomena.... Read More
Lev Grossman is an American novelist and journalist. Grossman has written for The New York Times, Wired, Time Out New York, The Wall Street Journal, and The Village Voice. He has served as a member of the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle and as the chair of the Fiction Awards Panel. In writing for Time, he has also covered the consumer electronics industry, reporting on vi... Read More
Lev Grossman is an American novelist and journalist, most notable as the author of The Magicians Trilogy: The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician's Land. Lev Grossman's first novel, Warp, was published in 1997 after he moved to New York City. The Magicians was praised as a triumph by readers and critics of both mainstream and fantasy literature. Now Grossman takes us back to Fillory,... Read More
Lev Grossman's New York Times bestseller The Magicians was published in hardcover in August 2009. The book is a dark contemporary fantasy about Quentin Coldwater, an unusually gifted young man who obsesses over Fillory, the magical land of his favourite childhood books. Unexpectedly admitted to Brakebills, a secret, exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, Quentin receives an education i... Read More
Joseph Delaney is a retired English teacher living in Lancashire. Delaney became an English teacher at the Blackpool Sixth Form College, where he helped start the Media and Film Studies Department. His first works were written under the pseudonym J. K. Haderack. Beginning with the publication of the first book of The Wardstone Chronicles in 2004, published under his real name, Delaney achieved... Read More
Joseph Henry Delaney is a British author of fantasy books and the all-time bestseller The Wardstone Chronicles. He first got the idea for the Wardstone Chronicles series when he moved to the village where he lives now and discovered there was a local boggart - ‘a man like me needs boggarts around’. He made a note in his notebook ‘a story about a man who hunts boggarts’ and years later when he h... Read More
Diane Setterfield is a British author. Before writing, Setterfield studied French Literature at The University of Bristol, earning a bachelor of arts in 1986 and a PhD in 1993. Setterfield taught at numerous schools as well as privately before leaving academia in the late 1990s. First published in 2006, The Thirteenth Tale was the author's first published book and became a New York Times No.1 b... Read More
James Patterson, in full James Brendan Patterson, Jr., is an American author, principally known for his thriller and suspense novels, whose prolific output and business savvy made him a ubiquitous presence on best-seller lists in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. By the early 1990s, Patterson had modified his approach to writing fiction, adopting a style characterized by unadorned prose,... Read More
James Patterson has had more New York Times bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977, James Patterson’s books have sold more than 240 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. Wi... Read More
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist and travel writer, most noted for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and A Child's Garden of Verses. A celebrity in his lifetime, Stevenson attracted a more negative critical response for much of the 20th century, though his reputation has been largely restored. He is currently ranked as the 26th most translated author in the world. The Strange Case of Dr... Read More
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist and travel writer. Between the years 1880 to 1887, Stevenson searched in vain for a suitable climate to accommodate his poor health. He and Fanny eventually settled in Bournemouth in July 1884 in the house named 'Skerryvore'. Stevenson was very ill throughout the years he lived at Skerryvore and often unable to leave the house. In 1885 he published... Read More
Sophie Kinsella is a writer and former financial journalist. She is the worldwide bestselling author of the Shopaholic series, Surprise Me, My Not So Perfect Life, Can You Keep a Secret?,The Undomestic Goddess, Remember Me?, Twenties Girl, I've Got Your Number and Wedding Night. Her novels have been translated into over forty languages, and Confessions of a Shopaholic, the first novel in the... Read More
Laurell Kaye Hamilton is an American fantasy and romance writer. Hamilton is generally considered one of the most influential writers in the history of paranormal fiction. Several media outlets, including USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, and Time have identified her works as significant contributions to the development of the urban fantasy genre. The Merry Gentry series is a series of urban fan... Read More
Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter is a series of urban fantasy novels, short stories, and comic books by Laurell K. Hamilton. The books have sold more than six million copies, many have made The New York Times Best Seller list. The series takes place in a parallel world in which supernatural characters like vampires and werewolves exist alongside regular humans. The series is narrated in the first pe... Read More
Laurell Kaye Hamilton is an American multi-genre writer. She is best known as the author of two series of stories, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter and Merry Gentry. As of 2009 more than 6 million copies of Anita Blake novels have been printed and several have become New York Times bestsellers. The series takes place in a parallel universe where supernatural creatures and powers are real and their p... Read More
Laurell K. Hamilton is one of the leading writers of paranormal fiction. Her New York Times-bestselling Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series centres on Anita Blake, a professional zombie raiser, vampire executioner and supernatural consultant for the police, which includes novels, short story collections, and comic books. Hamilton's writing is characterized by vivid prose, erotic sensuality, and... Read More