Bhasa – Nonetheless, to Bhasa are credited the earliest plays in Sanskrit, although until copies were discovered in Kerala in 1912 these works were thought to have been lost.
Edgar Allan Poe – Poe harbored conflicting desires – writing and soldiering. He published his first collection of poems in 1827, and joined the army the same year.
Emily Dickinson – Emily had begun writing as a teenager … since she didn’t have many friends, a natural outlet for all that repressed emotion.
F. Scott Fitzgerald – No other writer captured the heady joy and sharp glamour of the era the way Scott Fitzgerald could.
Geoffrey Chaucer – For his magnum opus, Chaucer had planned on 120 satirical, witty stories for the ‘Tales,’ ambitious even by today’s standards.
H. G. Wells – found a way to turn all this reading stuff to use, winning a scholarship to the Normal School of Science where he studied physics, chemistry, astronomy, and biology, along with more mundane subjects.
Homer – Regardless of the differing styles of the two lengthy narrative poems, scholars are (mostly) agreed that these were likely the work of one person.
James Joyce – he was the eldest of ten children. His father John was a talented vocalist, reputedly one of the finest tenors in the land, but didn’t provide a stable household.
Jane Austen – Jane began writing stories – eventually novels – in a series of notebooks in the mid-1890s. They were, in effect, witty parodies of the romantic claptrap of the day.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – A lawyer who turned from the dark side to the light of great literature, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in August 1749 AD.
Karel Capek – Karel became enamored with the visual arts as a teen, especially Cubism, but having little talent, turned to the study of philosophy.
Li Bai – All of which Li Bai incorporated in his poetry; indeed, being one of the most famous tipplers in China’s long tradition of artistic imbibers.
Margaret Cavendish – First, at a time when it just wasn’t done to print the writings of a woman, most of hers saw publication due to her well-connected husband.
Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy – The genre description of “fairy tale” may be taken from the title of her book ‘Les Contes des Fees.’ Many salons of that time were writing stories about fairies.
Mark Twain – In the process, Twain honed a distinctive style: friendly, conversational, often satirical, insightful, and funny.
Mary Shelley – The years leading up to the publication of her most famous work, ‘Frankenstein,’ or ‘The Modern Prometheus,’ are worthy of the most Gothic tragedy of the era.
Miguel de Cervantes – Seemingly not much of a legacy… and yet ‘Don Quixote,’ translated into 60 languages, is considered civilization’s first best seller.
Murasaki Shikibu – likely began writing in earnest to avoid the tedium, although she may well have started work on ‘Genji’ before arriving.
Ovid – Ovid followed this with more love poetry, and eventually produced ‘Metamorphoses,’ his most ambitious poem – 12,000 lines in dactylic hexameter chronicling history to the death of Julius Caesar.
Qu Yuan – Considered one of the four great poets of civilization, he is best known for his volume of poetry ‘Chu Ci’ (“Songs of the South”).
Rabindranath Tagore – Rabindranath would churn out dozens of stories and poems, all quickly translated into European languages and popular worldwide.
William Shakespeare – Over the course of his 20-year career as a playwright, Shakespeare wrote tragedies and comedies that capture a range of the human experience – greed, lust, blood, ambition, betrayal, and braggadocio.
