Authors Flashcards
We won't blame you if you haven't read ALL of the books mentioned in this deck, but at the very least, learn to identify major writers and their best works.
Who is:
Harper Lee
- American author of the 20th century
- Her first novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was published in 1960 and has since become a classic of American literature
- The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1962
- Her second novel, Go Set A Watchmen, was published in 2015.
Who is:
J.D. Salinger
- American author of the 20th century most famous for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye
- From the mid-sixties on, he was reclusive and did not publish any new material; he died in 2010
Who is:
F. Scott Fitzgerald
- American author of the 20th century, part of the Jazz Age and a member of the Lost Generation of American writers in Paris in the 1920s
- He wrote five novels in all, one of them published posthumously
- His most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, was published in 1925
- “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is one of his many short stories
Who is:
William Shakespeare
- English poet and playwright of the 16th and 17th centuries, typically regarded as the greatest Anglophone writer
- He wrote over 150 sonnets, and his plays include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, and Othello
- A large number of familiar English sayings and expressions come from his works
- He spent most of his life in London, where he managed the Globe Theatre
Who is:
Homer
- Ancient Greek poet, likely to have lived in the 7th or 8th centuries B.C., and author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are central to the history of literature
- It is believed that he was blind
Who is:
Miguel de Cervantes
- Spanish writer of the 16th and 17th centuries, greatly influential to the Spanish language in general
- His masterpiece was Don Quixote, published in two volumes (in 1605 and 1615)
- Don Quixote is considered the first modern European novel and a classic of Western literature
Who is:
Sophocles
- Ancient Greek playwright of the 5th century B.C.
- One of three Greek authors of tragedies, along with Aeschylus and Euripides, whose plays have survived
- His most famous tragedies feature Antigone and Oedipus
Who is:
Ernest Hemingway
- American author of the 20th century and a member of the Lost Generation of writers in the 1920s
- Known for his economical, simple writing and adventurous lifestyle, his novels include The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, and A Farewell to Arms
- He won both a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a Nobel Prize in Literature
Who is:
John Steinbeck
- American author of the 20th century
- He is best known for his novels Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden
- He won both a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a Nobel Prize in Literature
Who is:
William Faulkner
- 20th-century American author most known for his novels The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying
- He won two Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction and a Nobel Prize in Literature
Who is:
Toni Morrison
- American professor and writer of the 20th and 21st centuries most known for her novels Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Song of Solomon
- In 2012 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Who is:
J.R.R. Tolkien
20th-century British writer and author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Who is:
Herman Melville
American author of the 19th century most known for his novel Moby Dick
Who is:
Nathaniel Hawthorne
American author of the 19th century most known for his novel The Scarlet Letter
Who is:
Henry David Thoreau
- American abolitionist, author, philosopher, and transcendentalist of the 19th century
- He is best known for his essay “Civil Disobedience” and his book Walden
Who is:
Charles Dickens
- English author of the 19th century whose work was immensely popular during his lifetime
- Seen as one of the great writers of the Victorian era, his works include A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield
Who is:
J.K. Rowling
British writer best known as the author of the widely read Harry Potter series, the best-selling book series in history
Who is:
Stephen King
- American author and columnist of the 20th and 21st centuries whose popular suspense novels and short stories have frequently been adapted into films
- Some of his notable works include The Shining, Carrie, Misery, and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
Who are:
Emily and Charlotte Brontë
- English authors of the 19th century
- Emily most famously wrote Wuthering Heights and her sister Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre
Who is:
Jane Austen
- English novelist of the 18th and 19th centuries
- She was noted for her irony and social commentary, as well as for the love stories she crafted
- Notable works include Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma
Name the author:
- American author of the 20th century
- Her first novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was published in 1960 and has since become a classic of American literature
- The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1962
Harper Lee
Name the author:
- American author of the 20th century most famous for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye
- From the mid-sixties on, he was reclusive and did not publish any new material; he died in 2010
J.D. Salinger
Name the author:
- American author of the 20th century, part of the Jazz Age and a member of the Lost Generation of American writers in Paris in the 1920s
- He wrote five novels in all, one of them published posthumously
- His most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, was published in 1925
- “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is one of his many short stories
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Name the author:
- English poet and playwright of the 16th and 17th centuries, typically regarded as the greatest Anglophone writer
- He wrote over 150 sonnets, and his plays include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, and Othello
- A large number of familiar English sayings and expressions come from his works
- He spent most of his life in London, where he managed the Globe Theatre
William Shakespeare
Name the author:
- Ancient Greek poet, likely to have lived in the 7th or 8th centuries B.C., and author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are central to the history of literature
- It is believed that he was blind
Homer
Name the author:
- Spanish writer of the 16th and 17th centuries, greatly influential to the Spanish language in general
- His masterpiece was Don Quixote, published in two volumes (in 1605 and 1615)
- Don Quixote is considered the first modern European novel and a classic of Western literature
Miguel de Cervantes
Name the author:
- Ancient Greek playwright of the 5th century B.C.
- One of three Greek authors of tragedies, along with Aeschylus and Euripides, whose plays have survived
- His most famous tragedies feature Antigone and Oedipus
Sophocles
Name the author:
- American author of the 20th century and a member of the Lost Generation of writers in the 1920s
- Known for his economical, simple writing and adventurous lifestyle, his novels include The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, and A Farewell to Arms
- He won both a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a Nobel Prize in Literature
Ernest Hemingway
Name the author:
- American author of the 20th century
- He is best known for his novels Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden
- He won both a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a Nobel Prize in Literature
John Steinbeck
Name the author:
- 20th-century American author most known for his novels The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying
- He won two Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction and a Nobel Prize in Literature
William Faulkner
Name the author:
- American professor and writer of the 20th and 21st centuries most known for her novels Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Song of Solomon
- In 2012 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Toni Morrison
Name the author:
20th-century British writer and author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy
J.R.R. Tolkien
Name the author:
American author of the 19th century most known for his novel Moby Dick
Herman Melville
Name the author:
American author of the 19th century most known for his novel The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Name the author:
- American abolitionist, author, philosopher, and transcendentalist of the 19th century
- He is best known for his essay “Civil Disobedience” and his book Walden
Henry David Thoreau
Name the author:
- English author of the 19th century whose work was immensely popular during his lifetime
- Seen as one of the great writers of the Victorian era, his works include A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
Name the author:
- English authors of the 19th century
- Emily most famously wrote Wuthering Heights and her sister Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre
Emily and Charlotte Brontë
Name the author:
British writer best known as the author of the widely read Harry Potter series, the best-selling book series in history
J.K. Rowling
Name the author:
- American author and columnist of the 20th and 21st centuries whose popular suspense novels and short stories have frequently been adapted into films
- Some of his notable works include The Shining, Carrie, Misery, and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
Stephen King
Name the author:
- English novelist of the 18th and 19th centuries
- She was noted for her irony and social commentary, as well as for the love stories she crafted
- Notable works include Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma
Jane Austen
Who is:
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- American writer of the 20th century whose works mixed satire and fantasy
- He is best known for his novels Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five
Who is:
Arthur Miller
- American playwright of the 20th and 21st centuries whose plays include Death of a Salesman, All My Sons, and The Crucible
- A Pulitzer Prize winner, he was married for five years to Marilyn Monroe and known for having testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee
Who is:
Tennessee Williams
American writer of the 20th century best known for his plays, including A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and The Rose Tattoo
Who is:
Tom Stoppard
- Czech-born English playwright best known for his plays Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Travesties, and The Real Thing
- He co-wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for the 1998 movie Shakespeare in Love
Who is:
Henrik Ibsen
- Norwegian playwright of the 19th century whose plays include A Doll’s House, An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, and Hedda Gabler
- He is regarded as one of the founders of Modernism in drama
Who is:
Jean-Paul Sartre
- French philosopher of the 20th century known as a central figure of existentialism
- His works include Being and Nothingness and the play No Exit
Who is:
Albert Camus
- Algerian-born French author and philosopher of the 20th century
- His works include L’Étranger, La Peste, and La Chute
Who is:
Charles Baudelaire
- French poet of the 19th century most famous for his collection of poems called Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil)
- His verse is known for its morbid beauty, depictions of the fleeting nature of modernity, and its use of and mixture with prose
- He influenced later poets such as Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine
Who is:
Victor Hugo
French Romantic author of the 19th century best known for his collection of poetry La Légende des siècles and his novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Who is:
Jules Verne
- French author of the 19th century whose novels laid the groundwork for science fiction
- His works include Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Journey to the Center of the Earth
Who is:
Gustave Flaubert
- French author of the 19th century known for his perfectionist writing style and his novels Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education
- He served as a guardian and mentor to Guy de Maupassant
Who is:
Leo Tolstoy
- Russian writer of the 19th and early 20th centuries who is regarded as one of the great Russian novelists along with Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- He is best known for his novels Anna Karenina and War and Peace
Who is:
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Russian author of the 19th century who, along with Leo Tolstoy, is regarded as one of the greatest Russian novelists
- Among his most famous works are The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and The Idiot
Who is:
Stendhal
- The pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle, a 19th-century French writer, known for his psychologically realistic works
- He is best known for his novels The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma
Who is:
Honoré de Balzac
- 19th-century French novelist known for his complex, fully human characters and regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature
- His most famous work, La Comédie humaine, is a long series of novels and short stories about modern French society after the fall of Napoleon
Who is:
Guy de Maupassant
- French writer of the 19th century best known for playing a fundamental role in the development of the modern short story
- A protégé of Flaubert, his works include the novel Pierre et Jean and the stories “Boul de Suif”, “Le Horla”, and “Deux Amis”
Who is:
Friedrich Nietzsche
- German philosopher of the 19th century who subtantially influenced existentialism
- He challenged Christianity and morality and believed strongly in the idea of “life-affirmation”
Who is:
Sigmund Freud
- Austrian physician of the 19th and 20th centuries, regarded as the founder of psychoanalysis
- He was interested in the unconscious mind and developed the use of free association and theories about the Oedipus complex, sexual repression, and dreams
Who is:
Gabriel García Márquez
- Colombian writer of the 20th and 21st centuries, regarded as one of the great authors of his generation
- A recipient of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature, he is best known for his novels, which include One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Autumn of the Patriarch, and Love in the Time of Cholera
Who is:
Hunter S. Thompson
- American journalist of the 20th century, known for his eccentric lifestyle and development of Gonzo journalism, for which reporters heavily involve themselves in the action
- His most famous works include Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72
Name the author:
- American writer of the 20th century whose works mixed satire and fantasy
- He is best known for his novels Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Name the author:
- American playwright of the 20th and 21st centuries whose plays include Death of a Salesman, All My Sons, and The Crucible
- A Pulitzer Prize winner, he was married for five years to Marilyn Monroe and known for having testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee
Arthur Miller
Name the author:
American writer of the 20th century best known for his plays, including A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and The Rose Tattoo
Tennessee Williams
Name the author:
- Czech-born English playwright best known for his plays Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Travesties, and The Real Thing
- He co-wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for the 1998 movie Shakespeare in Love
Tom Stoppard
Name the author:
- Norwegian playwright of the 19th century whose plays include A Doll’s House, An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, and Hedda Gabler
- He is regarded as one of the founders of Modernism in drama
Henrik Ibsen
Name the author:
- French philosopher of the 20th century known as a central figure of existentialism
- His works include Being and Nothingness and the play No Exit
Jean-Paul Sartre
Name the author:
- Algerian-born French author and philosopher of the 20th century
- His works include L’Étranger, La Peste, and La Chute
Albert Camus
Name the author:
- French poet of the 19th century most famous for his collection of poems called Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil)
- His verse is known for its morbid beauty, depictions of the fleeting nature of modernity, and its use of and mixture with prose
- He influenced later poets such as Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine
Charles Baudelaire
Name the author:
French Romantic author of the 19th century best known for his collection of poetry La Légende des siècles and his novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Victor Hugo
Name the author:
- French author of the 19th century whose novels laid the groundwork for science fiction
- His works include Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Journey to the Center of the Earth
Jules Verne
Name the author:
- French author of the 19th century known for his perfectionist writing style and his novels Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education
- He served as a guardian and mentor to Guy de Maupassant
Gustave Flaubert
Name the author:
- Russian writer of the 19th and early 20th centuries who is regarded as one of the great Russian novelists along with Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- He is best known for his novels Anna Karenina and War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
Name the author:
- Russian author of the 19th century who, along with Leo Tolstoy, is regarded as one of the greatest Russian novelists
- Among his most famous works are The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and The Idiot
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Name the author:
- The pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle, a 19th-century French writer, known for his psychologically realistic works
- He is best known for his novels The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma
Stendhal
Name the author:
- 19th-century French novelist known for his complex, fully human characters and regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature
- His most famous work, La Comédie humaine, is a long series of novels and short stories about modern French society after the fall of Napoleon
Honoré de Balzac
Name the author:
- French writer of the 19th century best known for playing a fundamental role in the development of the modern short story
- A protégé of Flaubert, his works include the novel Pierre et Jean and the stories “Boul de Suif”, “Le Horla”, and “Deux Amis”
Guy de Maupassant
Name the author:
- German philosopher of the 19th century who subtantially influenced existentialism
- He challenged Christianity and morality and believed strongly in the idea of “life-affirmation”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Name the author:
- Austrian physician of the 19th and 20th centuries, regarded as the founder of psychoanalysis
- He was interested in the unconscious mind and developed the use of free association and theories about the Oedipus complex, sexual repression, and dreams
Sigmund Freud
Name the author:
- Colombian writer of the 20th and 21st centuries, regarded as one of the great authors of his generation
- A recipient of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature, he is best known for his novels, which include One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Autumn of the Patriarch, and Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel García Márquez
Name the author:
- American journalist of the 20th century, known for his eccentric lifestyle and development of Gonzo journalism, for which reporters heavily involve themselves in the action
- His most famous works include Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72
Hunter S. Thompson
Who is:
David Foster Wallace
- American writer regarded as one of the most influential writers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries
- Among his best-known works are the short story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and his novel Infinite Jest
- Also a well-respected nonfiction writer and professor at Pomona College, he committed suicide in 2008
Who is:
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- German author and politician of the 18th and 19th centuries, highly influential to European literature
- His works include the two-part play Faust and the novels The Sorrows of Young Werther and Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
Who is:
John Locke
- English philosopher from the 17th century who argued that governments should depend on the consent of the governed and criticized the notion of monarchs’ divine right
- Also claimed that the human mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) at birth and until experience eventually begins to write on it
- His writings greatly influenced the American Founding Fathers
Who is:
Thomas Hobbes
- English philosopher of the 17th century best known for his 1651 book Leviathan
- He is regarded as a founder of modern political philosophy
Who is:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Swiss-born French philosopher of the 18th century and one of the central figures of the Enlightenment
- He argued that humans are good in the context of nature, but corrupted by society
- Influential to modern thought and particularly to the French Revolution, he is known for his works On the Social Contract, Discourse on Inequality, Émile, and his autobiography Confessions
Who is:
Walt Whitman
- American humanist poet and journalist of the 19th century
- He is known for his use of free verse, sexuality, and celebration of the material world
- His most famous work is the collection Leaves of Grass, which contains the poem “Song of Myself”
Who is:
T.S. Eliot
- American-born English poet and playwright of the 20th century
- He is best known for his play Murder in the Cathedral and the poems “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The Waste Land”
Who is:
Emily Dickinson
- American poet of the 19th century whose short, unconventional poems were, for the most part, published posthumously
- Now considered a major American poet, she was known in her later years for being reclusive and introverted
Who is:
Langston Hughes
- American author of the 20th century primarily associated with the Harlem Renaissance
- In his writing he often depicted the black experience in the United States
- His poems include “The Weary Blues” and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
Who is:
Ralph Ellison
- American author of the 20th century best known for his novel Invisible Man, about an unnamed black man who considers himself invisible to society
- A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, he also wrote the essay collections Going to the Territory and Shadow and Act
Who is:
Ralph Waldo Emerson
- American essayist and lecturer of the 19th century and a major leader of Trascendentalism
- He is best known for championing individualism and for his essay Self-Reliance
Who is:
Virginia Woolf
- English author of the 20th century known as a modernist, particularly for her adoption of stream-of-consciousness writing
- Her major works include the essay A Room of One’s Own and the novels To the Lighthouse and Orlando
Who is:
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- English poet of the 19th century who was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and highly popular during his time
- His works include “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “Crossing the Bar”
- He wrote the famous lines “‘Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all”
Who is:
Truman Capote
- American author of the 20th century whose works have frequently been adapted into films or TV dramas
- He is best known for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood, about the murder of a Kansas family
- His childhood friend Harper Lee helped him research and write In Cold Blood
Who is:
Mark Twain
- The pen name of Samuel Clemens, an American humorist and author of the 19th and 20th centuries
- He is best known for his novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Who is:
Machado de Assis
- Brazilian author of the 19th and 20th centuries, regarded as one of the greatest writers in Brazilian literature
- His major works include Dom Casmurro, Quincas Borba, and The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
Who is:
Jorge Luis Borges
- Argentinian writer and poet of the 20th century known for his short stories which combine myth, fantasy, magical realism, and philosophy
- Some of his most famous works include The Aleph, Ficciones, and Los Conjurados
Who is:
George Orwell
- The pen name of Eric Blair, an English author of the 20th century known for his witty social commentary
- His most famous works are Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopian social science fiction novel depicting totalitarianism
Who is:
Rudyard Kipling
- English writer of the 19th and 20th centuries who wrote extensively about British imperialism
- His works include the poems “The White Man’s Burden” and “Gunga Din”, the novella “The Man Who Would Be King”, and the collection The Jungle Book
Who is:
René Descartes
- French philosopher of the 17th century who was fundamental to modern philosophy and the Scientific Revolution
- Well versed in math as well, the Cartesian coordinate system is named after him
- He is best known for the statement “I think, therefore I am”
Name the author:
- American writer regarded as one of the most influential writers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries
- Among his best-known works are the short story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and his novel Infinite Jest
- Also a well-respected nonfiction writer and professor at Pomona College, he committed suicide in 2008
David Foster Wallace
Name the author:
- German author and politician of the 18th and 19th centuries, highly influential to European literature
- His works include the two-part play Faust and the novels The Sorrows of Young Werther and Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Name the author:
- English philosopher from the 17th century who argued that governments should depend on the consent of the governed and criticized the notion of monarchs’ divine right
- Also claimed that the human mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) at birth and until experience eventually begins to write on it
- His writings greatly influenced the American Founding Fathers
John Locke
Name the author:
- English philosopher of the 17th century best known for his 1651 book Leviathan
- He is regarded as a founder of modern political philosophy
Thomas Hobbes
Name the author:
- Swiss-born French philosopher of the 18th century and one of the central figures of the Enlightenment
- He argued that humans are good in the context of nature, but corrupted by society
- Influential to modern thought and particularly to the French Revolution, he is known for his works On the Social Contract, Discourse on Inequality, Émile, and his autobiography Confessions
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Name the author:
- American humanist poet and journalist of the 19th century
- He is known for his use of free verse, sexuality, and celebration of the material world
- His most famous work is the collection Leaves of Grass, which contains the poem “Song of Myself”
Walt Whitman
Name the author:
- American-born English poet and playwright of the 20th century
- He is best known for his play Murder in the Cathedral and the poems “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The Waste Land”
T.S. Eliot
Name the author:
- American poet of the 19th century whose short, unconventional poems were, for the most part, published posthumously
- Now considered a major American poet, she was known in her later years for being reclusive and introverted
Emily Dickinson
Name the author:
- American author of the 20th century primarily associated with the Harlem Renaissance
- In his writing he often depicted the black experience in the United States
- His poems include “The Weary Blues” and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
Langston Hughes
Name the author:
- American author of the 20th century best known for his novel Invisible Man, about an unnamed black man who considers himself invisible to society
- A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, he also wrote the essay collections Going to the Territory and Shadow and Act
Ralph Ellison
Name the author:
- American essayist and lecturer of the 19th century and a major leader of Trascendentalism
- He is best known for championing individualism and for his essay Self-Reliance
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Name the author:
- English author of the 20th century known as a modernist, particularly for her adoption of stream-of-consciousness writing
- Her major works include the essay A Room of One’s Own and the novels To the Lighthouse and Orlando
Virginia Woolf
Name the author:
- English poet of the 19th century who was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and highly popular during his time
- His works include “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “Crossing the Bar”
- He wrote the famous lines “‘Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Name the author:
- American author of the 20th century whose works have frequently been adapted into films or TV dramas
- He is best known for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood, about the murder of a Kansas family
- His childhood friend Harper Lee helped him research and write In Cold Blood
Truman Capote
Name the author:
- The pen name of Samuel Clemens, an American humorist and author of the 19th and 20th centuries
- He is best known for his novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain
Name the author:
- Brazilian author of the 19th and 20th centuries, regarded as one of the greatest writers in Brazilian literature
- His major works include Dom Casmurro, Quincas Borba, and The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
Machado de Assis
Name the author:
- Argentinian writer and poet of the 20th century known for his short stories which combine myth, fantasy, magical realism, and philosophy
- Some of his most famous works include The Aleph, Ficciones, and Los Conjurados
Jorge Luis Borges
Name the author:
- The pen name of Eric Blair, an English author of the 20th century known for his witty social commentary
- His most famous works are Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, a satirical novel depicting totalitarianism
George Orwell
Name the author:
- English writer of the 19th and 20th centuries who wrote extensively about British imperialism
- His works include the poems “The White Man’s Burden” and “Gunga Din”, the novella “The Man Who Would Be King”, and the collection The Jungle Book
Rudyard Kipling
Name the author:
- French philosopher of the 17th century who was fundamental to modern philosophy and the Scientific Revolution
- Well versed in math as well, the Cartesian coordinate system is named after him
- He is best known for the statement “I think, therefore I am”
René Descartes
Who is:
Vladimir Nabokov
- Russian-born American writer of the 20th century who wrote at first in Russian and later in English
- He is known for such works as the novels Lolita, Pale Fire, and The Defense, and the memoir Speak, Memory
Who is:
Dylan Thomas
- Welsh poet of the 20th century known for his rhythmic verse and turbulent lifestyle
- His works include the radio dramas Under Milk Wood and A Child’s Christmas in Wales, but he is most famous for the beginning of one poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night”
Who is:
Robert Frost
- American poet of the 19th and 20th centuries, celebrated by critics and readers alike and noted for his realistic treatment of rural life in America
- Some of his poems include “Mending Wall”, “Acquainted with the Night”, and “The Road Not Taken”
Who is:
Edgar Allen Poe
- American author and poet of the 19th century known for his macabre horror stories and for establishing the detective fiction genre with his mysteries
- His best-known works include the poem “The Raven” and the story “The Fall of the House of Usher”
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the Brothers Grimm
- Jacob and Wilhelm, German siblings, scholars, and authors of the 18th and 19th centuries
- They collected folklore and published their collections, which included such classics as “Hansel and Gretel”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Rumpelstiltskin”, “Snow White”, and “Cinderella”
Who is:
Dr. Seuss
- The pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel, an American illustrator and author of the 20th century
- His children’s books are celebrated, and they include The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Green Eggs and Ham, and Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
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Maurice Sendak
- 20th and 21st-century American author and illustrator of children’s books
- His best-known works are Where the Wild Things Are, Outside Over There, and In the Night Kitchen
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Roald Dahl
- British author of the 20th century best known for his children’s stories
- His works include Fantastic Mr Fox, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Witches
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Rodgers and Hammerstein
- A 20th-century American musical theatre writing team; their first names were Richard and Oscar
- Richard composed the music and Oscar the lyrics
- Their best-known musicals are The Sound of Music and The King and I
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Immanuel Kant
- German philosopher from the 18th century whose major work is Critique of Pure Reason
- He aimed to unite reason and experience, as in his mind metaphysics had not arrived at answers on important topics such as free will, God, and the soul
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C.S. Lewis
Irish author and academic of the 20th century, best known for his works The Allegory of Love, The Screwtape Letters, The Space Trilogy, and The Chronicles of Narnia