Journalist and novelist, son of a butcher in St. Giles, where he was born His father being a Dissenter, he was educated at a Dissenting college at Newington with the view of becoming a Presbyterian minister. He joined the army of Monmouth, and on its defeat was fortunate enough to escape punishment. In 1688 he joined William III. Before settling down to his career as a political writer, Defoe had been engaged in various enterprises as a hosier, a merchant-adventurer to Spain and Portugal, and a brickmaker, all of which proved so unsuccessful that he had to fly from his creditors. Having become known to the government as an effective writer, and employed by them, he was ...

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English author and poet. Born in Bombay, British India (now Mumbai), he is best known for his works of fiction The Jungle Book [1894] (a collection of stories which includes Rikki-Tikki-Tavi), Kim [1901] (a tale of adventure), many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King [1888]; and his poems, including Mandalay [1890], Gunga Din [1890], and If— [1910]. He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works speak to a versatile and luminous narrative gift.
Kipling was one of ...

American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. He is best remembered as the author of White Fang and Call of the Wild, set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen", and The Sea Wolf, of the San Francisco Bay area. London was a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the rights of workers and ...

French author who helped pioneer the science-fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Journey to the Center of the Earth (written in 1864), From the Earth to the Moon [1865], Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea [1869-1870], and Around the World in Eighty Days [1873]. Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before navigable aircraft and practical submarines were invented, and before any means of space travel had been devised. Consequently he is often referred to as the "Father of science fiction", along with H. G. Wells. Verne is the second most translated author of all time, only behind Agatha ...