American novelist and playwright, and the first American author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The award reflected his ground-breaking work in the 1920s on books such as Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. He was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize for 'Arrowsmith', but declined it because he believed that the Pulitzer was meant for books that celebrated American wholesomeness and his novels, which were quite critical, should not be awarded the prize.
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Novelist, born in New York, and took to the sea, which led to strange adventures, including an imprisonment of some months in the hands of cannibals in the Marquesas Islands. His first novel, Typee [1846], is based upon this experience. Omoo followed in 1847, Moby Dick, or the White Whale, a powerful sea story, in 1852, and Israel Potter in 1855. He was a very unequal writer, but occasionally showed considerable power and ...

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 ...

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 ...