Curated category
20th-century English novelists
- George OrwellEric Arthur Blair arrived in the world on the 25th of June 1903 within a house in Motihari, Bengal Presidency. His family belonged to what he called the…
- J. R. R. TolkienJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on the 3rd of January 1892 in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State. His father Arthur worked as a bank manager for the British…
- Henry JamesHenry James was born at 21 Washington Place in Manhattan on the 15th of April 1843. His father Henry James Sr. inherited a fortune from his own father…
- Agatha ChristieAgatha Mary Clarissa Miller entered the world on the 15th of September 1890 in Torquay, Devon. She was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family with her…
- Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling was born on the 30th of December 1865 in Bombay, British India. His parents were Alice Kipling and John Lockwood Kipling.
- Virginia WoolfAdeline Virginia Woolf entered the world on the 25th of January 1882 within a grand house in South Kensington, London. Her father was Sir Leslie Stephen, a…
- H. G. WellsHerbert George Wells was born at Atlas House, 162 High Street in Bromley, Kent, on the 21st of September 1866. He grew up as the fourth and last child of…
- Raymond ChandlerRaymond Thornton Chandler arrived in Chicago on the 23rd of July 1888. His mother Florence Dart was originally from Ireland, and his father Maurice Benjamin…
- Joseph ConradOn the 3rd of December 1857, a boy named Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski drew his first breath in Berdychiv, Ukraine. The region belonged to the Russian…
- Neil GaimanNeil Richard Gaiman was born on the 10th of November 1960 in Portchester, Hampshire. His family background traces to Polish-Jewish and other Ashkenazi…
- A. A. MilneAlan Alexander Milne was born in Kilburn, London on the 18th of January 1882. He grew up at Henley House School where his father taught him to read by the…
- Graeme Davis (game designer)Graeme Davis began his professional life in banking before switching paths to study archaeology at the University of Durham.
- Arthur C. ClarkeArthur Charles Clarke was born on the 16th of December 1917 in Minehead, Somerset. He grew up nearby at Bishops Lydeard where he lived on a farm.
- Aldous HuxleyThe year 1894 marked the birth of Aldous Leonard Huxley in Godalming, Surrey. He entered a world already defined by scientific brilliance and literary fame.
- Antony BeevorAntony James Beevor was born in Kensington, London on the 14th of December 1946. He attended Abberley Hall School and Winchester College before joining the…
- Sheila Kaye-SmithSheila Kaye-Smith entered the world on the 4th of February 1887 in St Leonards-on-Sea. Her father worked as a physician and her mother was his wife.
- Julie AndrewsJulia Elizabeth Wells arrived in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, on the 1st of October 1935. Her mother Barbara Ward Wells had married Edward Charles Ted Wells in…
- Cavan ScottCavan Scott was born on the 18th of April 1973. He began his career writing about rural life rather than space operas or time travel.
- Hilary MantelHilary Mary Thompson was born on the 6th of July 1952 in Glossop, Derbyshire. She grew up as a Roman Catholic in the mill village of Hadfield.
- H. F. M. PrescottHilda Frances Margaret Prescott entered the world on the 22nd of February 1896 in Cheshire. Her father was Rev James Mulleneux Prescott and her mother was…
- Michael MoorcockMichael John Moorcock arrived in Mitcham, Surrey on the 18th of December 1939. The landscape of London would later shape his fiction, particularly areas like…
- Diana Wynne JonesDiana Wynne Jones was born on the 16th of August 1934 in London. Her fifth birthday arrived just as World War II began. Shortly after that celebration, she…
- Philippa GregoryPhilippa Gregory entered the world on the 9th of January 1954 in Nairobi. The city served as the capital of the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya at that time.
- Richard AldingtonEdward Godfree Aldington arrived in the world on the 8th of July 1892 within the port city of Portsmouth. He was the eldest of four children born to Albert…
- Colin WilsonColin Henry Wilson was born on the 26th of June 1931 in Leicester. His father worked in a shoe factory while his mother managed their household.
- Penelope GilliattPenelope Gilliatt was born on the 25th of March 1932 in London. Her parents were Cyril Conner and Marie Stephanie Douglass, both hailing from Newcastle upon…