Curated category
English essayists
- 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…
- 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…
- Alexander PopeAlexander Pope was born on the 21st of May 1688 at six forty-five pm in London. His parents were Catholics during a time when England faced revolution.
- John MiltonJohn Milton was born on the 9th of December 1608 in Bread Street, London. His father, also named John Milton, had moved to London around 1583 after being…
- Samuel JohnsonOn the 18th of September 1709, a baby named Samuel Johnson did not cry when he was born in Lichfield. His mother Sarah had been forty years old during the…
- W. H. AudenWystan Hugh Auden was born at 54 Bootham in York, England, on the 21st of February 1907. His father George Augustus Auden worked as a physician while his…
- James Wood (critic)James Douglas Graham Wood was born on the 1st of November 1965 in Durham, England. His father Dennis William Wood worked as a minister and professor of…
- Mary WollstonecraftMary Wollstonecraft was born on the 27th of April 1759 in Spitalfields, London. Her father Edward John Wollstonecraft squandered a comfortable family income…
- 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.
- Daniel DefoeDaniel Defoe was born in Fore Street, London, during the summer or early autumn of 1660. His family name was originally Foe, and he later added the…
- Francis BaconFrancis Bacon was born on the 22nd of January 1561 at York House near Strand in London. He entered Trinity College at the University of Cambridge on the 5th…
- Thomas Robert MalthusThomas Robert Malthus was born on the 14th of February 1766 at The Rookery. This small elegant mansion stood near Dorking in Surrey.
- John DrydenJohn Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire. His father Erasmus Dryden belonged to a landowning gentry family…
- 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.
- Edward GibbonEdward Gibbon was born on the 8th of May 1737 in the town of Putney, Surrey. He entered the world as a sickly infant who described himself later as "a puny…
- John AubreyJohn Aubrey was born on the 12th of March 1626 at Easton Piers, a manor house near Kington St Michael in Wiltshire. He grew up as an only child within a…
- Jane Ellen HarrisonJane Ellen Harrison was born in Cottingham, Yorkshire on the 9th of September 1850. Her father worked as a timber merchant while her mother died of puerperal…