Curated playlist
English male essayists
- Charles DickensAt twelve, Charles Dickens pasted labels on boot blacking pots in a rat-infested warehouse.
- George OrwellGeorge Orwell was a pen name, chosen from a shortlist in 1932. He was born Eric Arthur Blair in British India.
- Percy Bysshe ShelleyPoet Percy Bysshe Shelley's body was identified partly by a copy of Keats's Lamia in his jacket.
- Alexander PopeAfter The Dunciad angered his targets, poet Alexander Pope carried pistols on walks.
- John MiltonJohn Milton sold Paradise Lost for five pounds. The blind poet handed it to a publisher in April 1667.
- Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson told his publishers he could write an English dictionary in three years, and it took eight.
- John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill was reading Greek at age three. His father was deliberately raising a genius.
- Aldous HuxleyAldous Huxley died the same day as John F. Kennedy, and almost nobody noticed. C. S. Lewis died that afternoon too.
- Daniel DefoeDaniel Defoe stood in a pillory in 1703 for a pamphlet. Years later he wrote Robinson Crusoe.
- John Russell, 1st Earl RussellLord John Russell was barely five feet five, and cartoonists mocked him for it. He still reshaped British democracy.
- Thomas Robert MalthusThomas Malthus argued that population always grows faster than the food supply.
- John DrydenHired thugs beat poet John Dryden in a London alley in December 1679.
- John RuskinA jury awarded painter Whistler one farthing in his libel suit against critic John Ruskin.
- David AttenboroughAt 11, David Attenborough sold newts to a university for three pence each.
- Edward GibbonEdward Gibbon said commanding militia grenadiers helped him understand the Roman legion.
- Russell BrandRussell Brand, the English comedian and podcaster, faced Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight on the 23rd of October 2013. Asked what a revolution would look like, he gave an answer about money. He said: "I say profit is a filthy word, because…
- Christopher HitchensOn the 8th of October 2011, Christopher Hitchens collected the Richard Dawkins Award at the Texas Freethought Convention. It was his final public appearance. Christopher Eric Hitchens, a British and American author and journalist, had been…