Eric Knight

Born in Britain, Eric Knight (1897–1943) emigrated to the States as a teenager, where he wrote adult novels and stories for young readers, many of them set in his native Yorkshire, until his untimely death in a wartime accident.

Gioachino Rossini

Gioachino Antonio Rossini (1792–1868) was an Italian composer best known for the operas Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) and La cenerentola (Cinderella).

Modest Mussorgsky

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839–1881) was a Russian composer during the romantic period. Many of his works, such as the opera Boris Godunov, were inspired by Russian history and folklore among other nationalist themes.

Charlotte Brontë

The elder sister of Emily and Anne, Charlotte Brontë (1816–55) is most famous for her novel Jane Eyre. Based partly on her own experiences, this ground-breaking work introduced one of the best-loved heroines in modern literature and ranks as one of the most popular English novels of all time.

Leoš Janáček

Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) was a Czech composer and teacher. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to the study of national folklore music, which greatly influenced his work throughout his life.

Antal Szerb

Antal Szerb (1901–45) was a Hungarian novelist, scholar, literary historian and translator whose works were greeted with widespread appreciation but who faced ever-increasing hostility and persecution because of his Jewish background. He tragically died in a concentration camp, beaten to death by camp guards, at the age of forty-three.

Elaine Feinstein

Born in Bootle, Lancashire, Elaine Feinstein has written fifteen novels, nineteen collections of poetry, as well as several biographies and radio plays. Her biography Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet (2001) was shortlisted for the Marsh Biography Prize. Her Collected Poems and Translations (2002) was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Appointed to the Council of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007, she has served as a judge for the Gregory Awards, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Costa Poetry Prize, and has been chairman of the judges for the T.S. Eliot Prize.

Read an interview with Elaine Feinstein here

Marquis de Sade

The Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) was a French aristocrat famous for his libertine lifestyle. He spent many years in various prisons and insane asylums. Sade’s works are notorious for their combination of philosophical discourse and pornography.

Theodor Storm

A lawyer and writer, Theodor Storm (1817–88) was the author of many poems, novellas and short stories influenced by the Romantic movement, the most famous of which are Immensee and The Dykemaster.

Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) was a Polish-born English novelist, whose works, most famously Heart of Darkness, took a cynical view of imperialism when the British Empire was at its apogee.