Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer of prose, poetry, essays and political pamphlets, and is probably the best-known satirist in the English language. His novel Gulliver’s Travels is one of the landmarks of world literature.

Mary Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) was an English author and the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley. A political radical, Frankenstein is her most famous work.

Saki

Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916) was a British author best known by his pen name Saki. Although he wrote two novels and several political sketches – most notably The Westminster Alice, a parody authorized by Carroll’s publishers – it is his large output of satirical short stories for which he is remembered, and is still considered one of the masters of the genre.

Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi

Born in 1934, Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi is Professor of Music History at the University of Palermo. He has written several books on opera and major composers such as Rossini, Stravinsky, Berg and Mussorgsky. The adopted son of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, he is the italian editor of Lampedusa’s works and executor of his estate.

Tibor Fischer

Tibor Fischer was born in Stockport of Hungarian parents. Brought up in South London, he was educated at Cambridge and worked as a journalist. He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his first novel, Under the Frog, which also won a Betty Trask Award, and he was nominated as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Subsequent works include The Thought Gang, The Collector Collector, Don’t Read this Book if You’re Stupid and Voyage to the End of the Room.

Read an interview with Tibor Fischer here

E. Nesbit

English author and poet Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) is best remembered as E. Nesbit, the name she used for all of her children’s books and stories. She achieved fame for Five Children and It, The House of Arden and The Railway Children, which has become one of the most loved classics of English literature.

Ludwig Van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) remains one of the most famous and influential composers and pianist of all time. His hearing began to deteriorate in the late 1790s, yet he continued to compose, conduct and perform even after becoming completely deaf.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93) was a Russian composer of the Romantic era, who wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.

Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) was a novelist, playwright and poet, and arguably the most eminent figure in Spanish literature. He is best known for Don Quixote, which is one of the most widely read classics in world literature.

Bram Stoker

A prolific writer and an important figure of the London theatre world, Bram Stoker (1847–1912) is now best known for his 1897 novel Dracula, in which he established many of the enduring elements of the western vampire myth.