Authors

People who write or have written books, though not necessarily for a living. Remember, There Is No Such Thing as Notability.

The preponderance of recent authors probably reflects both the way that many, many, many authors have been lost to history, and the fact that the less memorable authors of the past don't have so many fans nowadays — or at least not enough of the Young and Nerdy persuasion. The nearly exclusive emphasis on authors of fiction reflects the basic purpose of the wiki.

See Fanfic Authors for writers specializing in fanfiction, and Author Illustrators for writers who are also painters and illustrators.

When adding examples, please put them in the correct chronological section.

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Creators:

Authors by decade:

• Authors of the 19th Century
• Authors of the 20th Century
• Authors of the 21st Century

Authors by nationality:

• British Authors
• Canadian Authors

Authors by other categorizations:

• Author Illustrators
• Coauthored Literature

Before A.D. 500 (Classical)

Regrettably, many of the oldest classics such as The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Bible (Well, sections of the Bible, especially the Old Testament) are essentially anonymous works. For the purposes of this page, "Classical" refers to all writers before the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century AD. These authors are arranged chronologically, divided by place of origin.

Chinese

• Laozi (Lao Tse, Lao-Tsu; traditionally, he is said to have lived from 600 BC to 470 BC): Early Chinese philosopher; author of Daodejing (Tao Te Ching)
• Kong Qiu (Confucius; traditionally, September 28, 551 BC - 479 BC): The most influential philosopher in the history of China; author of his Analects.
• Zhuangzi (Chuang Tsu, Master Chuang; believed to have lived c. 370 BC to c. 301 BC): Another founding figure of Taoism along with Laozi; author of Zhuangzi. Probably best known in the West for what is probably the ur-example of Schrödinger's Butterfly:
  Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi.
• Sunzi (Sun Tzu; believed to have lived sometime between 476 BC and 221 BC): Author of The Art Of War (there are others by this title, but that one's the most famous out of them).
• Shang Yang (d. 338 BC): Author of The Book of Lord Shang, foundational treatise of Legalism.

Greek

• Homer (c. 800 BC - c. 750 BC): Author/collector of The Iliad and The Odyssey, the oldest written examples of many tropes. Homer himself was blind and illiterate, so his works were transmitted by oral tradition.
• Hesiod: Rough contemporary of Homer whose Theogony set down the relationships between the gods and other beings of Classical Mythology.
• Sappho (c. 620 BC - c. 570 BC): The only surviving female poet from antiquity, she was a native of Lesbos and the reason modern-day lesbians are called lesbians.
• Aeschylus (c. 525 BC - c. 456 BC): a Greek playwright who adapted many myths and legends.
• Sophocles (c. 496 BC - c. 406 BC): a Greek playwright who adapted many myths and legends.
• Euripides (c. 480 BC - c. 406 BC): a Greek playwright who adapted many myths and legends.
• Aristophanes: Comic playwright, contemporary with Euripides and Sophocles, as well as Socrates. The Modern Major General knows his "Croaking Frogs". The opening lines of The Frogs contain what may be the earliest reference to Dead Horse Tropes, as one character beseeches another to do whatever comedy bits he pleases, but not [long list of bits apparently already considered over-used].
• Herodotus: "The Father of History", he compiled a history — aptly titled Histories — of the known world (Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians, mostly, with Scythians and barbarians around the edges) that sought to explain the causes of the Persian Wars.
• Thucydides: What Herodotus did for the Persian Wars, Thucydides did for the Peloponnesian War (but with fewer digressions, more analysis and some awesome speeches). Considered to be the first materialist with respect to history: he completely disregarded supernatural explanations for the events of the war. The result is sad, includes elements of proto-realism, and includes one of the earliest expressions of the sentiment that Might Makes Right.
• Xenophon: A slightly less famous historian, whose most famous writings cover events he experienced himself. He can be thought of as the first war correspondent. Most famous for the Anabasis, the trek of 10000 Greek mercenaries from Mesopotamia through Armenia to the Black Sea. It has inspired quite a lot of fictional knockoffs.
• Socrates: Greek philosopher. Left no writings, but was of great influence because of his effect on Plato.
• Plato: The first Greek philosopher from whom we have complete works with great influence on later thought.
• Aristotle: one of Plato's students, also a Greek philosopher; author of Poetics, oldest existing work of literary criticism, in which he identified quite a few tropes.
• Aesop: The author, or at least attributed author, of Aesop’s Fables. May never have existed.
• Menander: (c. 341 BC - c. 290) Comic playwright, second most popular author after Homer in Roman times.
• Plutarch (46 AD - 120): Late Greek biographer living under the Roman Empire who wrote Parallel Lives of prominent Greeks and Romans, ranging from the legendary Theseus and Romulus to Gaius Julius Caesar, Cicero, and Alexander the Great. More or less invented the biography and a key influence on William Shakespeare.
• Lucian of Samosata (120 AD - 200): Wrote among other works Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα (True History, or True Story), which is often called "the first known text that could be called science fiction".

Roman

• Plautus: Roman comic playwright, the author of Miles Gloriosus and thus namer of the corresponding trope.
• Publius Terentius Afer: Roman comic playwright, and the only ancient dramatist to have no Missing Episodes whatsoever nowadays.
• Julius Caesar: Roman general, politician, and dictatorm, but also one of the great Roman authors, writing in a deceptively simple style. His Commentaries on the Gallic War and The Civil War are the only surviving descriptions of a Roman general's campaigns written in his own hand. Still widely read, and often the first books studied by Latin students.
• Cicero: Roman politician, lawyer, and philosopher. Contemporary of Julius Caesar. Cicero's Cataline Orations, legal and other speeches, letters, philosophical works, and rhetorical treatises are still widely read.
• Epictetus: Roman philosopher of Greek origin, a mainstay of Stoicism.
• Virgil: Roman poet, contemporary of Augustus, who composed The Aeneid, setting out how Trojan refugees founded the greatest city in the world. Or, rather, founded the tribe that would later give birth to the founders.
• Ovid: Poet, contemporary of Virgil, who wrote The Metamorphoses, a large collection of myths dealing with love and transformations, and much other material, including a makeup manual.
• Livy: Roman historian who wrote an account of the city's history from its founding by Romulus and Remus on down to his own time (Augustus's reign).
• Petronius: Roman senator and Nero's "Arbiter of Elegance," traditionally credited with the Satyricon, a bawdy and satirical proto-novel that lampoons the nouveau-riche and lower orders alike.
• Juvenal: Roman satirist writing in the early second century AD. Treated greed, sexual immorality, and the generally terrible quality of urban life.
• Horace: Another poet active around the time of Augustus, wrote a variety of material, including satire and odes. Coined several phrases still in current use, including Carpe diem.
• Martial: The epigrammist who wrote pithy little verses about the life of the upper class around the time Juvenal was active.
• Seneca: Stoic philosopher and political animal who served as Nero's conscience and common sense, at least until Nero got tired of him.
• Suetonius: Contemporary of Juvenal and Martial who is best known for his biographies of the Emperors from Julius Caesar to Domitian. They can be described as a mixture of official record and tabloid journalism.
• Tacitus: Contemporary of Juvenal and Martial who recorded events from the death of Augustus up to the assassination of Domitian; most of his work has been lost. He and Suetonius were friends of the younger Pliny and their work form much of the basis for I, Claudius.
• Pliny: Father and (adoptive) Son, known as Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, respectively; both historians. Among many other works, the Elder Pliny undertook a work on Natural History, which is now mostly lost. Pliny the Younger is mostly known through his letters, but his description of the explosion of Mt. Vesuvius and subsequent destruction of Pompeii in 79AD (and his uncle and later adoptive father's death there) in a letter to Tacitus is considered the standard reference work on the subject.
• Vegetius: Late Roman writer, mostly known for his treatise on military matters.
• Augustine of Hippo: Bishop, theologian, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church. He is perhaps best known for living a decadent life as a youth before eventually converting to the Christian faith. His writings helped shape western philosophy and western Christian theology.

Israelite

• King David: Warrior Poet and author of almost a hundred Psalms (including "The Lord is my Shepherd" and "Have Mercy on Me, O God").
• Ezra The Scribe: Ezra is credited with compiling the Torah in its final form, as well as writing (what else?) the Book of Ezra.
• Ezechiel The Poet: A Jew living in Alexandria in the second century BC, wrote the first known Miracle Play.
• Matthew bar-Alpheus, Mark, Luke, and John bar-Zebedee: Wrote the the four canonical Gospels, accounts of Jesus' life and ministry. Luke also wrote The Acts of the Apostles.
• Paul Of Tarsus: Writer (in Greek) of most of the New Testament, in the form of his Epistles.
• Josephus: Jewish writer active around 100AD. Chronicled Jewish history, in particular the Jewish Revolt of 66-70AD, which resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple. His own part in the war was not particularly creditable, as he surrendered to Vespasian early on after fast-talked his way out of a Suicide Pact. Claimed to have been the first to pour boiling oil on top of a besieging army.

Indian

• Valmiki (c. 400 BC) author of Ramayana, and attributed with establishing the form for Sanskrit poetry.
• Vyasa: Author of Mahabharata.
• Kalidasa (c. 4th/5th century AD): Founder of the classical Indian theater, writing all manner of plays.

Sumerian

• Enheduanna (c. 2285-2250 BC), Akkadian high priestess, poet and composer, possibly the earliest known author in any genre and also possibly the earliest known woman in human history.

500 AD - 1400 AD (Medieval)

These are the writers between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, loosely dated as between the fifth and fourteenth centuries AD. A number of pieces from this period are also anonymous, including Beowulf and The Song of Roland. These are listed in chronological order and divided by geographic area.

British Isles

• Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 - 25 October 1400): English. Author and poet. Best known for The Canterbury Tales, even though it's an unfinished work. Credited with being the first to regularly use vernacular English rather than Latin or French.
• Geoffrey Of Monmouth (c. 1100 - c. 1155): Author of the Historia Regum Britanniae, which includes one of the earliest accounts of King Arthur, as well as much of William Shakespeare's source material. Mixed fiction/legend with history quite freely.

China

• Shi Nai'an (c. 1296 - c. 1372): wrote The Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature. Some believe him to be Luo Guanzhong or one of his teachers.
• Luo Guanzhong (c. 1330 - 1400): wrote Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature.

Czech lands (Greater Moravia, Duchy of Bohemia, Bohemian Kingdom)

• Kosmas

France

• Chrétien de Troyes (mid- to late-1100's): French troubadour who made great contributions to the Arthurian canon, including the quest for the Holy Grail and possibly Sir Launcelot.
• Marie de France

Germany

• Hildegard von Bingen: Benedictine Abbess and visionary. Best known in Germany for her works on herbology, notable philosophical works include Liber Divinorum Operum (The Book of Divine Works).

Iceland

• Snorri Sturluson (1178 - September 23, 1241): Icelandic poet, lawyer, and lawspeaker who composed the Prose Edda, setting out many of the elements of Norse Mythology. Sturluson also wrote the Heimskringla, a history; and may be the author of Egil's Saga.

Italy

• Boethius (c. 480 - 524): Senator, consul, historian, and philosopher.
• Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225 - March 7, 1274): Dominican priest, theologian, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church. He is one of the most influential theologians in the Christian faith.
• Dante Alighieri (c. 1265 - September 14, 1321): Poet best known for his The Divine Comedy. He did for Italian what Chaucer did for vernacular English, to the point that the French sometimes call Italian la langue de Dante. He's the Trope Namer for Word of Dante, and the Inferno section of the Divine Comedy is both the Trope Codifier and Trope Namer for Circles of Hell.
• Petrarch (1304 - 1374): Poet and scholar, who, while disdaining the Italian language, ended up being one of its greatest writers. Credited with the invention of Humanism and the revival of Classical letters.
• Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 - 21 December 1375): Influenced such greats as William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer. And by "influenced", we mean, "They just rewrote his stories". He, like Dante before him, wrote in Italian rather than Latin.

Japanese

• Murasaki Shikibu (c. 973 - c. 1014 or 1025): Author of The Tale of Genji, Japanese noblewoman, novelist and poet. Her real name is unknown.
• Sei Shonagon (c. 966 - 1017): Author of The Pillow Book. A lady-in-waiting of Empress Sadako, her real name is not known for certain, but most scholars believe it is Kiyohara Nagiko.

1400 - 1650 AD (Early Modern Era)

These writers wrote between the fifteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries—a very broad span of time, which includes the Reformation and the beginnings of modern thought. The Renaissance began in Italy, but its influence spread slowly to the rest of Europe. These authors are listed in chronological order, divided by area.

Italian

• Niccolò Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 - June 21, 1527): Author of another Art of War, The Prince, and The Discourses; Italian political thinker whose influence is still felt.

British Isles

• Sir Thomas More (February 7, 1478 - July 6, 1535): English. Author of Utopia.
• Christopher Marlowe (baptised February 26, 1564 - May 30, 1593): English. Poet, dramatist, and translator, he is probably best known for The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Tamburlaine. He was one of the first to write English drama in blank verse.
• William Shakespeare (baptized April 26, 1564 - April 23, 1616): English. 38 plays, 154 sonnets and other works. He is the inventor or best-known source of many tropes, phrases and words; generally well-quoted and well-recognized even outside the English-speaking world.
• John Webster (c.  1580 – c.  1632): English. Author of the revenge tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi.
• John Donne (January 22, 1572 – March 31, 1631): English. Poet and cleric of the Church of England best known for his Holy Sonnets.
• Ben Jonson (June 11, 1572 - August 6, 1637): English. Author of Volpone and The Alchemist.
• John Milton (December 9, 1608 - November 8, 1674): English. Poet and pamphleteer, his most seminal works are Areopagitica and Paradise Lost.

Chinese

• Wu Cheng'en (c. 1500 - c. 1582): wrote Journey to the West, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature. Unlike most serious literature in China at the time, it was written in the vernacular.

Czech lands (Bohemian Kingdom)

• Petr Chelcicky
• Jan Hus
• Jan Amos Komensky
• Tomas Stitny

France

• Nostradamus: French physician, author of the Prophecies, a series of predictions of future historical events that may have been accurate or is mostly nonsense.
• Francois Villon (c. 1431 – after 1463): French poet and criminal.
• Francois Rabelais (c. 1494 - April 9, 1553): Author of Gargantua and Pantagruel, an extravagantly comic Humanist satire.

Germany

• Martin Luther (November 10, 1483 - February 18, 1546): A teacher, a monk for a time, a minister, social and political critic and a religious reformer. Writer of the Ninety-Five Theses, which inspired many different factions within the Catholic church to break away and form their own denominations. Also wrote many hymns, several socio-political commentaries on both Turkish Islamic and European Jewish communities. Also wrote Luther's Large and Small Catechisms. His works would later inspire many other Protestant reformers, such as Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland and John Calvin in France, as they formed their own churches and separated from Roman Catholicism.
• Philipp Melanchthon (February 16, 1497 - April 19, 1560): Another Protestant reformer and a contemporary of Luther. Considered the primary (but not sole) author of the Augsburg Confession, a treatise on Lutheran Church doctrines.

Portugal

• Gil Vicente: Often considered the father of Portuguese drama, although he wrote in Spanish as well.

Spain

• Bartolomé de las Casas (November 11 1484 - July 18, 1566): Best known as defender of the indigenous during the conquest of America. Wrote a rather embellished chronicle about it.
• Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1496 – 3 February 1584): Spanish conquistador and chronicler of the conquista.
• Bernardino de Sahagún (1499 - February 5, 1590): Spanish missionary, chronicler of Aztec culture and defender of the indigenous. Wrote many works in both Spanish and Nahuatl.
• Garcilaso de la Vega (unknown year - 14 October 1536): Pioneer of the Spanish Golden age, author of many works of tragic love and pastoral poetry, as well as an experienced general. He was the ancestor of Peruvian writer Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.
• Miguel de Cervantes (September 29, 1547 - April 23, 1616): Author of Don Quixote and a pile of plays. Don Quixote is often considered the first Western novel.
• Lope de Vega (November 25, 1562 - August 27, 1635): Best known as a playwright, he also wrote novels and poems. One of the most prolific writers of all time.
• Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (12 April 1539 – 23 April 1616): Descendant of Garcilaso, he was the first great mestizo writer of the Spanish Empire and considered father of Latin American literature.
• Baltasar Gracián (8 January 1601 – 6 December 1658): Jesuit and writer, precursor of Existentialism.

1650 - 1800 (Enlightenment)

These are listed chronologically, divided by geographic area.

America

• Alexander Hamilton: Co-author of The Federalist Papers and the United States Constitution.
• James Madison: Primary author of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and one of the authors of the Federalist Papers.
• Thomas Jefferson: The Declaration of Independence (principal author), Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.
• "Publius": a pen name used by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison in writing The Federalist Papers, American political philosophy.
• Thomas Paine: Common Sense, The Rights of Man, and The Age of Reason, among other works. Famous for involvement in The American Revolution.
• Benjamin Franklin: Epigrammist and author/publisher of Poor Richard's Alamanack. He's credited with such pithy sayings as "A penny saved is a penny earned.", "Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. ", and "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." He was also the publisher of several newspapers over the years.

British Isles

• Andrew Marvell: English poet, pamphleteer, and politician, notable for (possibly) saving John Milton's neck and for the immensely quotable "To His Coy Mistress".
• Samuel Pepys: English civil servant famous for his diary of the years 1660 to 1669.
• Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745): Irish. Gulliver's Travels, "A Modest Proposal", and other works. His merit as a satirist can be summed up by his description of lawyers: "A society of men among us, bred from their youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black white, according as they are paid."
• Colley Cibber (1671 - 1757): English. Poet Laureate from 1730. Actor and playwright, adapter of Shakespeare, and object of Pope's heroic-couplet satire The Dunciad.
• Daniel Defoe (1660 – 1731): English. Best known for Robinson Crusoe.
• Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744): English. Penned numerous poems, among them An Essay on Criticism, An Essay on Man, An Epistle to Arbuthnot, The Dunciad, and The Rape of the Lock.
• Henry Fielding (1707 – 1754): English novelist and playwright. Best known for The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling.
• Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797): Anglo-Irish. Political figure who wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France and many others. Considered by many as the father of modern political conservatism (having supported The American Revolution but not the The French Revolution, supporting freedom but not complete systemic overhauls based strictly on ideas).
• Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784): English. First compiler of an English Dictionary.
• Ann Radcliffe (1764 – 1823): English author of Gothic fiction.
• William Blake (1757 - 1827): English poet, artist, and mystic. He is considered one of the leading figures of Romanticism alongside Coleridge and Wordsworth.
• Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679): An English philosopher whose best-known work, Leviathan, argued for a strong state to control a destructive human nature he perceived. Without it, he felt existence was "nasty, brutish, and short."
• Robert Burns (1759 - 1796): Scottish Romantic poet.
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834): English Romantic poet. He, Wordsworth, and Blake are considered to be responsible for leading the Romantic movement in England.
• William Wordsworth (1770–1850): English Romantic poet. One of the leading figures of the Romantic movement alongside Coleridge and Blake.

China

• Cao Xueqin: (c. 1715 - c. 1764); Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. It is believed by many to be the greatest novel written in the Chinese language.

Czech lands (Bohemian Kingdom)

• Josef Dobrovsky
• Vaclav Kliment Klicpera

France

• Marquis de Sade (1740-1814)
• Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin; January 15, 1622 - February 17, 1673): Playwright and actor, considered by many to have written some of the most brilliant comedies in the Western theatre. Best known for Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, The School for Wives, and The Imaginary Invalid. Les Fourberies de Scapin (literally, "Scapin's Deceits") was adapted for the Broadway stage as Scapino!.
• Jean Racine (Jean-Baptiste Racine) (22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699): Playwright, primarily a tragedian. Considered to be one of the three greatest playwrights in 17th-century France, alongside Moliere and Pierre Corneille. Best known for Phèdre, Andromaque, and Athalie.
• François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680), renowned to this day for his Maxims. Perhaps the first to dispense advice and observation a sentence at a time.
• Charles Perrault (January 12, 1628 - May 16, 1703): Credited for creating the genre of Fairy Tale when he published Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals (Histoires ou Contes du Temps passe) in 1697 with the subtitle Tales of Mother Goose (Les Contes de ma Mere l'Oie).
• Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet; 1694 - 1778): Prolific author of over 20,000 works ranging from pamphlets to treatises to novels. Best known for Candide and the short story Micromegas (one of the earliest works depicting aliens visiting Earth).
• René Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650): Mathematician and philosopher, considered to be one of the leading figures of modern philosophy and science. Famed for his theory of dualism, which sought to show that the soul and body are separate and distinct, yet closely joined. His first principle of philosophy is the saying: "I think, therefore I am", seeking to provide certainty of knowledge in the face of radical doubt, showing that we cannot doubt our existence even while doubting.
• Madame d'Aulnoy (Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d'Aulnoy; 1650/1651-January 14, 1705): She wrote 24 literary fairy tales in her lifetime. A key pioneer in the genre as we know it today — in fact, she was the one to give it the name "Fairy Tale" (or "Contes des Fees" in her native French)-. Her works aren't as well known today as some of her contemporaries, but they introduced countless tropes inextricably linked with the modern images of fairy tales: The Power of Love, Beauty Equals Goodness, Fairy Godmothers and Fairy Devilmothers, even Prince Charming himself.
• Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662): Mathematician, scientist, philosopher, and theologian. Known for laying the foundation for probability theory and proposing what is called "Pascal's law" (which stated that, in a fluid at rest in a closed container, a pressure change in one part is transmitted without loss to every portion of the fluid and to the walls of the container). He is perhaps best known for his Pensées, a collection of fragments meant to provide a defense of the Christian faith, showing that it is the only religion that successfully addresses the human condition. It is also the work from which his wager stems.
• François-René de Chateaubriand (1768 - 1848): Statesman, soldier, and one of the foremost authors of 19th-century French literature. He is considered one of the leading figures of Romanticism in France.

German lands

• Bettina von Arnim (1785 - 1859): An important writer in the German Romantic era.
• Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797 - 1848): Well-known German author, most famous works include The Jew's Beech and the poem The Lad on the Moor.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832): Often claimed to be the most important German language author. Wrote many poems, The Sorrows of Young Werther and an important adaptation of Faust. Many phrases originating in his works found their way into everyday German language.
• Friedrich Schiller (1759 - 1805): Best buddy (so to speak) of Goethe. Wrote plays like William Tell, Maria Stuart and The Robbers. Wrote an ode "To Joy" that was famously set to music by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Italy

• Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798), a Venetian libertine, spy, and diplomat who is the Trope Namer for, The Casanova. Wrote a Doorstopper memoir, The History of My Life, that covers the life of eighteen century Italy and his promiscuous experiences.

Japan

• Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), a famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. Known in his lifetime for a collaborative form of poetry called haikai no renga, but is now considered one of the masters of hokku (now called "haiku").

Switzerland

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778): Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of French expression. His political philosophy influenced the The French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological, and educational thought. Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and On the Social Contract are cornerstones in modern political and social thought.

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