Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis (1922-1925)

English Novelist, Poet, Teacher and Critic

The group of British writers called the “Angry Young Men” included Kingsley Amis, John Osborne and Alan Sillitoe, among others. This was in the 1950s when these writers shocked readers with their rejection of middle-class values. Amis, famous for the novel,Lucky Jim, is known for his satires on the class system.

Early Years of Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis was born on April 16, 1922 in London. When he was 19, he won a scholarship at Oxford University where he studied English.

Read more — Kingsley Amis Brief Biography

 

John Bunyan

John Bunyan (1628-1688)

English Writer and Preacher

John Bunyan was a great English writer who communicated his religious beliefs and ideas through storytelling and allegory. He is famous for his masterpiece, The Pilgrim’s Progress.

John Bunyan was born on November 30, 1628, in Elstow, Bedfordshire, near London in a village where his family had been farmers for generations. He hardly received any education and seemed destined to lead a simple existence until two events that changed everything.

Read more…  John Bunyan Life and Works

 

Works by John Bunyan

• Grace Abounding to the chief of Sinners, 1666 
• A Confession of my Faith, and a Reason of my Practice, 1672
• The Pilgrim’s Progress, 1678
• The Life and Death of Mr. Badman, 1680
• The Holy War, 1682 (or The Losing and Taking Again of the Town of Mansoul)
• The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part II, 1684
• A Book for Boys and Girls, 1686

John Milton

John Milton (1608-1674)

English Poet and Essayist

Best known for Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Lycidas, John Milton was one of the greatest English poets with huge influence on English poetry.

Milton’s Life in a Nutshell

John Milton was born on December 9, 1698 in London. His father was a successful lawyer and composer. They had a second house in the country where Milton spent six years in private study after finishing education in Cambridge University in 1632.

Read more …   John Milton Life and Works

Works by John Milton

•”On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”, 1629
•”L’Allegro”, c. 1631
•”Il Penseroso”, c. 1631
•Comus, 1634
•Lycidas, 1637
•Areopagitica, 1644
•Poems, 1645
•Paradise Lost, 1667
•Paradise Regained, 1671
•Samson Agonistes, 1671

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924)

English-American Children’s Writer 

Burnett wrote some of the most loved and best-known classic children’s books, including Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Secret Garden. She also wrote novels and plays for adults.

Read more — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Works by Frances Hodgson Burnett

• That Lass o’ Lowrie’s, 1877
• Haworth’s, 1879
• Louisiana, 1880
• Little Lord Fauntleroy, 1886
• Editha’s Burglar, 1888
• The One I Knew Best of All, 1898, Memoir of her youth
• Piccino and Other Child Stories, 1894
• The Lady of Quality, 1896, Play
• A Little Princess, 1905
• The Secret Garden, 1911
• The Making of a Marchioness, 1911
• The Lost Prince, 1915
• The Head of the House of Coombe, 1922, published in Canada

C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) 
Irish Children’s Writer and Novelist

C.S. Lewis, British author and scholar, created one of the best-loved series of books for children in English literature, The Chronicles of Narnia. He applied his great intellect to English poetry and defense of Christianity.

Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898, in Belfast, Ireland. When he was nine years old, his mother died, and Lewis was sent away to boarding school.

Read more – C.S. Lewis Biography

T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

American-British Poet, Critic and Playwright

T.S. Eliot was one of the most important figures in 20th century literature. Famous for his poem The Waste Land, he revolutionized the way poetry was written.

Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1964) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of seven children raised as a Unitarian. He studied at Harvard University where he was recognized as a brilliant student

Read more… T.S. Eliot Brief Biography

Books by T.S. Eliot

• Prufrock, and Other Observations (1917, poetry)
• Three Critical Essays (1920, essays)
• Ara vos Prec (1920, poetry)
• The Sacred Wood (1920, essays)
• The Waste Land (1922, poetry)
• Homage to Dryden (1924, essays)
• Poems, 1909-1925 (1925, poetry)
• For Lancelot Andrewes (1928, essays)
• Ash Wednesday (1930, poetry)
• Thoughts After Lambeth (1931, essays)
• The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933, essays)
• After Strange Gods (1933, essays)
• Elizabethan Essays (1934, essays)
• The Rock (1934, religious play)
• Murder in the Cathedral (1935, play)
• Collected Poems: 1909-1935 (1936, poetry)
• Essays Ancient and Modern (1936, essays)
• Family Reunion (1939, play)
• The Dry Salvages (1941, poetry)
• Four Quartets (1944, poetry)
• The Cocktail Party (1950, play)
• On Poetry and Poets (1957, essays)

Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard (1937-)

Czech-born British Writer and Screenwriter

Sir Tom Stoppard, OM and CBE, is one of the 20th-century’s major British playwrights. He is the author of many plays, including the trilogy The Coast of Utopia (2003) and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967), a comic retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He also co-wrote screenplays for Oscar winning screenplay Shakespeare in Love, and Brazil.

Stoppard was born Tomas Straussler on July 3, 1937, in Zlin, Czechoslovakia.

Read more… Tom Stoppard, Playwright

Plays by Tom Stoppard

• A Walk on the Water, 1963
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, 1967
• Enter a Free Man, 1968
• The Real Inspector Hound, 1968
• After Magritte, 1970
• Jumpers, 1972
• Travesties, 1974
• Dirty Linen, 1976
• New Found-Land, 1976
• Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, 1976
• Night and Day, 1978
• Dogg’s Hamlet, 1979
• Cahoot’s Macbeth, 1979
• Undiscovered Country, 1979
• On the Razzle, 1981
• The Real Thing, 1982
• Rough Crossing, 1984
• Dalliance, 1986
• Hapgood, 1988
• Arcadia, 1993
• India Ink, 1995
• The Invention of Love, 1997
• The Coast of Utopia, 2003

Bernard Shaw

Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Anglo-Irish Playwright, Critic and Essayist

George Bernard Shaw is probably Ireland’s most famous playwright whose masterpiece is Saint Joan but is best-known for Pygmalion, musical My Fair Lady. During his long life he wrote numerous plays; over 50 of them. A powerful public speaker with great wit, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.

G.B. Shaw (1856-1950) was born in Dublin, Ireland, on July 26, and died at the age of 94. Shaw had a troubled childhood. His father drank heavily, eventually forcing his mother to leave the family to teach music in London.

Read more… George Bernard Shaw Biography

Works by Bernard Shaw:

• The Quintessence of Ibsenism, 1891

• Widower’s Houses, 1892

• Arms and the Man, 1894

• Mrs. Warren’s Profession, 1902

• Man and Superman, 1903

• Major Barbara, 1905

• Pygmalion, 1912, became the musical “My Fair Lady”

• Androcles and the Lion, 1913

• Heartbreak House, 1919

• Back to Methuselah, 1921

• Saint Joan, 1923