Elmer Rice

Elmer Rice (1892-1967) works include The Adding Machine in 1923 and Street Scene in 1929, which won a Pulitzer Prize and was made into an opera by Kurt Weill. Short Biography: Many...

Ruth Rendell

Ruth Rendell (born in 1930) was an English novelist and shortstory writer, author of a detective series featuring Chief Inspector Wexford. Short Biography: Her psychological...

Terence Rattigan

Terence Rattigan (1911-1977) play Ross in 1960 was based on T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). Short Biography: Rattigan's work ranges from the comedy French Without Tears in...

Raja Rao

Raja Rao (1909-2006) studied at Montpellier and the Sorbonne in France. Short Biography: He wrote about Indian independence from the perspective of a village in South India in...

Ayn Rand

Adopted name of Alice Rosenbaum (1905-1982) novel The Fountainhead in 1943, describing an architect who destroys his masterpiece rather than see it altered, displays her influential...

Jean Racine

Jean Racine (1639-1699) most of his tragedies have women in the title role, for example Andromaque in 1667, Iphigtnie in 1674, and Phedre in 1677. Short Biography: After the...

Francisco de Quevedo

Francisco Gomez de QuevedO y Villegas (1580-1645) picaresque novel La Vida del Buscdn/The Life of a Scoundrel in 1626 follows the tradition of the roguish hero who has a series of episodic...

J. B. Priestley

John Boynton Priestley (1894-1984) first success was a novel about travelling theatre, The Good Companions in 1929. Short Biography: He followed it with a realist novel about...

Anthony Powell

Anthony Dymoke Powell (1905-2000) wrote the monumental series of 12 volumes A Dance to the Music of Time 1951-1975, which begins shortly after World War I and chronicles a period of...

Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) diaries, written in a secret code, were translated and published in 1966. Her Lake District home is a museum. Why is Beatrix Potter famous? Beatrix...

Plutarch

Plutarch (c. AD 46-120) lectured on philosophy at Rome, and was appointed procurator of Greece by Hadrian. Short Biography: His Parallel Lives comprise biographies of pairs of...

Luigi Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) was a Italian writer. Short Biography: The novel fu Mama Pascal/The Late Mania Pascal in 1904 was highly acclaimed, along with many short stories....

Hester Thrale

Hester Lynch Thrale (1741-1821) published Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson in 1786 and their correspondence in 1788. Short Biography: Johnson had been a constant visitor...

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter (1930-2008) specializes in the tragicomedy of the breakdown of communication, broadly in the tradition of the Theatre of the Absurd (which sought to express the meaningless...

Phaedrus

Phaedrus (c. 15 BC-C. AD 50) was born a slave and freed by Augustus. Short Biography: The allusions in his fables (modelled on those of Aesop) caused him to be brought to trial...

Saint-John Perse

Pen name of Alexis Saint-Ledger (1887-1975) first book of verse, Eloges (1911), reflects the ambience of the West Indies, where he was born and raised. Short Biography: His later...

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was an American feminist socialist poet, novelist, and historian, author of Women and Economics, proposing the ending of the division between "men's...

Benito Perez Galdos

Benito Perez Galdos (1843-1920) works include the 46 historical novels in the cycle Episodios nacionales and the 21-novel cycle Novelas espaholas contemporaheos, which includes Doha...

Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) diary, written 1659-1669 (when his sight failed) in shorthand, was a unique record of both the daily life of the period and the intimate feelings of the man....

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) writings (making much use of first Friulan and later Roman dialect) include the novels Ragazzi di vita/The Ragazzi in 1955 and Una vita violenta/A Violent...

Francis Parkman

Francis Parkman (1823-1893) was an American historian and traveller, whose work chronicles the European exploration and conquest of North America, in such books as The California and...

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) influential pamphlets include Common Sense in 1776, The Rights of Man in 1791, and The Age of Reason in 1793. Short Biography: He advocated republicanism...

George Orwell

Pen name of Eric Arthur Blair (1903-1950) books include the satire Animal Farm in 1945 which included such sayings as "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others", and...

Joe Orton

Joe Orton (1933-1967) was a English dramatist, in whose black comedies surreal and violent action takes place in genteel and unlikely settings. Short Biography: Plays include...