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Aspasia of Miletus (l. c. 470-410/400 BCE) is best known as the consort of the great Athenian statesman Pericles. Her life story has always been given in the shadow of Pericles' fame, but she was a woman of great eloquence and intelligence...

Montesquieu (1689-1757) was a French philosopher whose ideas in works like The Spirit of the Laws helped launch the Enlightenment movement in Europe. His ideas on the separation of powers, that is, between the executive, legislative, and...

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was a French author and philosopher known for his views which influenced the Enlightenment and his general editorship of the multi-volume Encyclopedia, often described as the 'Bible of the Enlightenment'. Diderot...

Mary Read, sometimes spelt Reade (b. c. 1690), was an infamous pirate during the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1720) active in the Bahamas until her capture by the Jamaican authorities in 1720. As a crew member of the English pirate John Rackham...

Alexander Selkirk (or Selcraig, 1676-1721) was a Scotsman famously marooned for four years and four months on a desert island in the Pacific Ocean until his rescue by a passing British ship in February 1709. His story inspired the title character...

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 BCE), better known to most modern readers as Horace, was one of Rome's best-loved poets and, along with his fellow poet Virgil, a member of Emperor Augustus' inner circle at the imperial palace. Despite his...

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was an American author, essayist, and diplomat best known for his short stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. He was the first professional American author and also the first to achieve an international...

Abolqasem Ferdowsi (l. c. 940-1020 CE, also given as Abul-Qasem Ferdowsi Tusi, Firdawsi, Firdausi) is the author of the Shahnameh (The Persian Book of Kings), one of the greatest works of world literature and the national epic of Iran. He...

Decimus Junius Juvenalis (l. c. 55-138 CE), better known as Juvenal, was a Roman satirist. He wrote five books, containing 16 satires, each of which criticized a different element of Roman society, whether it was poor housing, the patron/client...

Chretien de Troyes (l. c. 1130-1190 CE) was the greatest romantic poet of his era, regarded today as the Father of Arthurian Romance (along with Geoffrey of Monmouth) and also Father of the Novel owing to his narrative form. He was most likely...