Classics Classics

Lewis Carroll

1832 - 1898

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of the English logician, mathematician, photographer and novelist, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, nowadays well known for his puns on words, logic and fantasy. His most famous writings are Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. His poem "The Hunting of the Snark" is considered to be a masterpiece of nonsense literature ...  [+]

Louisa May Alcott

1832 - 1888

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist and poet, best known for her novel, Little Women. She grew up surrounded by intellectuals of her time, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and under the influence of her transcendentalist parents. Alcott was an abolitionist and an avid feminist for her time. She was part of a group of female writers during the Gilded Age who avidly ...  [+]

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Mark Twain

1835 - 1910

Mark Twain is the pen name of the American journalist, humorist, lecturer and novelist Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He is best known for his book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A son of the Frontier, he has overcome the apparent limitations of his origins to become a popular figure and one of America’s best and most beloved writer.

Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

1852 - 1930

American writer of the local colour movement, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman was a self taught woman who started writing as a teenager to help support her family.

She is very famous for her stories about frustrated lives in New England villages and for her strong female characters who contested contemporary ideas concerning what female roles, values and relationships should be in society ...  [+]

Nathaniel Hawthorne

1804 - 1864

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer. Even though he was aquainted with the transcendantalists, he was part of the Romantic movement, and more specifically of Dark Romanticism. Hawthorne was the master of allegorical and symbolic tales. His main themes were focused on the inherent evil and sin of humanity. His works often have a moral message and a deep psychological ...  [+]

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O. Henry

1862 - 1910

O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, an American short story writer who is known for his tales about the life of ordinary people, especially in New York. His stories generally expressed the effect of coincidence on character through humour, grim or irony. Above anything else, he is known for his surprise endings. Once his trademark, it finally cost him critical favour.

Olivia Ward Bush-Banks

1869-1944

American author, poet and journalist of African-American and Montaukett Native American heritage, she celebrated both of her heritages in her work. After being noticed by Paul Laurence Dunbar, she published two volumes of poetry and became a member of the early Harlem Renaissance.

Oscar Wilde

1854 - 1900

The Irish playwright, novelist, essayist an d poet, Oscar Wilde, is considered a spokesman for the late 19th century Aesthetic movement in England. His best known work, The Picture of Dorian Gray, reflects the Aesthetic rallying call: art for art’s sake. Many of his works are designed around the exposure of a secret sin on curiosity and consequent disgrace and decadence.