Camille Corot, Homer and the Shepherds (1835). Photography © Marc Du Ryez.
CONTENT
This website features a list of seven hundred important writers belonging to the realm of literature, with, for each of them, the title of one of their most significant works.
This selection was conceived as a kind of virtual, retrospective literary prize, awarded every year of the twentieth, nineteenth, eighteenth, seventeenth and sixteenth centuries for a work first published or performed that same year in its original language. Since it was impossible to apply this method to earlier times, I chose to select one hundred and fifty writers from the Middle Ages and fifty from the Ancient Times.
In addition, an appendix and a section for non-fiction writers, particularly developed on the page dedicated to the Ancient Times, contain the names of other authors of interest. I also have a tentative list for the twenty-first century.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
The main purpose of this website is to provide the list of the works of all those writers, to mention their translations into English and French, and to give links to legal copies that are freely available online, primarily on Google Books, Gallica and Internet Archive, and occasionally on Hathi Trust or in the digital collections of other libraries. A free account at Internet Archive will allow you to borrow the books that are still under copyright.
These bibliographies are the result of personal research, and some of them are particularly extensive. The pages that are already available can be accessed from the links in the left margin, or from the clickable names in the lists.
UPDATES
December 2023:
Wilkie Collins (novels).
November 2023:
Kénizé Mourad,
Al-Khansa.
October 2023:
François-Joseph de La Grange-Chancel.
August-September 2023:
Évariste de Parny.
July 2023:
Anne Wiazemsky.
June 2023:
Sei Shōnagon.
May 2023:
Aristophanes (extended).
April 2023:
Kalidasa.
March 2023:
Shudraka.
February 2023:
Thackeray (in progress).
January 2023:
Appian.
November 2022:
Herodotus (extended),
Rabindranath Tagore (in progress).
October 2022:
Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly,
Arrian.
September 2022:
Tanizaki Jun’ichirō.
August 2022:
Salman Rushdie.
June 2022:
Fernando de Rojas.
April 2022:
Nicolaus of Damascus.
March 2022:
Gogol.
February 2022:
Plutarch.
January 2022:
Suetonius,
Herodian,
Cassius Dio (extended).
December 2021:
Sima Qian,
Caesar,
Xenophon of Athens,
Stephanus of Byzantium,
Apuleius (extended);
Xenophon of Ephesus,
Pliny the Elder (new).
October 2021:
Stephanus of Byzantium,
Xenophon of Athens.
September 2021:
Quintus of Smyrna.
August 2021:
Sabahattin Ali,
Richard Steele.
July 2021:
E. M. Forster,
Thomas Mann.
CONDENSED LISTS
The names of the seven hundred writers of the main list, as well as those mentioned in the Appendix and Non-Fiction sections, are included in the condensed lists below, where they are sorted per language family for the Ancient Times and the Middle Ages, and per nation for the other periods, according to modern-day borders. This label is debatable in some cases: for instance, I have placed Fuzuli in Turkey, Joseph Conrad in England, and Vladimir Nabokov in Russia.
Ancient Times
CHINESE: Confucius, Mencius, Qu Yuan, Sima Qian, Tao Yuanming. EGYPTIAN: Akhenaton, Ani, Kheti, Sinuhe. GREEK: Achilles Tatius, Aelian, Aeschylus, Aesop, Agathias, Anacreon, Apollodorus, Apollonius, Appian, Archilochus, Aristophanes, Aristotle, Arrian, Athenaeus, Callimachus, Chariton, Dares, Demosthenes, Dictys, Dio, Diodorus, Diogenes Laertius, Dionysius, Euripides, Eusebius, Galen, Heliodorus, Herodian, Herodotus, Hesiod, Homer, Isocrates, Josephus, Longus, Lucian, Luke, Menander, Musaeus, Nicolaus of Damascus, Nonnus, Origen, Pausanias, Philostratus, Pindar, Plato, Plotinus, Plutarch, Polybius, Porphyry, Procopius, Ptolemy, Quintus of Smyrna, Romanos, Sappho, Sophocles, Stephanus of Byzantium, Strabo, Theocritus, Thucydides, Xenophon of Athens, Xenophon of Ephesus, Zosimus. LATIN: Ammianus, Apuleius, Augustine, Ausonius, Boethius, Caesar, Cato the Elder, Catullus, Cicero, Columella, Curtius, Florus, Gellius, Gregory of Tours, Horace, Jerome, Justin, Juvenal, Lactantius, Livy, Lucan, Lucretius, Martial, Mela, Nepos, Ovid, Petronius, Phaedrus, Plautus, Pliny the Elder, Propertius, Prudentius, Quintilian, Sallust, Seneca, Silius, Statius, Suetonius, Tacitus, Terence, Tertullian, Tibullus, Valerius, Varro, Velleius, Virgil, Vitruvius. SANSKRIT: Kalidasa, Vishakhadatta, Shudraka. SUMERIAN: Enheduana. UGARITIC: Thabion.
Chronological List with Works: Ancient Times.
Middle Ages
ARABIC: Abu Nuwas, Al-Khansa, Al-Maari, Al-Mutanabbi, Ibn al-Farid, Ibn Khaldun. CHINESE: Bai Juyi, Du Fu, Guan Hanqing, Li Bai, Li Qingzhao, Luo Guanzhong, Shi Nai’an, Su Shi, Wang Shifu, Wang Wei, Wei Yingwu. ENGLISH: Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, James I of Scotland, Henryson, Langland, Lydgate, Malory, Mandeville. FRENCH: Adam de la Halle, Adenet le Roi, Alexander of Bernay, Arnaud Daniel, Arnaud de Mareuil, Baudouin de Condé, Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Bernard de Ventadour, Béroul, Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube, Bertrand de Born, Busnois, Cercamon, Charles of Orléans, Chartier, Chastellain, Chrétien de Troyes, Christine de Pisan, Colin Muset, Comtessa de Dia, Conon de Béthune, Deschamps, Du Prier, Froissart, Gace Brulé, Gautier d’Arras, Gerbert de Montreuil, Gervais du Bus, Girart d’Amiens, Giraut de Bornelh, Gréban, Guillaume de Digulleville, Guillaume de Lorris, Guiraut Riquier, Guy de Thourotte, Guy d’Ussel, Hélinand de Froidmont, Henri d’Andeli, Henri de Valenciennes, Jacquemart Giélée, Jacques Bretel, Jakemes, Jaufré Rudel, Jean Bodel, Jean d’Arras, Jean de Condé, Jean de Meung, Jean Maillart, Jean Renart, La Sale, La Vigne, Jean Le Fèvre, Raoul Le Fèvre, Le Franc, Le Leu, Machaut, Marcabru, Marie de France, Martial d’Auvergne, Meschinot, Michel, Milet, Molinet, Othon III de Grandson, Peire Cardenal, Philippe de Mézières, Philippe de Rémi, Philippe de Vitry, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, Raimbert de Paris, Raoul de Houdenc, Renaud de Beaujeu, René of Anjou, Richard I of England, Rutebeuf, Taillevent, Theobald IV of Champagne, Thomas of England, Turold, Villon, Wace, Walter of Châtillon, Watriquet de Couvin, William IX of Aquitaine. GERMAN: Brant, Gottfried von Straßburg, Hartmann von Aue, Heinrich von Morungen, Heinrich von Veldecke, Hrotsvitha, Konrad von Würzburg, Neidhart von Reuental, Oswald von Wolkenstein, Reinmar von Hagenau, Rudolf von Ems, Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach. GEORGIAN: Rustaveli. GREEK: Chalkokondyles, Photius, Prodromos, Tzetzes, Xiphilinus, Zonaras. ICELANDIC: Sturluson. ITALIAN: Boccacio, Boiardo, Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, Dante, Davanzati, Francis of Assisi, Guinizzelli, Guittone d’Arezzo, Jacopo da Lentini, Jacopone da Todi, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Petrarca, Poliziano, Pulci, Rustichello da Pisa, Sordello. JAPANESE: Hitomaro, Murasaki, Sei, Tsurayuki, Zeami. LATIN: Joseph of Exeter. PERSIAN: Ferdowsi, Hafez, Khaqani, Khayyam, Rumi, Saadi, Tabrizi. SANSKRIT: Bhavabhuti. SPANISH: Alfonso X, Gonzalo de Berceo, Gómez Manrique, Jorge Manrique, Mena, Ruiz, San Pedro, Santillana. TURKISH: Ali-Shir Nava’i, Yunus Emre.
Chronological List with Works: Middle Ages.
Sixteenth Century
BELGIUM: Lemaire. CHINA: Li Kaixian, Tang Xianzu, Wang Shizhen, Wu Cheng’en, Xu Zhenqing. CROATIA: Držić. ENGLAND: Dekker, Edwards, Greene, Hawes, Heywood, Kyd, Lyly, Marlowe, Nashe, Norton, Painter, Peele, Pickering, Rastell, Skelton, Southwell, Spenser, Surrey, Wyatt. FRANCE: Aneau, Baïf, Belleau, Bouchet, Bourdigné, Crétin, Des Masures, Des Périers, Desportes, Du Bellay, Du Fail, Garnier, Grévin, Gringore, Hélisenne de Crenne, Jodelle, Labé, Larivey, Magny, Marguerite de Navarre, Clément Marot, Jean Marot, Papillon, Parmentier, Pernette du Guillet, Pibrac, Poissenot, Rabelais, Ronsard, Scève, Sponde, Tyard. GERMANY: Sachs. ITALY: Aretino, Ariosto, Bandello, Bibbiena, Castiglione, Cellini, Cinzio, Firenzuola, Folengo, Guarini, Machiavelli, Rucellai, Ruzzante, Sannazaro, Tasso, Trissino. POLAND: Górnicki, Kochanovski, Rej. PORTUGAL: Camões, Ribeiro, Sá de Miranda, Vicente. SCOTLAND: Barclay, Dunbar, Lyndsay. SPAIN: Bermúdez, Boscán, Cueva, Encina, Ercilla, Garcilaso, Gil Polo, Herrera, Juan de Yepes, Lope de Rueda, Montalvo, Montemayor, Rojas, Timoneda, Torres Naharro. SWITZERLAND: Gengenbach. TURKEY: Baki, Fuzuli.
Chronological List with Works: Sixteenth Century.
Seventeenth Century
CHINA: Hong Sheng, Li Yu, Pu Songling. ENGLAND: Beaumont, Behn, Buckingham, Bunyan, Butler, Chapman, Congreve, Crashaw, Davenant, Donne, Dryden, Etherege, Fletcher, Ford, Herrick, Heywood, Jonson, Killigrew, Massinger, Middleton, Milton, Otway, Sedley, Shadwell, Shakespeare, Southerne, Tourneur, Vanbrugh, Webster, Wycherley. FRANCE: Aubigné, Aulnoy, Bernard, Béroalde, Boileau, Brébeuf, Pierre Corneille, Thomas Corneille, Courtilz de Sandras, Cyrano de Bergerac, Dancourt, D’Assoucy, Desmarets, Du Ryer, Fénelon, Furetière, A. Hardy, La Calprenède, La Fayette, La Fontaine, Mairet, Malherbe, Molière, Montchrétien, Perrault, Quinault, Racine, Régnier, Rotrou, Saint-Amant, Scarron, Georges de Scudéry, Mademoiselle de Scudéry, Sorel, Tristan L’Hermite, Urfé, Viau, Villedieu, Voiture. GERMANY: Bidermann, Grimmelshausen, Gryphius, Hoffmannswaldau, Lohenstein, Opitz, Ziegler. HUNGARY: Zrínyi. ITALY: Marino, Tassoni. JAPAN: Bashō, Saikaku. MEXICO: Juana Inés de la Cruz. NETHERLANDS: Hooft, Vondel. POLAND: Kochowski. PORTUGAL: Alcoforado, Melo. SPAIN: Alarcón, Alemán, Calderón, Castro, Cervantes, Góngora, Lope de Vega, Mira de Amescua, Montalbán, Moreto, Quevedo, Rojas Zorrilla, Tirso, Vélez de Guevara. SWEDEN: Stiernhielm. TURKEY: Evliya Çelebi. WALES: Vaughan.
Chronological List with Works: Seventeenth Century.
Eighteenth Century
BRAZIL: Gonzaga, Silva. CHINA: Cao Xueqin, Wu Jingzi. DENMARK: Holberg. ENGLAND: Addison, Blake, Burney, Centlivre, Chandler, Cibber, Coleridge, William Collins, Cowper, Defoe, Fielding, Gay, Godwin, Gray, Haywood, Johnson, Lillo, Manley, Pope, Prior, Radcliffe, Richardson, Rowe, Sterne, Young. FRANCE: Baculard d’Arnaud, Beaumarchais, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Carmontelle, Cazotte, Challe, Chénier, Crébillon fils, Crébillon père, Denon, Desmahis, Destouches, Diderot, Duclos, Dufresny, Fagan, Favart, Gilbert, Gresset, Houdar de La Motte, La Chaussée, Laclos, La Grange-Chancel, Lefranc de Pompignan, Léonard, Lesage, Marivaux, Mercier, Montesquieu, Parny, Piron, Prévost, Regnard, Rétif de La Bretonne, Riccoboni, Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, Sade, Saint-Lambert, Sedaine, Tencin, Tyssot de Patot, Voltaire. GERMANY: Goethe, Günther, Lessing, Novalis, Jean Paul, Schiller, Schlegel, Tieck, Wieland, Zachariae. INDIA: Bharatchandra, Bedil. IRELAND: Farquhar, Goldsmith, Hamilton, Sheridan, Steele, Swift. ITALY: Alfieri, Goldoni, Gozzi, Maffei, Metastasio, Parini. JAPAN: Chikamatsu, Takeda, Ueda. RUSSIA: Lomonosov. SCOTLAND: Burns, Macpherson, Smollett, Thomson. SPAIN: Cadalso, Villarroel. SWEDEN: Bellman, Dalin. SWITZERLAND: Haller, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Chronological List with Works: Eighteenth Century.
Nineteenth Century
AUSTRIA: Grillparzer. BRAZIL: Machado de Assis. BELGIUM: Maeterlinck, Verhaeren. BULGARIA: Vazov. CHINA: Li Ruzhen. DENMARK: Andersen, Oehlenschläger. ENGLAND: Austen, A. Brontë, Ch. Brontë, E. Brontë, Byron, Carroll, Wilkie Collins, Conrad, Crabbe, Dickens, G. Eliot, Gaskell, Th. Hardy, Keats, Kipling, Shelley, Swinburne, Tennyson, Thackeray, Wilde, Wordsworth. FINLAND: Kivi. FRANCE: Balzac, Barbey d’Aurevilly, Baudelaire, Bloy, Chandplaix, Cros, Daudet, Dumas fils, Dumas père, Chateaubriand, Constant, Corbière, Feuillet, Flaubert, Gautier, Hugo, Huysmans, Jarry, Lamartine, Lautréamont, Leconte de Lisle, Loti, Louÿs, Maupassant, Mérimée, Moreau, Musset, Nerval, Rimbaud, Rostand, Sand, Senancour, Staël, Stendhal, Sully Prudhomme, Verlaine, Verne, Vigny, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Zola. GERMANY: Arnim, Brentano, Büchner, Chamisso, Eichendorff, Fouqué, Hauptmann, Heine, Hoffmann, Hölderlin, Kleist, Kotzebue, Werner. HUNGARY: Gárdonyi. INDIA: Chatterjee. ITALY: D’Annunzio, Foscolo, Leopardi, Manzoni. LEBANON: Shidyaq. NETHERLANDS: Couperus. NORWAY: Ibsen. POLAND: Mickiewicz. PORTUGAL: Garrett. RUSSIA: Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Goncharov, Lermontov, Ostrovsky, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Turgenev. SCOTLAND: Scott. SPAIN: Galdós. SWEDEN: Strindberg. SWITZERLAND: Keller. UNITED STATES: Cooper, Hawthorne, Irving, James, Melville, Poe, Twain.
Chronological List with Works: Nineteenth Century.
Twentieth Century
ALBANIA: Kadare. ALGERIA: Boudjedra, Mimouni. ARGENTINA: Borges. AUSTRALIA: Keneally, White. AUSTRIA: Musil, Rilke, Roth, Zweig. BRAZIL: Amado. BOSNIA: Andrić. CHINA: Ba Jin, Lu Xun. COLOMBIA: García Márquez. CROATIA: Krleža. CZECHIA: Kafka, Kundera. EGYPT: Mahfouz. ENGLAND: Burgess, T. S. Eliot, Forster, Ishiguro, T. E. Lawrence, Shaw, Woolf. FRANCE: Apollinaire, Aragon, Barrès, Camus, Césaire, Claudel, France, Gide, Laubreaux, Modiano, Montherlant, Mourad, Némirovsky, Perec, Proust, Radiguet, Saint-Exupéry, Tournier, Vian, Yourcenar. GERMANY: Böll, Grass, Hauptmann, Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann, Meerbaum-Eisinger, Süskind, Weiss. GREECE: Tsirkas. HUNGARY: Ady. ICELAND: Laxness. INDIA: Bandyopadhyay, Narayan, Rushdie, Seth, Tagore. IRELAND: Joyce, Yeats. ISRAEL: Yehoshua. ITALY: Buzzati, Eco, Moravia, Pasolini, Pavese, Pirandello, Sciascia, Tabucchi. IVORY COAST: Kourouma. JAPNA: Abe, Endō, Kawabata, Mishima, Mori, Ōe, Sōseki, Tanizaki. LEBANON: Maalouf. MEXICO: Fuentes. MOROCCO: Chraïbi, Saddiki. NORWAY: Undset. PERU: Vargas Llosa. PORTUGAL: Lobo Antunes, Pessoa. RUSSIA: Aksyonov, Gorky, Nabokov, Pasternak. SENEGAL: Kane, Senghor. SERBIA: Pavić. SOUTH AFRICA: Coetzee. SPAIN: Lorca, Marías. SRI LANKA: Ondaatje. SWEDEN: Lagerlöf. SWITZERLAND: Hesse. TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO: Naipaul. TURKEY: Adıvar, Ali, Güntekin, Hikmet, Pamuk. UNITED States: Auster, Buck, Dreiser, Faulkner, Hemingway, Mitchell, Steinbeck.
Chronological List with Works: Twentieth Century.
