19th-century and earlier novelists

Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), French novelist born in Tours, author of La Comédie humaine, over 90 linked novels with 2,000+ recurring characters; founder of literary realism, pioneer of the serial novel, married Mme Hanska in 1850.

Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko

Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko (Григорій Квітка-Основ'яненко, 1778–1843) was a Ukrainian writer and playwright, known as the father of Ukrainian prose and a founder of Kharkiv's cultural life.

I. L. Peretz

I. L. Peretz (1852–1915) was a Yiddish and Hebrew writer of short fiction, drama, and poetry, active in Warsaw and one of the founders of modern Yiddish prose.

Ioan Slavici

Ioan Slavici (1848–1925) was a Transylvanian Romanian novelist, short-story writer, and journalist, regarded as the first great prose writer from Transylvania and a founder of modern Romanian prose.

Ion Creangă

Ion Creangă (1837/1839–1889), Romanian classical writer, deacon, and schoolteacher from Humulești, author of Amintiri din copilărie and tales such as Povestea lui Harap-Alb, published in Convorbiri literare through Junimea and friend of Eminescu.

Ivan Goncharov

Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812–1891) was a Russian realist novelist whose three novels include Oblomov (1859), which coined the term Oblomovism; he also wrote the travel book Frigate Pallada.

Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky

Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky (Іван Нечуй-Левицький; born Ivan Semenovych Levytsky) was a Ukrainian prose writer and playwright, a founder of Ukrainian realist narrative, best known for Kaidash's Family.

Ivan Turgenev (Иван Сергеевич Тургенев)

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Иван Сергеевич Тургенев, 1818-1883), Russian novelist, author of A Sportsman's Sketches and Fathers and Sons; born in Oryol, died in Bougival near Paris, longtime associate of singer Pauline Viardot.

J.-H. Rosny aîné

J.-H. Rosny aîné was the principal pseudonym of Joseph-Henri Boëx (1856–1940), a Belgian-born French novelist, pioneer of prehistoric fiction and science fiction, and president of the Académie Goncourt.

Jean Paul

Jean Paul was the pen name of Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763–1825), a German novelist known for humorous works such as Hesperus, Siebenkäs, and Titan.

Jens Peter Jacobsen

Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847–1885) was a Danish novelist, poet, and scientist, a central figure of Denmark's Modern Breakthrough who translated Darwin's major works into Danish.

Jeremias Gotthelf

Jeremias Gotthelf was the pen name of Albert Bitzius, a Swiss pastor and writer whose novels of peasant life in the Emmental made him a leading Swiss author.

Jonas Biliūnas

Jonas Biliūnas (1879–1907) was a Lithuanian writer considered the founder of the Lithuanian lyrical psychological novella; he died of tuberculosis at 28 in Zakopane, Poland, in 1907.

Jonas Lie

Jonas Lie, full name Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie (1833–1908), was a Norwegian novelist and playwright, one of the four greats of nineteenth-century Norwegian literature alongside Ibsen, Bjørnson, and Kielland.

José María de Pereda

José María de Pereda (1833 to 1906) was a Spanish novelist, journalist, and politician, a leading figure of nineteenth-century Realism known for the regional novels Sotileza and Peñas arriba.

Josip Jurčič

Josip Jurčič (1844–1881) was a Slovenian writer, journalist, and editor, regarded as the first great Slovenian narrator and author of the first Slovenian novel, Deseti brat (1866).

József Eötvös

József Eötvös (Eötvös József, 1813–1871) was a Hungarian novelist and statesman who wrote The Village Notary, served twice as education minister, and passed Hungary's 1868 Nationalities Act.

Juhani Aho

Juhani Aho, born Johannes Brofeldt (1861–1921), was a Finnish author and journalist, a founder of modern Finnish prose whose realist breakthrough came with the 1884 novel Rautatie.

Jules Renard

Jules Renard, born Pierre-Jules Renard (1864–1910), was a French novelist, playwright, and diarist known for Poil de Carotte (1894) and his Journal, published after his death in 1910.

Karl Gjellerup

Karl Adolph Gjellerup (1857–1919) was a Danish poet and novelist who wrote his major works in German, settled in Dresden, and shared the 1917 Nobel Prize in Literature with Henrik Pontoppidan.

Karl Immermann

Karl Leberecht Immermann (1796–1840) was a German novelist, dramatist, poet, and judge in Düsseldorf who wrote Die Epigonen and Münchhausen and led an influential reform of the city theater.

Kristofer Janson

Kristofer Janson (1841–1917) was a Norwegian writer, theologian, and Unitarian minister, a leading late-nineteenth-century author and pioneer of fiction in Landsmål who also served Unitarian congregations in Minneapolis and Kristiania.

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy (Лев Николаевич Толстой, 1828–1910), Russian count and novelist of Yasnaya Polyana; author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, later founder of the nonviolent Tolstoyan doctrine that influenced Gandhi.

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836–1895), Austrian writer born in Lemberg, author of Venus in Furs (1870) and the Legacy of Cain cycle; Krafft-Ebing derived the term masochism from his name.

Longus

Longus (Λόγγος) is the ancient Greek author of Daphnis and Chloe, a pastoral romance in four books, probably written in the late 2nd century CE on Lesbos.

Louis Couperus

Louis Couperus was a Dutch novelist, born in The Hague in 1863 and died in 1923, regarded as one of the greatest writers in Dutch literature.

Madame de La Fayette

Madame de La Fayette, born Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne (1634–1693), was a French novelist and courtier whose anonymous La Princesse de Clèves (1678) is regarded as the first modern French novel.

María de Zayas

María de Zayas (1590, Madrid – ca. 1660) was a Spanish novelist of the Siglo de Oro, best known for Novelas amorosas y ejemplares and Desengaños amorosos.

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) was an Austrian writer, the leading woman of letters of the Habsburg Empire, whose masterpiece 'Das Gemeindekind' (1887) is a landmark of German-language realism.