19th-century and earlier novelists

Marquis de Sade

Marquis de Sade (Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, 1740–1814), French aristocrat, libertine novelist, and atheist philosopher; author of Justine, Juliette, Philosophy in the Boudoir, and the 120 Days of Sodom; his name gave the word sadism.

Mateo Alemán

Mateo Alemán (1547–1614) was a Spanish novelist of the Siglo de Oro, remembered for Guzmán de Alfarache, the novel that gave the picaresque genre its full form.

Matilde Serao

Matilde Serao (1856–1927) was an Italian journalist and novelist, one of the first women journalists of post-Unification Italy, who co-founded Il Mattino and wrote over forty books about Naples.

Mendele Mocher Sforim

Mendele Mocher Sforim (מנדלי מוכר ספרים) was the pen name of Shalom Yaakov Abramovitch, a Yiddish and Hebrew writer regarded as the grandfather of both modern literatures.

Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547–1616), Spanish author of Don Quixote (two parts, 1605 and 1615), also wrote the twelve Exemplary Novels; fought at Lepanto in 1571, returned from captivity in 1580, and is honored by the April 23 Cervantes Prize.

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826–1889) was a Russian satirical writer and publicist who under the pen name N. Shchedrin wrote The History of a Town, The Golovlyov Family, and the Fairy Tales.

Mór Jókai

Mór Jókai (Jókai Mór, 1825–1904), Hungarian novelist called 'prince of Hungarian novel writing,' author of Az arany ember, Egy magyar nábob, and A kőszívű ember fiai; 1848 revolutionary, editor, MP, and Hungarian Academy member.

Multatuli

Multatuli, pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820–1887), was a Dutch writer and former colonial official whose 1860 novel Max Havelaar attacked Dutch colonial abuse.

Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky

Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky (Ukrainian: Михайло Коцюбинський, 1864–1913) was a Ukrainian prose writer and ethnographer regarded as a leading master of literary impressionism, known for Intermezzo, Fata Morgana, and Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.

Nicolaas Beets

Nicolaas Beets (1814–1903) was a Dutch writer, Dutch Reformed minister, and professor of church history, best known under the pseudonym Hildebrand for Camera Obscura (1839).

Nikolai Gogol (Николай Васильевич Гоголь)

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, born Nikolai Vasilyevich Yanovsky, was a Russian-language prose writer of Ukrainian origin, counted among classics of Russian literature and a founder of Russian realism.

Nikolai Leskov

Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov (Николай Лесков, 1831–1895), Russian writer and critic, pseudonym M. Stebnitsky, author of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, The Enchanted Wanderer, and Levsha, master of skaz oral-style narration.

Otto Ludwig (writer)

Otto Ludwig was a German writer, dramatist, and critic born in Eisfeld in 1813 who died in Dresden in 1865 and is credited with coining the term poetic realism.

Panas Myrny

Panas Myrny, pen name of Panas Yakovych Rudchenko (1849–1920), was a Ukrainian writer, principal author of the novel Do Oxen Low When the Mangers Are Full?

Panteleimon Kulish

Panteleimon Kulish (Пантелеймон Куліш) was a Ukrainian writer, historian, and ethnographer who wrote the first Ukrainian historical novel, Chorna rada, led the first complete Ukrainian Bible translation, and reformed Ukrainian orthography.

Paul Bourget

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) was a French novelist, critic, and journalist elected to the Académie française in 1894, a master of the psychological novel Le Disciple (1889).

Paul Heyse

Paul Heyse (1830–1914) was a German poet, novelist, and translator based in Munich who received the 1910 Nobel Prize in Literature and wrote the novella L'Arrabbiata.

Paul Toutain

Paul Toutain, who wrote as Jean Revel, was a French notary in Rouen and fiction writer praised by Octave Mirbeau and nominated for the 1921 Nobel Prize.

Peter Altenberg

Peter Altenberg, pen name of Richard Engländer (1859–1919), was a Jewish-Austrian writer and Vienna bohemian known for very short sketches and prose poems admired by Kafka and Rilke.

Petronius

Petronius (died 66 CE), Nero's arbiter elegantiae in Tacitus, is the ascribed author of the Satyricon, a fragmentary Latin Menippean novel featuring Encolpius, Giton, and Trimalchio's banquet.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (1741–1803) was a French artillery officer and writer best known for Les Liaisons dangereuses, the 1782 epistolary novel of seduction and scandal.

Pierre Loti

Pierre Loti, pen name of French naval officer Julien Viaud (1850–1923), wrote about forty novels from his seagoing career and joined the Académie française in 1891.

Raffi

Raffi (Րաֆֆի) was the pen name of Hakob Melik-Hakobian, 1835 to 1888, an Armenian novelist best known for The Fool and Samvel and for creating the Armenian historical novel.

Ragnhild Jølsen

Ragnhild Jølsen (1875–1908) was a Norwegian novelist who published one book a year from 1903 to 1907, best known for the Gothic novel Rikka Gan (1904), and regarded as an original renewer of Norwegian literature.

Recaizade Mahmud Ekrem

Recaizade Mahmud Ekrem (Recâizâde Mahmud Ekrem, 1847–1914) was an Ottoman poet, playwright, novelist, critic, and civil servant, remembered as teacher of the Servet-i Fünun writers and author of Araba Sevdası, the first realist Turkish novel.

René Bazin

René Bazin (1853–1932) was a French novelist and professor of law at Angers, elected to the Académie française in 1903, whose novels depicted rural life.

Rūdolfs Blaumanis

Rūdolfs Blaumanis (1863–1908) was a Latvian prose writer, playwright, and poet known for fine psychological analysis; his novellas and the play Indrāni are in the Latvian Culture Canon.

Salvatore Farina

Salvatore Farina (1846–1918) was an Italian novelist and journalist from Sardinia, based in Milan, hailed abroad as "the Italian Dickens" for his warm, humorous domestic fiction.

Sophie von La Roche

Sophie von La Roche, born Marie Sophie Gutermann (1730–1807), was a German novelist whose 1771 Sternheim made her the first German woman to publish a novel.