71 articles
A.J. West
A.J. West (born 1982, Milton Keynes) is a British novelist and former BBC newsreader, the first openly gay BBC TV newsreader in Northern Ireland; author of The Spirit Engineer (HWA Debut Crown 2022) and The Betrayal of Thomas True (CWA Historical Dagger 2025).
Alan Furst
Alan Furst (born 1941) is an American novelist, master of historical espionage fiction set in Europe 1933–1945, from Night Soldiers (1988) onward; also known as a writer of 'historical espionage' novels.
Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), Dumas père, French author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo; son of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, interred in the Panthéon in 2002.
Allison Pataki
Allison Pataki (born 1984, New York) is an American novelist and former journalist, Yale English graduate, and New York Times bestselling author of eleven books including The Traitor's Wife, The Accidental Empress, Sisi: Empress on Her Own, and Finding Margaret Fuller.
Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell (born 1944), British historical novelist, creator of Sharpe and of Uhtred of Bebbanburg in The Last Kingdom; over 55 novels, 20 million copies sold, TV adaptations starring Sean Bean and Alexander Dreymon.
C. S. Forester
C. S. Forester, real name Cecil Louis Troughton Smith, was an English novelist who wrote the Horatio Hornblower series and The African Queen between 1921 and 1966.
Catherine Cookson
Catherine Cookson (1906–1998), British novelist of Tyneside working-class life; born in South Shields, wrote over 100 titles, sold over 100 million copies, and was the most-borrowed UK library author for 17 years.
Clive Cussler
Clive Cussler (1931–2020), American adventure novelist, creator of the Dirk Pitt series and five other thriller series, author of over eighty books, and founder of the wreck-hunting NUMA.
Conn Iggulden
Conn Iggulden (born 1971) is a British historical novelist, author of the Emperor series on Julius Caesar, the Conqueror series on Genghis Khan, the Wars of the Roses and Nero trilogies, and The Dangerous Book for Boys with brother Hal.
Cynthia McLeod
Cynthia McLeod, born Cynthia Henri McLeod-Ferrier in 1936 in Paramaribo, is a Surinamese novelist and historian known for bestselling historical novels about Suriname's plantation and slavery past, including her 1987 debut The Cost of Sugar.
Diana Gabaldon
Diana Gabaldon, American author of the Outlander (Cross Stitch in UK) historical time-travel series begun in 1991; science Ph.D., RITA winner, tens of millions of copies sold, adapted by Starz in 2014.
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs (E. R. Burroughs) was an American novelist who created Tarzan of the Apes and John Carter of Mars. His works founded the planetary romance genre.
Elodie Harper
Elodie Harper, British author of the Wolf Den trilogy set in Pompeii, also known for Boudicca's Daughter; ITV News journalist, Glass Bell Award winner, formerly a Channel 4 News producer.
Elvira Bary (Эльвира Валерьевна Барякина)
Elvira Bary (Elvira Valerievna Baryakina, born 1975, Nizhny Novgorod) is a Russian-American historical novelist, author of the Stormy Era trilogy, the Writer's Handbook, and the Sphinx Method, now in California.
Emilia Hart
Emilia Hart is a British-Australian novelist, born in Sydney and formerly a lawyer, author of the NYT bestselling debut Weyward (2023) and The Sirens (2025), living in London.
Emilio Salgari
Emilio Salgari (1862-1911), Italian adventure novelist, creator of Sandokan and the Black Corsair; author of over 80 novels, hugely translated, poor and ignored by critics, died by suicide in Turin.
Enrique Larreta
Enrique Rodríguez Larreta (1873–1961) was an Argentine novelist and diplomat, a leading Modernista best known for the historical novel La gloria de Don Ramiro (1908).
Frank Yerby
Frank Garvin Yerby (1916–1991), Augusta, Georgia-born African American novelist, first Black writer with a million-selling novel, The Foxes of Harrow (1946); 33 novels, 55 million copies, exile in Madrid.
Frederick Marryat
Frederick Marryat (1792–1848) was a British naval officer and novelist, a pioneer of nautical fiction known for Mr Midshipman Easy and Marryat's Code of flag signals.
Geraldine Brooks (writer)
Geraldine Brooks (born 1955) is the Australian-American author and former Wall Street Journal correspondent who won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for March; her novels include Year of Wonders, People of the Book, and Horse (2022), based on the racehorse Lexington. Not the Vancouver psychologist Geraldine S. Brooks.
Gunvantrai Acharya
Gunvantrai Acharya (ગુણવંતરાય આચાર્ય, 1900–1965) was an Indian Gujarati novelist and journalist who wrote more than 100 books and is best known for the sea-adventure saga Dariyalal, which won the Ranjitram Suvarna Chandrak in 1945.
Gustav Hasford
Gustav Hasford (1947-1993), American novelist and Marine combat correspondent; wrote The Short-Timers (1979), basis of Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, plus The Phantom Blooper and A Gypsy Good Time; shared an Oscar nomination for the screenplay.
H. Rider Haggard
Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856–1925), English novelist of imperial adventure fiction, author of King Solomon's Mines, She, and the Allan Quatermain series; also colonial administrator, agricultural reformer, and friend of Andrew Lang and Kipling.
Harry Turtledove
Harry Turtledove, American alternate-history author with a PhD in Byzantine history; wrote The Guns of the South, How Few Remain, and the Worldwar series; Hugo winner (1994) and two-time Sidewise Award winner; married to novelist Laura Frankos.
Heather Morris (author)
Heather Morris, New Zealand-born novelist in Australia, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz (2018), Cilka's Journey, Three Sisters, and Sisters Under the Rising Sun; over 19 million copies sold; 2024 TV adaptation; accuracy debated by Auschwitz Memorial.
Henri Charrière
Henri Charrière, called Papillon (1906-1973), French convict and author of the 1969 bestseller Papillon about the French Guiana penal colony; archival research shows his famous Devil's Island escape was fictional.
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Sienkiewicz (Litwos), 1846-1916, Polish novelist and first Polish Nobel Literature laureate (1905), author of the Trilogy, Quo vadis, Krzyżacy, and In Desert and Wilderness.
Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk (1915–2019), American novelist of The Caine Mutiny, Marjorie Morningstar, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance; Pulitzer Prize 1952, Bronx-born, wrote into his 100th year.
Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel (1952-2022), British novelist, first woman and first British writer to win the Booker Prize twice, for Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012); author of the 2,000-plus-page Thomas Cromwell trilogy.
Irving Stone
Irving Stone (1903-1989), born Irving Tennenbaum, American author of best-selling biographical novels such as Lust for Life (1934) and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961), which he called biohistory.