71 articles
Jack London
Jack London, born John Griffith Chaney, was an American writer and socialist activist best known for The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906).
James Clavell
James Clavell (1924-1994), Australian-born British novelist and Hollywood screenwriter, author of the Asian Saga (King Rat, Tai-Pan, Shogun, Noble House, Whirlwind, Gai-Jin); a Changi POW whose 1975 novel Shogun sold millions and inspired 1980 and 2024 miniseries.
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851), American novelist of Cooperstown, New York, author of Precaution, The Spy, and the five Leatherstocking Tales featuring Natty Bumppo; former U.S. Navy midshipman and best-known American novelist of the early 19th century.
James Norman Hall
James Norman Hall (1887–1951), American author and Lafayette Escadrille aviator from Colfax, Iowa; co-author with Charles Nordhoff of Mutiny on the Bounty and the Bounty trilogy; settled in Tahiti.
Jean M. Auel
Jean M. Auel, born 1936, American author of the Earth's Children prehistoric series beginning with The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980); six volumes, over 45 million copies sold, ending with The Land of Painted Caves (2011).
Jennifer Saint
Jennifer Saint is a British novelist and Classics scholar who studied at King's College, London. She is known for her retellings of Greek mythology, including Elektra and Atalanta.
Jin Yong
Jin Yong, pen name of Zha Liangyong, also known as Louis Cha (1924–2018), was a Hong Kong wuxia novelist and Ming Pao founder whose fifteen martial-arts novels are among the most adapted in Chinese fiction.
Joanot Martorell
Joanot Martorell (c. 1410–1465 or 1468) was a Valencian knight and Catalan-language writer whose chivalric romance Tirant lo Blanc, begun in 1460, is a major novel of 15th-century European literature.
John Buchan
John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (1875–1940), Scottish novelist and Governor-General of Canada; author of The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), the Richard Hannay thriller adapted by Hitchcock in 1935.
John Masters
John Masters (1914-1983), British soldier-novelist born in Calcutta, author of Nightrunners of Bengal and Bhowani Junction and of the Savage family cycle of historical novels on British India; Gurkha officer, Chindit veteran, later US citizen in Santa Fe.
Karl May
Karl May (1842–1912), German adventure novelist, creator of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand; best-selling German-language author with over 100 million copies, wrote Wild West and Orient tales without visiting America.
Ken Follett
Ken Follett (born 1949, Cardiff) is a Welsh bestselling author of spy thrillers and historical epics, known for Eye of the Needle, The Pillars of the Earth, and the Kingsbridge and Century series, with over 198 million books sold.
Kenzo Kitakata
Kenzo Kitakata (北方謙三, Kitakata Kenzō) is a Japanese novelist, born in 1947, who made his name in hard-boiled fiction before writing large-scale historical novels like his 13-volume Sangokushi.
Larry McMurtry
Larry McMurtry (1936–2021), American novelist, screenwriter, and antiquarian bookseller from Archer City, Texas; author of the Pulitzer-winning Lonesome Dove and Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain screenplay with Diana Ossana.
Leo Perutz
Leo Perutz, born Leopold Perutz, was an Austrian novelist and insurance mathematician whose historical and fantastic novels made him one of the most widely read authors in interwar Austria and Germany.
Leon Uris
Leon Uris (1924–2003), American novelist and Marine veteran, author of Exodus (1958), Mila 18, QB VII, and Trinity; his heavily researched bestsellers shaped American views of Israel and reached Soviet Jews in samizdat.
List of Western fiction authors
List of Western fiction authors: writers of American West fiction, from founders Owen Wister and Zane Grey, through pulp-era Ernest Haycox and Louis L'Amour, to revisionists McMurtry, McCarthy, and Proulx.
Louis L'Amour
Louis L'Amour (Louis Dearborn LaMoore, 1908–1988), American Western novelist, author of Hondo and the Sackett saga; sold over 200 million books, won the 1984 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Lucy Steeds
Lucy Steeds (born 1994, London) is a British novelist whose debut The Artist (John Murray Press, 2025), set in 1920s Provence, won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and Waterstones Book of the Year 2025.
Madeline Miller
Madeline Miller (born 1978, Boston) is an American novelist and classicist; The Song of Achilles (2011, Orange Prize 2012) and Circe (2018) are her best-known Greek myth retellings, followed by short fiction including Mestra (2026).
Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949), Atlanta journalist and author of Gone With the Wind (1936), the 1,037-page Civil War novel that won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize, sold over 30 million copies, and became a 1939 Oscar-winning film.
Max Brand
Max Brand, pen name of Frederick Schiller Faust (1892-1944), King of the Pulps, wrote The Untamed, Destry Rides Again, and Dr. Kildare, producing roughly 30 million words before dying as a war correspondent in Italy in 1944.
Naseem Hijazi
Naseem Hijazi (نسیم حجازی), born Sharif Husain in 1914, was an Urdu novelist whose Islamic historical fiction, including Shaheen and Khak aur Khoon, shaped generations of readers.
Nevil Shute
Nevil Shute, pen name of Nevil Shute Norway (1899-1960), British aeronautical engineer and novelist; R100 airship engineer and Airspeed founder who wrote 24 bestsellers including A Town Like Alice and On the Beach.
Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian (Richard Patrick Russ, 1914–2000) was an English novelist and translator, author of the 20-volume Aubrey–Maturin Napoleonic naval series beginning with Master and Commander (1969), plus biographies of Joseph Banks and Picasso.
Peter Heller (writer)
Peter Heller (born 1959) is an American novelist and adventure writer, author of The Dog Stars, The River, and Burn, and of four nonfiction adventure books; Dartmouth and Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate living in Denver.
Philippa Gregory
Philippa Gregory (born 1954, Nairobi) is a British historical novelist, author of Wideacre, The Other Boleyn Girl, and The White Queen, CBE 2021, founder of Gardens for The Gambia, and author of Normal Women.
Pip Williams (author)
Pip Williams is an Australian novelist and social researcher renowned for historical fiction set in Oxford, specifically The Dictionary of Lost Words (2020) and The Bookbinder of Jericho (2023).
R. D. Blackmore
R. D. Blackmore (Richard Doddridge Blackmore, 1825–1900) was an English novelist, poet, and fruit farmer at Teddington, best remembered for Lorna Doone, his 1869 historical romance set on Exmoor.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer best known for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.