Writers and literary biographies

Henriette Charasson

Henriette Charasson (1884-1972) was a French poet, playwright, and literary critic who wrote for L'Action française under the pseudonym Orion and won eleven Académie française prizes.

Henriette Roland Holst

Henriette Roland Holst, born Henriëtte van der Schalk (1869–1952), was a Dutch poet and socialist politician who helped found Dutch communism, translated De Internationale, and joined the resistance.

Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828–1906), Norwegian playwright born in Skien, father of modern theater and author of A Doll's House, Ghosts, Hedda Gabler, and Peer Gynt; world's most performed playwright after Shakespeare; 2028 marks his bicentennial.

Henrik Pontoppidan

Henrik Pontoppidan (1857–1943) was a Danish realist novelist who shared the 1917 Nobel Prize in Literature with Karl Gjellerup; his major works include Lykke-Per and De dødes rige.

Henrik Schück

Henrik Schück (1855–1947) was a Swedish literary and cultural historian, professor at Lund and Uppsala and rector there from 1905 to 1918, best known for Illustrerad svensk litteraturhistoria.

Henrik Wergeland

Henrik Wergeland (1808–1845) was a Norwegian poet, playwright, editor, and public debater central to Norwegian nation-building, language reform, and popular education, and Norway's first national archivist.

Henrikas Radauskas

Henrikas Radauskas (1910–1970) was a Lithuanian poet and translator, generally ranked among the major Lithuanian poets of the twentieth century, whose polished, anti-lyrical work reshaped Lithuanian poetry in exile.

Henrique Teixeira de Sousa

Henrique Teixeira de Sousa (1919–2006) was a Cape Verdean physician and novelist from the island of Fogo, one of the best-known writers of Portuguese-speaking Africa.

Henriqueta Lisboa

Henriqueta Lisboa (1901–1985) was a Brazilian poet, essayist, and translator from Lambari, Minas Gerais, whose lyric, Symbolist work includes the children's classic O Menino Poeta.

Henry Darger

Henry Darger (1892–1973) was an American self-taught artist and Chicago hospital janitor known for In the Realms of the Unreal, a 15,000-page illustrated fantasy novel.

Henry de Montherlant

Henry de Montherlant (1895-1972), French novelist, essayist, and dramatist, Académie française 1960; author of Les Jeunes Filles, La Reine morte, and Port-Royal, sanctioned after the Occupation for collaborationist journalism.

Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding (1707–1754), English novelist and magistrate, author of Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones (1749), and Amelia; pioneer of the modern comic novel and founder of the Bow Street Runners.

Henry Handel Richardson

Henry Handel Richardson was the pen-name of Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, an Australian novelist (1870–1946) known for The Fortunes of Richard Mahony trilogy and The Getting of Wisdom.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517?-1547), English nobleman and Tudor courtier poet, son of the third Duke of Norfolk; introduced blank verse and the English sonnet form; executed for treason by Henry VIII; published posthumously in Tottel's Miscellany.

Henry James

Henry James (1843–1916), American-born British novelist and realist, author of The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, and The Golden Bowl; master of the international theme, limited point of view, and the New York Edition prefaces.

Henry Kendall

Henry Kendall, born Thomas Henry Kendall, was an Australian poet of the bush whose nature lyrics made him, for a time, the country's most celebrated poet.

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson, born Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson (1867 to 1922), was an Australian poet and short-story writer whose bush-life stories made him a leading nationalist figure in Australian writing.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard's Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Hutchins Center director, is a literary scholar and Emmy- and Peabody-winning filmmaker, host of PBS's Finding Your Roots, and author of The Black Box (2024).

Henry Louis Vivian Derozio

Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809–1831), Calcutta Eurasian poet, teacher, and journalist, first Indian poet in English, author of The Fakeer of Jungheera and 'The Harp of India,' and inspirer of the Young Bengal movement at Hindu College.

Henry Miller

Henry Miller (1891–1980), American writer of Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, and Tropic of Capricorn; Paris-based autobiographical novelist banned for obscenity for decades, later Big Sur resident.

Henry Muller (writer)

Henry Muller (1902–1980) was a French literary journalist, translator, and publishing executive who spent his career at Éditions Grasset, becoming secretary-general, and wrote the memoir Trois pas en arrière.

Henry Vaughan

Henry Vaughan (1621–1695) was a Welsh metaphysical poet, translator, and physician who called himself the Silurist, best known for the religious collection Silex Scintillans, first published in 1650.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was an American poet and Harvard professor, the most popular poet of 19th-century America, known for Evangeline and The Song of Hiawatha.

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.

Herbjørg Wassmo

Herbjørg Wassmo, born 1942 in Vesterålen, Norway, is a novelist and poet who won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 1987 for Hudløs himmel, part of her Tora trilogy.

Heriberto Frías

Heriberto Frías (Heriberto Frías Alcocer) was a Mexican novelist, journalist, and soldier whose eyewitness novel Tomochic made him a leading opposition writer under Porfirio Díaz.

Herman Bang

Herman Bang (1857–1912) was a Danish novelist, journalist, and stage director, the most prominent representative of impressionist literature in Denmark, known for works such as Stuk and Tine.

Herman Brusselmans

Herman Brusselmans is a Flemish novelist, poet, and columnist born in 1957 in Hamme, Belgium, who has published more than 75 books and writes a weekly column for Humo.

Herman Charles Bosman

Herman Charles Bosman (1905–1951) was a South African writer widely regarded as the country's finest short-story writer, known for his Marico stories narrated by Oom Schalk Lourens.