Famous Writers and their Works in 18th Century

1.Daniel Defoe (13 September 1660[1] - 24 April 1731) - was an English trader, writer, journalist,
pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, which is second only to the
Bible in its number of translations. Defoe is noted for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel,
as he helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson,
and is among the founders of the English novel.

Defoe wrote many political tracts and often was in trouble with the authorities, including prison time.
Intellectuals and political leaders paid attention to his fresh ideas and sometimes consulted with him.

Novels

 Robinson Crusoe (1719)

 The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)
 Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720)
 Captain Singleton (1720)
 A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)
 Colonel Jack (1722)
 Moll Flanders (1722)

2. Samuel Johnson LL.D. (18 September 1709 [OS 7 September] – 13 December 1784)often referred to
as Dr. Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet,
essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. He was a devout Anglican and a
generous philanthropist. Politically, he was a committed Tory. The Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography describes Johnson as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is
also the subject of James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, described by Walter Jackson Bate as "the
most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature".

Notable Works

 Birmingham Journal Biographies, criticism

 Plan for a Dictionary of the English
Language  A Voyage to Abyssinia, by Jerome Lobo,
 The Rambler translated from the French
 Life of Mr Richard Savage
 The Adventurer
 Universal Visiter  Miscellaneous Observations on the
Tragedy of Macbeth
 A Journey to the Western Islands of
 "Life of Browne" in Thomas Browne's
Scotland
Christian Morals
Poetry
 Messiah, a translation into Latin of Dictionary
Alexander Pope's Messiah
 Preface to a Dictionary of the English
 London
Language
 Prologue at the Opening of the Theatre
 A Dictionary of the English Language
in Drury Lane
 The Vanity of Human Wishes
 Irene, a Tragedy Novellas

 The History of Rasselas, Prince of

Abissinia

3. Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six
major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the
18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of
favourable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the
second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism.[2][b] Her
use of biting irony, along with her realism and social commentary, have earned her acclaim among
critics and scholars.

Novels  Lady Susan (1871, posthumous)

 Sense and Sensibility (1811)

 Pride and Prejudice (1813) Unfinished fiction
 Mansfield Park (1814)
 Emma (1815)  The Watsons (1804)
 Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous)  Sanditon (1817)
 Persuasion (1818, posthumous)

4. Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist and dramatist known for his
rich, earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the picaresque novel Tom Jones.
Additionally, he holds a significant place in the history of law enforcement, having used his authority as a
magistrate to found (with his half-brother John) what some have called London's first police force, the
Bow Street Runners. His younger sister, Sarah, also became a successful writer.

Notable Works:

 The Masquerade – a poem (Fielding's first publication)

 Love in Several Masques
 Rape upon Rape Adapted by Bernard Miles as Lock Up Your Daughters! in 1959, filmed in 1974
 The Temple Beau
 The Author's Farce

5. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic,
philosopher and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic
Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner and "Kubla Khan", as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work,
especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist
philosophy to English-speaking culture. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including
suspension of disbelief. He had a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and on American
transcendentalism.

Notable Works:

 Lectures 1795 on Politics and Religion

 The Watchman
 Essays on his Times in the Morning Post and the Courier in 3 vols;
 The Friend in 2 vols;
 Lectures, 1808–1819, on Literature in 2 vols;
 Lay Sermons

6. Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744) was an 18th-century English poet. He is best known for
his satirical verse, including Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad, and for his
translation of Homer. He is the second-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations after Shakespeare.

Notable Works:

 Pastorals
 An Essay on Criticism
 Messiah (from the Book of Isaiah, and later translated into Latin by Samuel Johnson)
 The Rape of the Lock
 Windsor Forest
  1715: The Temple of Fame: A Vision

7. Samuel Richardson (baptised 19 August 1689 – 4 July 1761[1]) was an 18th-century English writer and
printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa:
Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753). Richardson was
an established printer and publisher for most of his life and printed almost 500 different works,
including journals and magazines. He was also known to collaborate closely with the London bookseller
Andrew Millar on several occasions.

Notable Works:

 The Apprentice's Vade Mecum

 A Seasonable Examination of the Pleas and Pretentions Of the Proprietors of, and Subscribers
to, Play-Houses, Erected in Defiance of the Royal License. With Observations on the Printed Case
of the Players belonging to Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden Theatres
 Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded
 A compilation of letters published as a manual, with directions on How to think and act justly
and prudently in the Common Concerns of Human Life
 Pamela in her Exalted Condition

8. Mary Wollstonecraft (27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was an English writer, philosopher, and
advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a
history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known
for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally
inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and
women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.

Notable Works:

 Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: With Reflections on Female Conduct, in the More
Important Duties of Life. London: Joseph Johnson
 Mary: A Fiction. London: Joseph Johnson
 Original Stories from Real Life: With Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections and
Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness. London: Joseph Johnson,
 Necker, Jacques
 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with Strictures on Moral and Political Subjects

9. William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint
publication Lyrical Ballads (1798).

Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semi-autobiographical poem

of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and
published, before which it was generally known as "the poem to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Britain's
poet laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850.

Notable Works:

 Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems  "Lines Written in Early Spring"
(1798)  "Expostulation and Reply"
 "Simon Lee"  "The Tables Turned"
 "We are Seven"  "The Thorn"

10. Jane Barker (1652–1732) was a popular English fiction writer, poet, and a staunch Jacobite. She went
into self-imposed exile when James II fled England during the Glorious Revolution in 1688. Her novels,
The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia, also published as Love Intrigues (1713), Exilius or The Banish'd Roman
(1715), A Patchwork Screen for the Ladies (1723), and The Lining of the Patchwork Screen for the Ladies
(1726) were written after she returned to London in 1704. Prior to and during her exile, she wrote a
collection of poems justifying the value of feminine education and female single life, "Poetical
Recreations" (1688),[2] and a group of political poems, "A Collection of Poems Referring to the Times"
(1701), which conveyed her anxiety about the political future of England.

Notable Works:

 Poetical Recreations
 A Collection of Poems Referring to the Times
 Love Intrigues';' or The Amours of Bosvil and Galesia
 Exilius; or The Banish'd Roman
 The Christian Pilgrimage