English Bishop, Protestant controversialist, and dramatist. Bale is the author of Kynge Johan, the first known English historical play.

Umbrian lord and condottiero (captain of a mercenary company), remembered primarily for his betrayal of the Florentine army to the Imperial forces during the Siege of Florence.

Author and businessman, Bage published six novels in his lifetime: Mount Henneth (1781) Barham Downs (1784), The Fair Syrian (1787), James Wallace (1788), Man as he is (1792), and Hermsprong, or Man as He Is Not (1796).

After being disgraced as a public figure by accusations of corruption, Lord Bacon turned to philosophical writing. His major works included his Essays (1597), The Advancement of Learning (1605), De Sapientia Veterum Liber (1609, translated as The Wisedome of the Ancients, 1619), Novuum Organum (1620), History of Henry VII (1622), De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623), and New Atlantis (1627), as well as numerous other historical, biographical, political, and philosophical publications.

Roman name for the Greek god Dionysus.

Character in Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740-1).

Austen's major novels include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816), Northanger Abbey (1818), and Persuasion (1818). A minor novel, Lady Susan, was first published in the 1871 edition of James Edward Austen-Leigh's A Memoir of Jane Austen along with the fragment The Watsons and a synopsis of the unfinished Sanditon. Austen is also appreciated for her comic juvenilia, especially Love & Freindship (1922).

One of the original knights of the Order of the Garter who fought under Prince Edward's command in the Battles of Crecy and Poitiers during the Hundred Years' War.

English antiquary, biographer, and pioneer archaeologist. His notable works include Brief Lives (written between 1669 and 1696), Monumenta Britannica (written between 1663 and 1693), and Naturall Historie (written between 1659 and 1671), all published posthumously.

English writer and freethinker with interests in mesmerism, naturalism, materialism, and phrenology. He advised Harriet Martineau on mesmerism during her 5-year illness, to which she attributed her recovery. The two went on to publish their correspondence as Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development (1851).