The 2nd Duchess of Marlborough, Henrietta Churchill was the daughter of the famous general John Churchill and Sarah Jennings, a friend and business manager to Queen Anne. She became Lady Henrietta Godolphin through marriage in 1698 and subsequently Viscountess Rialton in 1706 and Countess of Godolphin in 1712. It was rumoured that Henrietta's fifth child, Mary, was the result of her affair between Henrietta and William Congreve. Upon his death in 1729, Congreve left his entire fortune to Henrietta.

A premiere English satirist and poet. His best known work, The Rosciad (1761), made him a household name.

King of Denmark and Norway from 1513 until 1523, and Sweden from 1520 until 1521. He was the last monarch of the Scandinavian Kalmar Union, losing his position as King of Sweden to Gustav Vasa.

Character in Corneille's Le Cid.

English or Anglo-Irish bookseller, publisher, playwright, and adventure novelist best known for his General History of the Stage (1749).

One of the Chetwoods of Queens County, Ireland and nephew of Knightley Chetwood, Dean of Gloucester, 1650-1720 (Library of Congress Name Authority), this Knightley Chetwood is most known for his friendship with Jonathan Swift.

British statesman, diplomat, man of letters, and acclaimed wit, best known for his Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774), a guide to etiquette, worldly success, and the art of pleasing.

A translatory, diplomat, and customs official as well as a poet, Chaucer is most famous for The Canterbury Tales, written in the late fourteenth century and composed partly of narratives that Chaucer adapted or even appropriated from Boccaccio's Decameron. Chaucer's many other works include The Legend of Good Women (c. 1386), which collects tales primarily from Ovid and Boccaccio; Troilus and Criseyde (c.

Inspired by a growing English interest in antiquated and primitive poetry, Chatterton fabricated a number of works supposedly by fifteenth-century Bristol sheriff Thomas Rowley, whom Chatterton fictitiously recast as a poet, providing spurious documentation for the poems' authenticity as well. Made desperate by poverty, he committed suicide while still in his teens, inspiring his reception among Romantic readers as a quintessential example of tragically neglected genius.

An exceptionally versatile writer, Francois-Auguste-Rene de Chateaubriand was the foremost literary figure of early nineteenth-century France. Chateaubriand's Atala (1801) is a novel of ill-fated love between two American Indians of opposing tribes. His literary criticism was highly regarded, especially his Sketches of English Literature; with Considerations on the Spirit of the Times, Men, and Revolutions (London: Henry Colburn, 1836), translated from Essai sur la littérature anglaise et Considérations sur le génie des hommes, des temps et des révolutions (1836).