Often called "The Sun King," Louis XIV presided over a period of great military success and artistic and architectural achievement. He was responsible for the construction of the Palace of Versailles, an architectural marvel.

King from 1498, Louis XII had immense domestic popularity despite his disastrous mishandling of the Italian wars.

Character in Nicholas Rowe's The Fair Penitent (1703), whose name became a byword for a cavalier seducer.

Daphnis and Chloe by Longus dates from the mid-third century CE. The English language edition by George Thornley and J.M. Edmonds (1935) opens its introduction explaining, "Nothing is known of the author of the Pastoralia. He describes Mytilene as if he knew it well, and he mentions the peculiarities of the Lesbian vine. He may have been a Lesbian, but such local colouring need not have been gathered on the spot, nor if so, by a native.

Unidentified Greek author of On the Sublime, which was for a time thought to be the work of rhetorician and philosopher Cassius Longinus, c. 213-273. After his text was translated into French by Boileau in 1674, it become one of the central works in eighteenth-century aesthetic theory.

English author, poet, and dramatist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Lodge is best known for his Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie (1590), the source of William Shakespeare's As You Like It.

Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) both exerted a profound influence on educational and psychological theory during the eighteenth century and beyond. He argues against absolute monarchy in favor of government based on civil contract in Two Treatises of Government (1690). Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) also influenced the views on childrearing and education of a number of his eighteenth-century successors.

Scottish biographer, novelist, editor, and critic, as well as close friend, son-in-law, and biographer of Sir Walter Scott. He contributed to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and the Quarterly Review, editing the latter from 1825-1853. Among other works, he published a Life of Robert Burns in 1828 and is best remembered for his Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (1837-8), which is considered as one of the great biographies in the English language.

A Jesuit priest who began missionary work in Abyssinia in 1625. Samuel Johnson's translated account of his travels, A Visit to Abyssinia was published in 1735.

A clergyman and friend to Samuel Richardson. He authored The Benevolence Incumbent on Us as Men and Christians (1746).