One of eighteenth-century France's most significant women intellectuals, Mme. du Châtelet was also notable for her facility with languages, her athletic ability, her success at gambling, and her deep intellectual and emotional relationship with Voltaire, who left Paris with her when threatened with prosecution for his Lettres Philosophiques (1734) and with whom Mme. du Châtelet openly carried on an affair of several years duration.

Born Jeanne Bécu, Du Barry was a courtesan in French aristocratic circles who became the last maîtresse-en-titre, or official mistress, of King Louis XV. She was beheaded during the Reign of Terror in 1793.

Poet laureate of England from 1668 until his death. Particularly productive as a playwright, Dryden also ventured into a wide range of other genres, including satires, lyric poetry, essays, and literary criticism. His best-known dramatic works include an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest (1667, pub. 1670) and two other plays, Marriage A la Mode (1671; pub. 1673) and All for Love (1677, pub. 1678).

English politician, member of the House of Commons, and founder of Canons Ashby House, Northamptonshire. Sir Erasmus Dryden was the grandfather of poet John Dryden, as well as a distant relative of Jonathan Swift and Anne Hutchison.

Reputed to be the world’s oldest theater location in continuous use, the site of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane was first transformed from a cockfighting venue to a location for dramatic productions during the reign of James I. Closed down by the Puritans during the early 1640s, it was revived soon after the Restoration under a patent issued to Thomas Killigrew. The new building boasted an audience capacity of 700 and soon featured the period’s best-known performers, including Nell Gwyn, the mistress of Charles II.

First noteworthy Scottish poet to pointedly write in English. Also known as "Drummond of Hawthornden," William Drummond introduced the canzone, a medieval Italian metrical form, into English poetry.

An extremely prolific English poet and playwright who worked in a wide range of poetic genres and who frequently collaborated on plays with Henry Chettle and Thomas Dekker. Among Drayton's many publications, just a few of note include Idea. The Shepheards Garland (1593); Ideas Mirrour (1594); Endimion and Phobe (1595); Englands Heroicall Epistles (1597); Poly-Olbion (1612-1622); The Battaile of Agincourt (1627); and Nimphidia, the Court of Fayrie (1627). He also published several volumes of poems on historical or mythical personages and historical subjects.

English theatre prompter during the Restoration period, best known for his Roscius Anglicanus (1708), a historical review of the stage.

Scottish nobleman and commander in the wars against the English in the early fifteenth century. Douglas was captured by Sir Henry Percy at the Battle of Homildon Hill in 1402 and taken prisoner by the English king in 1403 after fighting in a battle with his captors against the king, not to be released until 1413.

The eponymous hero of the novel by Cervantes muddles the line between reality and fiction as a result of his reading chivalric romances.