Elder statesman and eventually King of Pylos in Homer's Illiad and Odyssey. Wise but often long-winded and rather boastful, his portrayal includes an undercurrent of humor.

In Greek myth, the personification of anger.

Director General of Finance under Louis XVI, Necker had much of the responsibility for the late eighteenth-century French financial crisis that precipitated the events leading to the French revolution. He was father to Germaine de Staël.

Elizabethan pamphleteer, poet, playwright, and author of the first English picaresque novel, The Unfortunate Traveller; or, The Life of Jacke Wilton, a collaboration with Marlowe. Nashe's collaboration with Ben Jonson on their satirical play, The Isle of Dogs, resulted in the prosecution of both men.

Author of various selections and editions of drama, poetry, opera, and prose, including Scelta di Lettere familiari, degli Autori pieù Celebri (1800).

Born in Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte began his career in the French army, rising to the rank of General for his success during the wars following the French Revolution. In 1799 he brought about a coup d'etat, assuming the title of First Consul of the French Republic. In 1804 he was crowned Emperor of France, leading the French to military conquest over most of Europe. He reigned as Emperor until April 1814, when he was forced by the allied European armies to abdicate.

French portrait engraver Robert Nanteuil is credited with elevating engraving from the status of a craft to that of an art. As an official engraver for Louis XIV he produced hundreds of portraits, including likenesses of many of the notable and high ranking figures of his day

5th Baronet of Dunsinnan; a Scottish judge who became close enough to Samuel Johnson to accompany him during part of his Scottish travels. Nairne was celebrated as highly principled, reputedly once paying for a poor man to take Nairne's own judgment to an appellate court after realizing his original judgment had been mistaken.

Musäus's stories were translated and published as Popular Tales of the Germans (1791) by Gothic novelist William Beckford. Musäus anonymously published Physiognomische Reisen, voran ein physiognomisch Tagebuch (1778-1779), a satire of the work of Johann Kaspar Lavater, founder of the pseudo-sciences of physiognomy and animal magnetism. Anne Plumptre translated the satire as Musaeus's Physiognomical Travels, Preceded by a Physiognomical Journal (1800).

Son of the founder of the publishing house bearing his name. This John Murray was probably the most important among early nineteenth century British publishers, bringing out work by authors that included Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walter Scott, Robert Southey, and many others. He helped establish and published the Quarterly Review and participated for a time in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.