Jacobean dramatist and contemporary of Shakespeare. Webster's tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi are regarded as the principal plays of the seventeenth century, aside from those of Shakespeare.

Pseudonym of Leonhard Wächter. See Wächter.

Clergyman, theologian, and poet, Watts was interested in the application of Lockean theories of sensation to theological questions. His hymns, the genre for which he is best known, established the form for subsequent generations.

Project editor.

Also a poet and critic, Thomas Warton, brother to Joseph Warton, is best remembered as a literary historian, particularly for The History of English Poetry, from the Close of the Eleventh to the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century (1774-1781). His poem The Triumph of Isis: A Poem. Occasioned by Isis: An Elegy appeared in 1750. Warton's sister Jane appears to have been a critic as well, assisting him with some of his work.

Poet, critic, literary editor, and brother to Thomas Warton. His major poetic works include Fashion: An Epistolary Satire to a Friend (1742), The Enthusiast; or, the Lover of Nature (1744), Odes on Various Subjects (1746), Ranelagh House: A Satire (1747), and An Ode, Occasioned by Reading Mr. West's Translation of Pindar (1749). An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope was published in 1756, then revised as An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (1762), with additional revised editions thereafter.

William Warner is best remembered for his verse chronicle entitled Albion's England and his romance novel Pan, His Syrinx, both drawing on British history and Elizabethan England.

Eventually to become Bishop of Gloucester, Warburton entered the clergy largely to pursue his interest in literature. Controversial as both a theologian and critic, he held a collaborative view of literary creation, particularly evident in his friendship with Alexander Pope. Warburton's edition of the works of Shakespeare is an early landmark in the body of the criticism that brought Shakespeare to the apex of the British literary canon.

Father of Horace Walpole, British Prime Minister from 1721 to 1742, and the author of Bob—Lynn against Franck—Lynn, or, A full history of the controversies and dissentions in the family of the Lynn's (1732). Incensed by 's theatrical satires of his administration, Walpole was responsible for the passing of The Licensing Act of 1737, which granted the Lord Chamberlain's office the responsibility of theatrical censorship, whether by the modification or outright veto of a play.

Son of British Prime Minister Robert Walpole, Horace Walpole was a prolific letter writer, memoirist, poet, dramatist, novelist, antiquarian, and critic. He is best known for inaugurating the Gothic novel with The Castle of Otranto (1764), a tale of aristocratic decadence, incest, and the supernatural. He privately printed and circulated among his acquaintances copies of a second gothic work, The Mysterious Mother (1768), this time a blank verse tragedy on the theme of Catholicism and incest.