Brooke began her literary career with The Old Maid (1755-6), a witty essay periodical that she operated under the pseudonym "Mary Singleton, Spinster," and that was reprinted as a single volume in 1764. This periodical staging interactions between a vivid central voice, the perspectives of other contributors (probably fictional), and reader correspondence (much of which may also have been fictional), it is no surprise that her first full-length literary effort was a drama, Virginia: A Tragedy (1756), which she was unable to get staged.

English poet best remembered for his The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, a narrative poem which became the key source for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The poem is a translation and adaptation of the French translation of a story in Matteo Bandello's Novelle.

Also called Aegaeon, in Greek mythology, Briareus was one of three 50-headed, 100-armed brothers, the Hecatoncheires ("hundred" and "hands" in Greek), who aided Zeus in his defense against the Titans.

A miscellaneous writer descended from a protestant French refugee family, John Durant Breval dabbled in poetry, history, playwrighting, and travel writing. Breval was also engaged in a long-standing quarrel with Alexander Pope, both writers mercilessly ridiculing one another in multiple publications.

English poet and novelist, stepson of George Gascoigne. Breton's prose and verse spanned many genres, including satire, romance, religion, and politics.

German satirist, poet, professor of law, and imperial official. Brandt's Das Narrenschiff was the most popular literary work of fifteenth-century Germany.

Appears as an alternate spelling of Bradshaigh.

née Dorothy Bellingham; frequent correspondent with Samuel Richardson and others; sister to Lady Echlin. She married Sir Roger Bradshaigh, 1699-1770 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) in 1731. In her essay on Richardson, Anna Letitia Barbauld occasionally spells the name "Bradshaw."

See Orrery, Roger Boyle, Earl of.

Younger brother to Roger Boyle, earl of Orrery, Robert Boyle was primarily a scientist. His Martyrdom of Theodora and of Didymus was printed in 1687.