Italian writer, poet, and Renaissance humanist. The Decameron (1348-1353) is his collection of 100 tales that inspired fiction by many subsequent writers.

Blount, Martha Marie, 1690-1763 (Library of Congress Name Authority)—Martha Marie Blount was a close friend to author Alexander Pope, so much so that some contemporaries speculated that she was his lover or even secret wife. Because her family estate was concentrated on her younger brother, the shy, quiet-tempered Martha spent many of her adult years living with her more difficult sister Teresa (b. 1688), addressee of Pope's poems "Epistle to Miss Blount, with the Works of Voiture" (1710) and "Epistle to Miss Blount, on her Leaving the Town after the Coronation" (1714).

Extraordinarily hard-working, particularly after her family's finances were ruined by the extravagance of her companion, the Comte d'Orsay, Lady Blessington was known for novels, travel writing, periodical editing and contributions, and editing and authoring copy for popular literary gift books.

Poet, essayist, editor, and the biographer of Letitia Elizabeth Landon.

Scottish poet whose work The Grave gave rise to the graveyard school, a genre of poetry characterized by its morbid appeal and themes of mortality and bereavement.

An English jurist and Tory politician, William Blackstone is best remembered for his Commentaries on the Laws of England, an expansive and accessible treatise on English common law which influenced the development of the United States legal system after the Revolutionary War. Blackstone also studied poetry during his time at Oxford, and his notes on Shakespeare were published in George Steevens' 1793 edition of Shakespeare's plays.

The legacy of this physician and prolific poet as one admired by Samuel Johnson and yet the butt of scorn in Alexander Pope's Dunciad epitomizes the controversies over his merits among his contemporaries. Creation (1712) is his most respected poem.

Known as "the blind bard," the poet Blacklock lost his sight in early his childhood.

Not to be confused with Isaac Bickerstaff, the alias used by Richard Steele and Jonathan Swift, this Isaac Bickerstaff (or Bickerstaffe) was an Irish playwright and librettist. He had varying success in his works throughout his life, but his play The Maid of the Mill (1765) was one of his successful ones. He also wrote Lionel and Clarissa (1768), a comic opera.

Pseudonym. See Richard Steele and Jonathan Swift.