Poet and member of Henry VIII's court circle, Sir Thomas is credited with introducing the Italian sonnet and terza rima into English literature, along with the French rondeau.

Niece of Sir Philip Sidney and Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, Wroth authored, among other works, The Countesse of Montgomeries Urania (1621) and a sonnet sequence, Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, which was printed at the end of Urania.

Wordsworth's most famous publication is Lyrical Ballads (with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798; repeatedly revised and expanded, including its famous Preface, added in 1800 and expanded thereafter).

Sister to poet William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth is best known for her journals, especially those from her time at Grasmere and Alfoxden. She and William resided together after 1795, and she became an important part of the creative community that included Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey and others. In addition to her journals, she authored a number of poems, a travel diary of a tour of Scotland, and an account of a Grasmere couple who died in a snowstorm, leaving eight orphan children.

English actor among the most famous comedians of his time.

Student contributor.

English Archbishop and Catholic clergyman. Wolsey became almoner for King Henry VIII in 1509, and eventually was appointed cardinal by Pope Leo X in 1515. Wolsey attained the position of Lord Chancellor, the chief adviser to the king, becoming an incredibly influential political figure. Wolsey was stripped of his government titles after failing to attain an annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

Wife of radical author William Godwin and mother of novelist Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft was a versatile professional writer who attained fame for her radical ideas through her two political treatises, A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), which responded to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), her most famous publication and one of the greatest landmarks in the history of writing about women.

Irish actress and socialite professionally known as "Peg Woffington." Woffington became famous for her masculine roles, such as that of Sir Harry Wildair in George Farquhar's The Constant Couple (1699).

An English poet, pamphleteer, satirist, and hymnist, also referred to as Withers or Wyther. His Abuses Stript and Whipt (1613) earned him a jail term (not to be his last). Other works include A Satyre: Dedicated to His Most Excellent Majestie (1614); The Shepheard's Hunting; Fidelia (1617); a song, "Shall I, wasting in despair" (1615), reprinted in Percy's Reliques (1765); Motto (1621); Faire-Virtue, the Mistresse of Phil'Arete (1622); and, over the next four and a half decades, a large body of religious, topical, and political verse as well as numerous political pamphlets.