Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745

A prolific poet, satirist, and political pamphleteer, Swift began his career in satirical fiction with A Tale of a Tub (1704). His most famous work is Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and Then a Captain of Several Ships (1726). A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents, or the Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick (1729) is his best remembered non-fiction satire.

Sunderland, Dorothy Sidney, Countess of, 1617-1684

Woman of letters known for her beauty, wit, and charm. Poet Edmund Waller addressed poems to her under the name "Sacharissa" (from the Latin word "sacharum," meaning "sugar"). In 1635, Dorothy rejected Waller's marriage proposal, and she soon married Henry Spencer at Penhurst. Spencer was killed during the English Civil War, and Dorothy remarried with Sir Robert Smythe nearly a decade later.