English actor known for his erratic personal habits and commanding stage presence. Cooke initiated the romantic acting style, drawing on the naturalistic style of David Garrick and Charles Macklin.

Duchess of Brittany and Countess of Richmond, widow of Geoffrey II and Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester. Constance was the sister-in-law of Richard I and the mother of Arthur I, Richard I's nephew and chosen heir.

Scottish bookseller and publisher. Constable is best remembered as the publisher of the Edinburgh Review and the novels of Sir Walter Scott.

English playwright, poet, translator, man of letters, and Whig politician who is widely considered among the greatest comic writers of the Restoration period. Congreve's writings helped to shape the comedy of manners genre through his mastery of comic dialogue and satire. Congreve became the protégé of John Dryden at the age of 17, later to collaborate with him on his Satires of Juvenal and Persius (1693). Congreve's most notable plays include The Old Bachelor (1693), The Double Dealer (1694), Love for Love (1695), The Mourning Bride (1697), and The Way of the World (1700).

Isidore-Auguste-Marie-François-Xavier Comte, known as Auguste Comte, was a French philosopher, writer, and mathematician who founded the school of positivism and established sociology as a field of study.

Italian Renaissance poet particularly esteemed for her love poems to her husband, Ferrante d'Avalos, Marquis of Pescara, who died from war wounds.

Italian noble and condottiero (captain of a mercenary company) serving Spain and the Papal States during the Italian wars.

Following in his father's footsteps as an actor, manager, and comic playwright, Colman the Younger also authored a enormous body of work that includes as some of its most substantial pieces Inkle and Yarico (1787), The Iron Chest 1796), The Heir-at-Law (1797), and John Bull (1803). He succeeded his father as manager of the Haymarket Theatre, filling that role from 1794 to 1817.

This playwright, theater manager, and close friend to actor David Garrick was also known as a generous mentor in the eighteenth century theatrical world. Among the most popular of his many works figure The Clandestine Marriage (1766), Polly Honeycombe (1760), and The Jealous Wife (1761). Colman the Elder managed the Haymarket Theatre from 1776 to 1794.

English novelist, trained lawyer, and father of the first English detective novels. Of his more than 30 novels, various short stories, travel literature, and plays, The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868) are the most well-known because of their contributions to the genre of detective fiction. He was also friends with Charles Dickens, whose periodical Household Words published many of Collins’ novels.