King of France beginning 1774, Louis XVI was guillotined by the French Revolutionary National Convention in 1793. His failed efforts to reform the French aristocracy undermined his popularity, and a debt crisis consequent on his support for the North American colonists in their war for independence from Britain as well as an extravagant court left him vulnerable to the hostility of the French middle and lower classes, and his palace was stormed by a revolutionary mob in 1789.

Sometimes known "Louis the Beloved," Louis XV was the King of France for fifty-nine years, the second longest in French history. Notwithstanding this, his reign is sometimes criticized for failing to address those issues that led to the French Revolution and Reign of Terror.

Often called "The Sun King," Louis XIV presided over a period of great military success and artistic and architectural achievement. He was responsible for the construction of the Palace of Versailles, an architectural marvel.

King from 1498, Louis XII had immense domestic popularity despite his disastrous mishandling of the Italian wars.

Character in Nicholas Rowe's The Fair Penitent (1703), whose name became a byword for a cavalier seducer.

Daphnis and Chloe by Longus dates from the mid-third century CE. The English language edition by George Thornley and J.M. Edmonds (1935) opens its introduction explaining, "Nothing is known of the author of the Pastoralia. He describes Mytilene as if he knew it well, and he mentions the peculiarities of the Lesbian vine. He may have been a Lesbian, but such local colouring need not have been gathered on the spot, nor if so, by a native.

Unidentified Greek author of On the Sublime, which was for a time thought to be the work of rhetorician and philosopher Cassius Longinus, c. 213-273. After his text was translated into French by Boileau in 1674, it become one of the central works in eighteenth-century aesthetic theory.

English author, poet, and dramatist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Lodge is best known for his Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie (1590), the source of William Shakespeare's As You Like It.

Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) both exerted a profound influence on educational and psychological theory during the eighteenth century and beyond. He argues against absolute monarchy in favor of government based on civil contract in Two Treatises of Government (1690). Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) also influenced the views on childrearing and education of a number of his eighteenth-century successors.

Scottish biographer, novelist, editor, and critic, as well as close friend, son-in-law, and biographer of Sir Walter Scott. He contributed to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and the Quarterly Review, editing the latter from 1825-1853. Among other works, he published a Life of Robert Burns in 1828 and is best remembered for his Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (1837-8), which is considered as one of the great biographies in the English language.