Letter writer and prominent bluestocking, friend to some of the eighteenth century's most noted literary producers and patrons.

Elizabethan pamphleteer and dramatist. Dekker's plays were characterized by his Protestant themes and vivid depictions of London life through colloquial speech. Dekker collaborated with many famous dramatists of the period, including John Ford, Philip Massinger, Thomas Middleton, and John Webster.

Defoe already had a long and prolific career as a noted political journalist when he published his first novel, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, in 1719. It was followed by The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1721), A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), and The Fortunate Mistress: Or, A History Of The Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of… the Person known by the Name of the Lady Roxana (1724).

Day's sentimental History of Sanford and Merton (1783-9), a milestone in the history of children's literature, took its inspiration from Henry Brooke's Fool of Quality, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile.

Scottish bookseller, actor, and author, best known for his Life of Garrick (1780) and Dramatic Miscellanies (1783).

English poet, lawyer, member of the House of Commons, and Attorney General for Ireland. His poem Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing is reflective of the Elizabethan contemplation of the relationship between human activity and natural order.

Character in Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740-1).

A prolific English playwright as well as a theatre manager, Royalist soldier, and poet laureate following the death of Ben Jonson. A few of Davenant's more notable works include The Witts (1634), The Temple of Love (1635), and Madagascar (1638). Davenant also claimed to be the illegitimate son of William Shakespeare.

Physician, botanist, poet, and grandfather of Charles Darwin. Containing a nascent theory of evolution, The Loves of Plants (1789) was later incorporated into The Botanic Garden (1791). In depicting plant reproduction and generation, Darwin's imagery sometimes becomes so erotic that some conservative authorities on education recommended denying young ladies access to his work.

Credited with articulating the theory of evolution, Darwin first attracting wide attention with the Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle (1839). He published widely on topics of natural history, especially geology and botany, both before and after the two works on which his greatest fame rests, On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection (1859, subsequently revised), and the even more controversial The Descent of Man (1871).