Authors That Inspire Movies

1. Philip K. Dick

Philip Kindred Dick was born in Chicago in December 1928, along with a twin sister, Jane. Jane died less than eight weeks later, allegedly from an allergy to mother's milk. Dick's parents split up during his childhood, and he moved with his mother to Berkeley, California, where he lived for most of...

2. Charles Dickens

Writer | Great Expectations

Charles Dickens' father was a clerk at the Naval Pay Office, and because of this the family had to move from place to place: Plymouth, London, Chatham. It was a large family and despite hard work, his father couldn't earn enough money. In 1823 he was arrested for debt and Charles had to start ...

3. William Shakespeare

Writer | The Tragedy of Macbeth

William Shakespeare's birthdate is assumed from his baptism on April 25. His father John was the son of a farmer who became a successful tradesman; his mother Mary Arden was gentry. He studied Latin works at Stratford Grammar School, leaving at about age 15. About this time his father suffered an ...

4. Tennessee Williams

Writer | A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams met long-term partner Frank Merlo in the summer of 1948 (Merlo died of lung cancer in the fall of 1963). Though separated briefly in 1961 and again in 1962, the two were partners for 15 years. Merlo acted as his personal manager/secretary.

Williams spent much of his most prolific ...

5. John Steinbeck

Writer | Lifeboat

John Steinbeck was the third of four children and the only son born to John Ernst and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. His father was County Treasurer and his mother, a former schoolteacher. John graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and attended classes at Stanford University, leaving in 1925 ...

6. Mario Puzo

Writer | The Godfather

Mario Puzo was born October 15, 1920, in "Hell's Kitchen" on Manhattan's (NY) West Side and, following military service in World War II, attended New York's New School for Social Research and Columbia University. His best-known novel, "The Godfather," was preceded by two critically acclaimed novels...

7. Anthony Burgess

Writer | A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess was born on February 25, 1917 in Manchester, England, UK. He was a writer, known for A Clockwork Orange (1971), Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) and Vinyl (1965). He was married to Liana Burgess and Llewela Isherwood Jones. He died on November 22, 1993 in London, England, UK.

8. Nikos Kazantzakis

Writer | The Last Temptation of Christ

Nikos Kazantzakis was born in Heraklion, Crete (Greece). He studied Law in Athens and in Paris, but soon he studied philosophy and literature. He travelled almost everywhere; he learnt many foreign languages and left his scientific research for Nitsche. At philosophy: "Ascetics" (Salvatores Dei, ...

9. Lev Tolstoy

Writer | Anna Karenina

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in his ancestral estate Yasnaya Polyana, South of Moscow, Russia. He was the fourth of five children in a wealthy family of Russian landed Gentry. His parents died when he was a child, and he was brought up by his elder brothers and ...

10. Arthur Conan Doyle

Writer | Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer of Irish descent, considered a major figure in crime fiction. His most famous series of works consisted of the "Sherlock Holmes" stories (1887-1927), consisting of four novels and 56 short stories. His other notable series were the "Professor Challenger" ...

11. H.G. Wells

Writer | The War of the Worlds

Writer, born in Bromley, Kent. He was apprenticed to a draper, tried teaching, studied biology in London, then made his mark in journalism and literature. He played a vital part in disseminating the progressive ideas which characterized the first part of the 20th-c. He achieved fame with scientific...

12. Stan Lee

Producer | Black Panther

Stan Lee was an American comic-book writer, editor, and publisher, who was executive vice president and publisher of Marvel Comics.

Stan was born in New York City, to Celia (Solomon) and Jack Lieber, a dress cutter. His parents were Romanian Jewish immigrants. Lee co-created Spider-Man, the Hulk, ...

13. Frank Miller

Writer | Sin City

Frank Miller was born in Olney, Maryland, to a nurse mother and a carpenter and electrician father, and was raised in Montpelier, Vermont. He is of Irish descent. Miller was a big comics writer/artist in the '70s and '80s. He wrote and penciled the Marvel series "Daredevil" for a long time. His ...

14. Dante Alighieri

Writer | Junkie Hell

Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 into the lower nobility of Florence, to Alighiero di Bellincione d'Alighiero, a moneylender. A precocious student, Dante's education focused on rhetoric and grammar. He also became enamored with a young girl, Beatrice Portinari, whose death in 1290 threw a grieving ...

15. J.K. Rowling

Writer | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2

Joanne Rowling was born in Yate, near Bristol, a few miles south of a town called Dursley ("Harry Potter"'s Muggle-family). Her father Peter Rowling was an engineer for Rolls Royce in Bristol at this time. Her mother, Anne, was half-French and half-Scottish. They met on a train as it left King's ...

16. J.R.R. Tolkien

Writer | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

English writer, scholar and philologist, Tolkien's father was a bank manager in South Africa. Shortly before his father died (1896) his mother took him and his younger brother to his father's native village of Sarehole, near Birmingham, England. The landscapes and Nordic mythology of the Midlands ...

17. Hunter S. Thompson

Writer | Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Hunter S. Thompson was born on July 18, 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Rum Diary (2011) and Gonzo (2008). He was married to Anita Thompson and Sondi Wright. He died on February 20, 2005 in Aspen, Colorado, USA.

18. Irvine Welsh

Writer | Trainspotting

Welsh's books have made him a cult figure within the writing world since the 1990s. Several of his books have become best sellers and all have a mixture of comedy, drama and hard-hitting issues...the best-known being Trainspotting (1996) which was made into a box-office smash worldwide at the ...

19. Christopher Marlowe

Soundtrack | Richard III

Born the son of a shoe-maker two months before the birth of another famous playwright, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe achieved fame as an Elizabethan dramatist as well as an atheist. He was killed in a tavern brawl by a former friend, allegedly over a bill. There is now some evidence that...

20. Neil Gaiman

Writer | Good Omens

Neil Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and films. He is best known for the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book.

As a child and a teenager, Gaiman read the works of C. S. ...

21. Stephen King

Writer | Maximum Overdrive

Stephen Edwin King was born on September 21, 1947, at the Maine General Hospital in Portland. His parents were Nellie Ruth (Pillsbury), who worked as a caregiver at a mental institute, and Donald Edwin King, a merchant seaman. His father was born under the surname "Pollock," but used the last name ...

22. Jonathan Nolan

Writer | Westworld

Attended Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois, graduating in 1994.

Graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in 1999. Majored in English.

Shortly after graduating from Georgetown University, Jonathan Nolan served as a production assistant on Memento (2000).

Wrote the short story, "...

23. Anton Chekhov

Writer | Kis Uykusu

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in 1860, the third of six children to a family of a grocer, in Taganrog, Russia, a southern seaport and resort on the Azov Sea. His father, a 3rd-rank Member of the Merchant's Guild, was a religious fanatic and a tyrant who used his children as slaves. Young Chekhov...

24. Guy de Maupassant

Writer | La criada de la granja

Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5, 1850 in Château de Miromesnil, France. He was a writer, known for La criada de la granja (1953), Pierre & Jeanne and Black Sabbath (1963). He died on July 6, 1893 in Paris, France.

25. Jack Kerouac

Writer | On the Road

Jack Kerouac was born into a French-Canadian family and spoke French before he learned English. His father was a printer and a local businessman. His first story was inspired by the radio show "The Shadow". As a young writer he styled himself after Thomas Wolfe, and attended Columbia University. ...

26. Jack London

Writer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Jack London was the best-selling, highest paid and most popular American author of his time.

He was born John Griffith Chaney, on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco. He was raised by his mother Flora Wellman and his stepfather John London (he didn't know who his father was until his adulthood). ...

27. F. Scott Fitzgerald

Writer | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

"There are no second acts in American lives," wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, who himself went from being the high priest of the Jazz Age to a down-and-out alcoholic within the space of 20 years, but not before giving the world several literary masterpieces, the most famous of which is "The Great Gatsby...

28. Anton Donchev

Writer | The Heretics

Anton Donchev was born on September 14, 1930 in Burgas, Bulgaria. He was a writer, known for The Heretics, Kaloyan (1963) and Glutnitzata (1972). He was married to Raina Vasileva and Evelina Troyanska. He died on October 20, 2022 in Bulgaria.

29. Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra

Writer | Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes' baptism occurred on October 9, 1547, at Alcala de Henares, Spain, so it is reasonable to assume he was born around that time, and Alcala de Henares has long claimed itself as his birthplace. The son of Rodrigo de Cervantes, an itinerant and not-too-successful surgeon, Miguel ...

30. Ivan Vazov

Writer | Gramada

Ivan Vazov was born on June 27, 1850 in Sopot, Vazovgrad, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire [now Bulgaria]. He was a writer, known for Gramada (1936), Pod igoto (1952) and Pod igoto (1990). He was married to Athena Boliarska. He died on September 22, 1921 in Sofia, Bulgaria.

31. Maxim Gorky

Writer | Famine

Maksim Gorky is a pseudonym of Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov, who was born into a poor Russian family in Nizhnii Novgorod on Volga river. Gorky lost his father at an early age, he was beaten by his stepfather and became an orphan at age 9, when his mother died. He was brought up by his grandmother, ...

32. Ken Kesey

Writer | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Kesey burst into the literary scene with the "Cuckoo's Nest" in 1962 which he wrote from his experiences working at a veterans hospital. During this period, he volunteered for the testing on the drug LSD. After writing his second novel, "Sometimes A Great Notion," he bought an old school bus dubbed...

33. Sophocles

Writer | Atlantis

Versatile Greek poet and tragic dramatist. He was the son of Sophilus, a wealthy arms manufacturer. Sophocles studied tragedy under Aeschylus, whom he subsequently defeated in the dramatic festival of 468 BC, thus gaining his first victory at these competitions. He became a general under Nicias and...

34. Euripides

Writer | Le baccanti

Born on Salamis island around 484 BC, Euripides is considered the first professional writer in Athens. His dramas evolve around human passions and his interest lies in strong feelings of love, hate and revenge. Often also the gods themselves share the same low moral standards as the humans do. In ...

35. Aeschylus

Writer | Les noces rouges

Aeschylus is considered by some as the greatest writer ever to walk the face of earth. He was born to a noble family in Elefsinia, a few miles from Athens. The greatest festival in his hometown was the Elefsinia Mysteria, a dramatic imitation of nature's awakening in spring. Aeschylus is the ...

36. Ernest Hemingway

Writer | To Have and Have Not

Ernest Hemingway was an American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize (1953) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1954) for his novel The Old Man and the Sea, which was made into a 1958 film The Old Man and the Sea (1958).

He was born into the hands of his physician father. He was the second of six ...

37. Ian Fleming

Writer | Casino Royale

Born into a wealthy and influential English family, Ian Fleming spent his early years attending top British schools such as Eton and Sandhurst military academy. He took to writing while schooling in Kitzbuhel, Austria, and upon failing the entrance requirements for Foreign Service joined the news ...

38. Roald Dahl

Writer | The Witches

Dahl was born in Wales in 1916. He served as a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II. He made a forced landing in the Libyan Desert and was severely injured. As a result, he spent five months in a Royal Navy hospital in Alexandria. Dahl is noted for how he relates suspenseful and...

39. Dr. Seuss

Writer | How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Acclaimed writer, Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, March 2nd, 1904. After attending Dartmouth College and Oxford University, he began a career in advertising. His advertising cartoons, featuring Quick, Henry, the Flit!, appeared in several leading ...

40. Jane Austen

Writer | Sense and Sensibility

Jane Austen was born on December 16th, 1775, to the local rector, Rev. George Austen (1731-1805), and Cassandra Leigh (1739-1827). She was the seventh of eight children. She had one older sister, Cassandra. In 1783 she went to Southampton to be taught by a relative, Mrs. Cawley, but was brought ...

41. Louisa May Alcott

Writer | Little Women

Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, USA. She was a writer, known for Little Women (2019), Little Women (1994) and An Old-Fashioned Girl (1949). She died on March 6, 1888 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

42. Frank Herbert

Writer | Dune

Frank Herbert was born on October 8, 1920 in Tacoma, Washington, USA. He was a writer, known for Dune (2021), Dune (1984) and Dune: Part Two (2024). He was married to Theresa Shackleford, Beverley Ann Stuart and Flora Parkinson. He died on February 11, 1986 in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.

43. Mitch Cullin

Writer | Mr. Holmes

Mitch Cullin was born on March 23, 1968 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. He is a cinematographer and writer, known for Mr. Holmes (2015), Tideland (2005) and Tokyo Is Dreaming (2008).

44. E.L. Doctorow

Writer | Daniel

E.L. Doctorow was born on January 6, 1931 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Daniel (1983), Wakefield (2016) and Billy Bathgate (1991). He was married to Helen Setzer. He died on July 21, 2015 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.

45. William Saroyan

Writer | The Human Comedy

Oscar winner and Pulitzer Prize recipient William Saroyan, who gained world fame with his classic book "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" (1934), was born in California to Armenak and Takoohi Saroyan.

With his unmistakably American literary works, deeply rooted in his Armenian heritage, ...

46. William Faulkner

Writer | To Have and Have Not

William Faulkner, one of the 20th century's most gifted novelists, wrote for the movies in part because he could not make enough money from his novels and short stories to support his growing number of dependants. The author of such acclaimed novels as "The Sound and the Fury" and "Absalom, Absalom...

47. Franz Kafka

Writer | Le procès

Franz Kafka was born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Austrian Empire, in 1883. His father, Hermann Kafka, was a business owner and a domestic tyrant, frequently abusing his son. Kafka later admitted to his father, "My writing was all about you...". He believed that his father broke ...

48. Margaret Mitchell

Writer | Gone with the Wind

Margaret Mitchell was an American historical novelist and a journalist. She published only one completed novel in her lifetime, "Gone with the Wind" (1936), which covered a woman's struggle for survival through the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for ...

49. Lewis Carroll

Writer | Alice in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles L. Dodgson, author of the children's classics "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass."

Born on January 27, 1832 in Daresbury, Cheshire, England, Charles Dodgson wrote and created games as a child. At age 20 he received a ...

50. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Writer | Le Petit Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born into a family of old provincial nobility. Failing his final exams at a preparatory school, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts to study architecture. In 1921, he began military service in the 2nd Regiment of Chasseurs, and sent to Strasbourg for pilot training. The...

51. Thomas Harris

Writer | The Silence of the Lambs

Thomas Harris was born in 1940 in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. He was raised in the town of Rich where his father worked as a farmer. He earned his bachelor's degree in English from Baylor University in Texas in 1964. While attending school, he also worked for the local newspaper.

After graduating, ...

52. Thomas Hardy

Writer | Far from the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840 in Upper Bockhampton, Dorset, England, UK. He was a writer, known for Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), Tess (1979) and Maiden No More. He was married to Florence Emily Dugdale and Emma Lavinia Gifford. He died on January 11, 1928 in Dorchester, Dorset, ...

53. L. Frank Baum

Writer | The Wizard of Oz

L. Frank Baum became a success with his 1883 production of "The Maid of Arran" in 1882. He was a dreamer, had a printing press and an amateur newspaper, "The Rose Lawn Home Journal" and published a coin and stamp collecting guide. He failed at almost everything through poor business sense. He had ...

54. Emilian Stanev

Writer | Kradetzat na praskovi

Stanev is one of Bulgaria's best known writers of short stories, especially animal stories. He studied financial sciences and economy and was a passionate hunter. Among his most popular stories is Valtchi Nochti (Wolves Nights). But he became also well-known for _Kradetsat na praskovi (1964)_ (The ...

55. Clive Barker

Writer | Nightbreed

Born in Liverpool, England, UK, Clive Barker is an English writer, director, and visual artist, best known for his works in the genres of horror and dark fantasy. His mother Joan Ruby (née Revill) was a painter and school welfare officer and his father Leonard Barker was a personnel director for an...

56. Oscar Wilde

Writer | The Picture of Dorian Gray

A gifted poet, playwright and wit, Oscar Wilde was a phenomenon in 19th-century England. He was illustrious for preaching the importance of style in life and art, and of attacking Victorian narrow-mindedness.

Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1854. He studied at Trinity College in Dublin before ...

57. Jonathan Swift

Writer | Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 - 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift".

Swift is ...

58. Lord Byron

Writer | Don Juan DeMarco

Lord Byron seemed destined from birth to tragedy. His father was the handsome but feckless Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron and his mother the Scottish heiress Catherine Gordon, the only child of the Laird of Gight.

Captain Byron abandoned his wife and child leaving Catherine to bring up young Byron on...

59. Arthur C. Clarke

Writer | 2001: A Space Odyssey

Arthur C. Clarke was born in the seaside town of Minehead, Somerset, England in December 16, 1917. In 1936 he moved to London, where he joined the British Interplanetary Society. There he started to experiment with astronautic material in the BIS, write the BIS Bulletin and science fiction. During ...

60. Vladimir Nabokov

Writer | Lolita

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born on April 22, 1899, the eldest of five children in a wealthy aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, Russia. His grandfather was a Justice Minister to the Czar Alexander II. His father, named Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, was a liberal political leader, the ...

61. J.M. Barrie

Writer | Peter Pan

James Matthew "J. M." Barrie was a Scottish novelist and playwright. He had a distinguished career, but is primarily remembered for creating Peter Pan and his supporting characters. He used the character of Pan in the novel "The Little White Bird" (1902), the stage play "Peter Pan, or The Boy Who ...

62. Shirow Masamune

Writer | Innocence

Born in the Hyogo Prefecture capital city of Kobe, he studied oil painting at Osaka University of Arts. While in college, he developed an interest in manga, which led him to create his own complete work, Black Magic, which was published in the manga dojinshi Atlas. His work caught the eye of ...

63. Bob Kane

Writer | The Batman

Bob Kane was an American comic book writer and artist of Jewish descent, most famous for co-creating Batman and several members of Batman's supporting cast. Kane was inducted into the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1994 and into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1996.

Kane...

64. Bill Finger

Writer | Zack Snyder's Justice League

Bill Finger was a comic book writer. His father Louis Finger was born in Austria and emigrated to the United States in 1907, while still a teenager. Louis worked as a tailor. Tessie, Bill's mother, was born and raised in New York City. Both parents were in their early 20s at the time of Finger's ...

65. Daniel Wallace

Writer | Big Fish

Daniel Wallace was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He studied English and Philosophy at Emory University and the University of North Carolina. He has three sisters and lives in Chapel Hill with his wife and son. His first job was veterinary assistant. He worked for his father's import/export company ...

66. Ransom Riggs

Writer | Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Ransom Riggs is known for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), Portable Living Room (2006) and Black River.

67. Elmore Leonard

Writer | Out of Sight

Elmore Leonard was born on October 11, 1925 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Out of Sight (1998), Justified (2010) and Get Shorty (1995). He was married to Christine Kent, Joan Shepard and Beverly Claire Cline. He died on August 20, 2013 in Bloomfield Township...

68. Robert Ludlum

Writer | The Bourne Supremacy

Robert Ludlum was born on May 25, 1927 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Legacy (2012). He was married to Karen Dunn and Mary Patricia Ryducha. He died on March 12, 2001 in Naples, Florida, ...

69. Joseph Conrad

Writer | Untitled Amazon Rainforest Project

Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Kiev Province, now the Ukraine, to Polish parents Apollo Korzeniowski and Ewa Bobrowska. His father was a political activist and he and his family were exiled after he was suspected of involvement with revolutionary activities. Conrad had no friends as a child ...

70. Peter Benchley

Writer | Jaws

Grandson of famed humorist and actor Robert Benchley and the son of highly respected children's books author Nathaniel Benchley, novelist Peter Benchley's book were decidedly more dramatic in their content and style than his father's, and usually centered on the world's oceans as a backdrop to his ...

71. Robert Bloch

Writer | Psycho

Robert Bloch was born on April 5, 1917 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a writer, known for Psycho (1960), Psycho II (1983) and Psycho (1998). He was married to Eleanor Zalisko Alexander and Marion Holcombe. He died on September 23, 1994 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

72. William S. Burroughs

Actor | Drugstore Cowboy

William S. Burroughs, one of the three seminal writers of the Beat Generation (the other two being his friends Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg), was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 5, 1914, to the son of the founder of the Burroughs Adding Machine Co. He grew up in patrician surroundings ...

73. Charles Brandt

Writer | The Irishman

Charles Brandt is the author of numerous best-selling true crime novels based on the major crimes Brandt solved through interrogation during his illustrious legal career as a homicide investigator, prosecutor and eventually, Chief Deputy Attorney General of the State of Delaware.

He is the author of...

74. Thomas Keneally

Writer | Schindler's List

Thomas Keneally, (born October 7, 1935, Sydney, Australia), Australian writer best known for his historical novels. Keneally's characters are gripped by their historical and personal past, and decent individuals are portrayed at odds with systems of authority.

At age 17 Keneally entered a Roman ...

75. Shûsaku Endô

Writer | Umi to dokuyaku

Shûsaku Endô was born on March 27, 1923 in Sugamo, Tokyo, Japan. He was a writer and actor, known for The Sea and Poison (1986), Silence (2016) and A Life of Jesus. He was married to Okada Junko. He died on September 29, 1996 in Tokyo, Japan.

76. Mary Shelley

Writer | Young Frankenstein

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (née Godwin; 30 August 1797 - 1 February 1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel "Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus" (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her...

77. Bram Stoker

Writer | Dracula

Bram Stoker was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1847, and gained fame for his novel "Dracula" about an aristocratic vampire in Transylvania. The sequel, "Dracula's Guest," was not published for 17 years after the publication of "Dracula," two years after Stoker's death. Stoker also wrote "The Mystery ...

78. Ray Bradbury

Writer | The Ray Bradbury Theater

Ray Bradbury was an American science fiction writer whose works were translated in more than 40 languages and sold millions of copies around the world. Although he created a world of new technical and intellectual ideas, he never obtained a driver's license and had never driven an automobile.

He was...

79. Arthur Golden

Writer | Memoirs of a Geisha

Arthur Golden was born in 1956 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. He is a writer, known for Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), I riassuntini (2018) and The Opportunity Crisis (2003). He has been married to Trudy Legee since 1982.

80. P.G. Wodehouse

Soundtrack | Gosford Park

Master of comedy novelist Pelham (Plum) Grenville Wodehouse was born on October 15, 1881, in Guilford, Surrey, England. He died in hospital in Southampton, New York, on Valentine's day (February 14) 1975, from a heart attack after a long illness at age 93. In that time he managed to write close to ...

81. Agatha Christie

Writer | Les petits meurtres d'Agatha Christie

Agatha was born as "Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller" in 1890 to Frederick Alvah Miller and Clara Boehmer. Agatha was of American and British descent, her father being American and her mother British. Her father was a relatively affluent stockbroker. Agatha received home education from early childhood ...

82. Daniel Defoe

Writer | Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Born the eldest son and third child of James and Mary Defoe, Defoe received a very good education, as his father intended him to become a Presbyterian minister, but he chose to become a merchant instead. In 1684 he joined the army of the rebel Duke of Monmouth, but when the rebellion failed, Defoe ...

83. Alexandre Dumas

Writer | The Count of Monte Cristo

His paternal grandparents were Marie Cessete Dumas (a Haitian slave) and Marquis Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie. Antoine disapproved of their son, Thomas-Alexandre, joining the French army under the "Davy de la Pailleterie" name, so Thomas-Alexandre used his mother's surname instead. He became a ...

84. Dennis Lehane

Producer | The Drop

Dennis Lehane was born on August 4, 1965 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for The Drop (2014), Mystic River (2003) and Live by Night (2016). He was previously married to Dr. Angela Mililani (Lieb) Bernardo and Sheila Fort Lawn.

85. Raymond Chandler

Writer | Double Indemnity

An American novelist, writer of crime fiction featuring the private detective Philip Marlowe, Raymond (Thornton) Chandler was born in Chicago of an American father and an Anglo-Irish mother. He moved to England when his parents divorced. He attended Dulwich College and studied languages in France ...

86. John Irving

Writer | The Cider House Rules

John Irving was born on March 2, 1942 in Exeter, New Hampshire, USA. He is a writer and actor, known for The Cider House Rules (1999), The Door in the Floor (2004) and The World According to Garp (1982). He has been married to Janet Turnbull since 1987. They have one child. He was previously ...

87. Fredrik Backman

Writer | En man som heter Ove

Fredrik Backman was born on June 2, 1981 in Brännkyrka, Södermanland, Sweden. He is a producer and writer, known for A Man Called Ove (2015), A Man Called Otto (2022) and Anxious People (2021). He has been married to Neda Shafti Backman since 2009. They have two children.

88. Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Writer | The Ninth Gate

Born in the ancient roman port today known as Cartagena in the province of Murcia, Spain, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, today the best-selling author in Spain and the best-selling Spanish author in the world, studied Political Sciences and Journalism. He started working as a reporter for the Madrid ...

89. A.A. Milne

Writer | Christopher Robin

Alan Alexander Milne (signing with the initials A. A. ) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and playwright from London. He is primarily remembered for creating Winnie-the-Pooh and his supporting characters. He set their stories in the "Hundred Acre Wood", a fictionalized version of ...

90. Hans Christian Andersen

Writer | Frozen

Andersen experienced an unhappy childhood marked by deep poverty. When he was 14 years old, he left his parents' home and fled alone to Copenhagen. Here the director of the Royal Theater, Jonas Collin, took care of the child and gave him shelter and work. With his help, the young Hans Christian ...

91. Dashiell Hammett

Writer | The Thin Man

Dashiell Hammett was born May 27, 1894, in St. Mary's County, Maryland, to Richard Hammett and Mary Bond. He joined the Baltimore branch of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in 1915. He enlisted in the US Army's Ambulance Corps in June 1918 and was posted to a camp 20 miles from Baltimore, where he ...

92. Isaac Asimov

Writer | I, Robot

Isaac Asimov was born Isaak Judah Ozimov, on January 2, 1920, in Petrovichi shtetl, near Smolensk, Russia. He was the oldest of three children. His father, named Judah Ozimov, and his mother, named Anna Rachel Ozimov (nee Berman), were Orthodox Jews. Ozimov family were millers (the name Ozimov ...

93. Stanislaw Lem

Writer | Solyaris

Stanislaw Lem was a visionary Polish author known for Solaris (1972).

He was born on September 12, 1921, in Lwów, Poland. His father, Samuel Lem, was a wealthy laryngologist who served in the Austrian army. His mother, Sabina Woller, was a homemaker. Although he was born into a Polish-Jewish family,...

94. Victor Hugo

Writer | Les Misérables

Although Hugo was fascinated by poems from childhood on, he spent some time at the polytechnic university of Paris until he dedicated all his work to literature. He was one of the few authors who were allowed to reach popularity during his own lifetime and one of the leaders of French romance.

After...

95. Mark Millar

Writer | Kingsman: The Secret Service

Mark Millar is the New York Times best-selling writer of Jupiter's Legacy, Kick-Ass, Kingsman, The Magic Order, Wanted, Old Man Logan, Marvel Civil War and Superman: Red Son.

He is also President of Netflix's Millarworld Division in Los Angeles and serves as an executive producer on all his ...

96. Dave Gibbons

Writer | Kingsman: The Secret Service

Dave Gibbons was born on April 14, 1949 in England, UK. He is a writer, known for Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), Watchmen (2009) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017).

97. Arthur Laurents

Writer | Rope

Arthur Laurents was born on July 14, 1917 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Rope (1948), The Way We Were (1973) and The Turning Point (1977). He died on May 5, 2011 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.