18th-Century Writers: British & American

18th-Century British Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets

Behn, Aphra (1640-89). English woman playwright and prose fiction writer, associated with the English Restoration theater.

Burney, Frances (1752-1840) Evelina. English woman novelist, sometimes called the "mother of the novel."

Burns, Robert (1759-96) Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. Scottish poet celebrated in England as a "peasant-poet."

Defoe, Daniel (1660-1731) English novelist, author of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders.

Fielding, Henry (1707-1754). English novelist, author of the 18th-century comic novel Tom Jones.

Johnson, Samuel (1709-84). English essayist, playwright, novelist, biographer, and lexicographer.

Pope, Alexander (1688-1744). English poet, satirist, translator, editor, and literary critic.

Richardson, Samuel (1689-1761). English novelist, key figure in the history of the English novel.

Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777). The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. Scottish author of picaresque novels.

Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768). English author of the comic novel Tristram Shandy.

Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745). Anglo-Irish satirist and essayist, author of Gulliver's Travels.

18th-Century British Novel

18th-Century British Social & Historical Background

American Writers of the 17th Century & 18th Century

Bradstreet, Anne. (1612?-1672). Early American poet.

Equiano, Olaudah (c. 1745-1797) The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself. Autobiographer. Enslaved African, lived at sea, in American, and as a free man in England.

Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790). The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. American writer, journalist, autobiographer, scientist, and statesman.

Wheatley, Phillis. (1753-1784). Poet, born in Africa, freed slave.

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