The Great Gatsby
Writers
All authors are American unless otherwise noted.


Franklin Pierce Adams (1881-1960) - A U.S. columnist who helped to create the literati and cofounded the Algonquin Round Table. He mentored authors like Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman, and Robert Benchley.

Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) - One of the first well-known lesbian authors, Barnes worked in Paris as a writer and illustrator. Books: The Book of Repulsive Women, Ryder, Ladies Almanack, Nightwood

Robert Benchley (1889-1945) - A humor columnist who was published in Vanity Fair, Life, and The New Yorker. With a subtle, urbane wit, he was the perfect member of the Algonquin Round Table. Several compilations of his work were published, and he later became a film comic.

Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943) - A poet given to praising America. He published several volumes of poetry and a few novels, but he is best remembered for an epic version of John Brown's Body. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1929.

Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) - Novels, plays, and essays about the common man. He tended to concentrate on the impoverished, particularly in Riceyman Steps.

Jorge Luis Borges (Argentinian 1899-1986) - Lyrical poet. He had an extremely philosophical style, particularly in his short stories. His works include Fervor de Buenos Aires, Luna de enfrente, Cuaderno San Martin.

Andre Breton (1896-1966) - French leader of the Dada and Surrealism movements in the arts. He wrote surrealist manifestos and helped found the magazine Literature. His most acclaimed work is the novel Nadja.

Van Wyck Brooks (1886-1963) - A historian and critic of literary trends and culture. He won a Pulitzer for The Flowering of New England 1815-1865 and was best known for The Ordeal of Mark Twain.

Heywood Broun (1888-1939) - A key member of the Algonquin Round Table, this New York journalist became a sensation through his defenses of the anarchists and murder suspects, including Sacco and Vanzetti. After being fired from The New York World, he became a syndicated columnist.

Karel Capek (Czech 1890-1938) - An early prophet of the problems of nuclear power as well as a science fiction writer and playwright. His novel R.U.R. was the first book to coin the word "robot."

Barbara Cartland (English 1901-?) -A romance novelist who put out over 400 books. Her first novel was Jigsaw.

Willa Cather (1873-1947) - A novelist who focused on rural life. She won a Pulitzer for One of Ours. Other works include Comes for the Archbishop, A Lost Lady, and The Professor's House.

G.K. Chesterton (English 1874-1936) - Another prophetic journalist who described the dangers of eugenics and war and used Christianity as a recurring theme. A series about a priest and detective team, called "The Father Brown Stories," brought him popularity.

Agatha Christie (English 1891-1976) - Probably one of the most acclaimed mystery novelists. Check out The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Most of her writing was done after the Twenties.

Jean Cocteau (French 1889-1954) - A Bohemian who wrote everything from novels to screen plays. He tended to use a lot of modern and classical references in his works. Although he concentrated mostly on plays, Cocteau won fame first as a poet. He also collaborated on surrealistic films. Works: Children of the Game, Orpheus, and Le sang d'un poete.

Colette (French 1873-1954) - An author well respected for her novels dealing with relationships and sexuality. Cheri.

e. e. cummings (1894-1962) - A writer and poet best recognized for the absence of punctuation and capitalization in his work. He works include Tulips and Chimneys and The Enormous Room.

John Dos Passos (1896-1970) - An observant writer who was an anti-war activist. He concentrated on New York City in Manhattan Transfer. Other works: One Man's Initiation, Three Soldiers

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (English 1859-1930) - "It's elementary my dear Watson..." Although he is best remembered for the Sherlock Holmes series, Sir Arthur also wrote a six-volume history of World War I. He produced several works on spiritualism and an autobiography.

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) - a realist known for his highly detailed discussions of sex and murder. American Tragedy, Sister Carrie

W.E.B. du Bois (1868-1963) - African American civil rights leader who helped found the NAACP. The Souls of Black Folk

Will Durant (1885-1981) - Best-selling historical author. The Story of Mankind

Ilya Ehrenburg (Russian 1891-1967) - a novelist. Works include: Extraordinary Adventures of Julio Jurenito and His Disciples

Paul Eluard (French 1895-1952) - a leader of the surrealist movement. Capitale de la doleur

William Faulkner (1897-1892) - Most notable for his stream-of-consciousness narratives and rambling style. His high school English teacher probably had a fit. He later won the Nobel Prize for literature. Soldier's Pay, The Sound and the Fury

Jessie Fauset (1882-1961) - A female novelist who focused on middle-class, African American life. She was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance. There is Confusion, Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral

Edna Ferber(1887-1968) - A writer who tended towards creations on a grand scale, mostly epics set in the American West of the 1800s. Many strong female protagonists were also portrayed in her works, most of which flew off the shelves. Showboat, Cimmaron, Giant. She also collaborated on several plays with George Kaufman and wrote short stories.

F. Scott Fitzgerald(1896-1940) - A true personality of the Twenties whose private life was highly publicized. Many works dealt with the goals and dreams of the different classes. He dabbled in screenwriting but died of alcoholism at a young age. This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby

E. M. Forster (English 1879-1970) - He mostly wrote short stories dealing with rifts in communication and social customs in British colonial society.

Robert Frost(1874-1963) - Possibly one of the best-known American poets, Frost won four Pulitzer prizes. Collections include A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes, West Running Brook, and New Hampshire.

John Galsworthy (1867-1933) - An English writer and Nobel Prize winner who examined the problems between social classes. The Forsythe Saga, The White Monkey Federico Garcia Lorca (Spanish 1898-1936) - A writer who captured the essence of Spanish culture in a wide range of genres. Many poems and comedies about bullfighters, gypsies, and nature.

Andre' Gide (French 1869-1951) - A writer of both prose and poetry who explored the choices humans make between tradition and law and sensual pleasure and instincts. The Counterfeiters

Maxim Gorky (Russian 1868-1936) - The Gorki Trilogy is a set of his most famous autobiographical novels.

Zane Grey(1875-1939) - Writer of action-packed Westerns. His books were huge sellers in the Twenties.

Dashiell Hammett(1894-1961) - The originator of the "hardboiled" detective stories with a trademark unsentimental, sharp style. Red Harvest, The Dain Curse

Knut Hamsun (Norwegian 1859-1952) - A writer who studied outcasts, particularly starving writers and artists. He later went on to look at the problems of society and won the Nobel prize for literature in 1920, for his novel The Growth of the Soil. Other works: Vagabonds, Hunger

Jaroslav Hasek (Czech 1883-1923) - He gained fame with his WWI comedy/tragedy, The Good Soldier Schweik.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) - A member of the U.S. literati, Hemingway was acclaimed for his unpretentious style. He was a noted traveler who spent time in France and other parts of the world looking for writing material. The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms

Langston Hughes (1902-1967) - A poet and novelist who served as a voice for the black community and who added much to the Harlem Renaissance.

Fannie Hurst (1889-1968) - A sentimental novelist who examined the lives of the common people and the problems facing the modern woman. She had some extremely controversial views about open marriage and free love that helped her to gain notoriety. Star Dust, Back Street

Aldous Huxley (English 1894-1963) - a multi-talented writer (he wrote anything from essays to poetry) who tended to prophesy about the future with a heavy use of irony and pessimism. Brave New World, Point Counter Point, Crome Yellow

James Joyce (Irish 1882-1941) - A prolific writer most noted for his long, stream-of consciousness masterpieces. This guy would make Faulkner look like a wimp. Ulysses.

Franz Kafka (Czech, but he wrote in German 1883-1924) - Kafka was a bit like Poe in that he captured a strange, claustrophobic, tormented ambience in his writing. He explored the darkness of the human psyche through both novels and short stories. Amerika, The Trial, The Castle, "Metamorphosis"

Ring Lardner (1885-1933) - Originally a newspaper columnist, Lardner wrote satirical short stories about American life.

D.H. Lawrence (English 1885-1930) - A novelist who explored the many ways that society imposes artificial barriers to meaningful human contact. Women in Love, Lady Chatterley's Lover He was often controversial due to the sexual content in his novels.

T.E. Lawrence or "Lawrence of Arabia" (English 1888-1935) - Although he is probably better known for his diplomatic work in promoting Arab independence, he was also wonderful at documenting his adventures. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) - He consistently sold novels by satirizing the American middle class, evangelical works, and upper class pretensions. Main Street, Babbitt, Dodsworth, Elmer Gantry, Arrowsmith

Wyndham Lewis (English 1882-1957) - A satirical writer who made his living by his pen and his paintbrush. The Childermass, Tarr, The Apes of God

Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) - Newspaper columnist, dean of political writers, editor, and author. In Public Opinion he coined the word "stereotype." He won two Pulitzer Prizes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was editor of the New York World, and cofounded New Republic magazine. A Preface to Morals

Anita Loos (1893-1981) - Originally a Hollywood screenwriter, Loos created the quintessential flapper stereotype, Lorelei Lee. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Thomas Mann (German 1875-1955) - Explorer of the intellectual and spiritual plight of the social outcast. The Magic Mountain

W. Somerset Maugham (English 1874-1965) - Most of his outcast protagonists simply want to be happy. Somewhat melodramatic in both his short stories and his novels. "Rain," The Trembling of the Leaf, Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, The Painted Veil, Ashenden: The Secret Agent Plays: Our Betters, The Circle

Francois Mauriac (French 1885-1970) - A Nobel Prize winner whose novels dealt with the struggle between natural emotions and moral values within the human spirit. The Desert of Love, Therese Desqueroux

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) - A journalist and strong critic of patriotism, the poor, religion, and anything else deemed a good cause by the rest of society. He stressed self-improvement and libertarianism. He was a magazine editor for The Smart Set and cofounded American Mercury magazine. He also wrote a large body of essays and a history of American English.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) - A wonderful poet with a gift for traditional lyrical verse. She won a Pulitzer Prize for The Ballad of the Harp Weaver. Also check out A Few Figs from Thistles.

A. A. Milne (English 1882-1956) - The author of the Winnie the Pooh series.

Marianne Moore (1887-1972) - Pulitzer Prize winner (Collected Poems) and literary magazine editor (The Dial).



Pablo Neruda (Chilean 1894-1973) - Considered as one of this century's greatest poets, Neruda became famous in 1924 with his poetry collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. In 1971 Pablo Neruda received the Nobel Prize for literature.



Jose Ortega y Gasset (Spanish 1883-1955) - Renowned analyst of historical and contemporary literature. As a writer and philosopher, Gasset published book such as Tema de nuestro tiempo (1923), which argued that developing philosophies were the true divisions of historical periods.



Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) - Although Parker was a renowned personality, she never really wrote much professionally. Her high profile jobs at Vogue and Vanity Fair gave her worldwide exposure but never lasted long enough for her to prove her abilities. She wrote and published many humorous poems, a few short stories, and plays that were never produced. Her autobiographical novel about a self-destructive flapper earned her the O. Henry Prize. She was also a member of the infamous Algonquin Round Table.



S.J. Perelman (1904-1979) - Perelman developed and honed his humorist talents working as a cartoonist for the weekly humor magazine Judge. During the 1930s Perelman collaborated with the Marx brothers on their films and helped write other films and stage plays.



Ezra Pound (1885-1972) - After Pound published his poetry collection entitled Personae in 1909, he went to have a versatile career translating literature from many languages, editing and championing the works of writer such as T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and writing criticisms for various publications. Gertrude Stein's American expatriate group lured Pound to Paris in 1920, the same year his Instigations essays and poetic work Hugh Selwyn Mauberly were published. In 1925, Ezra Pound published the first parts of Cantos. Pound moved to Italy, where he became a fascist and hosted a radio program. After being pronounced mentally disturbed, Pound was hospitalized in the U.S.



J.B. Priestley (English 1894-1984) - As a novelist, essayist, and playwright, Priestley leaped into the limelight, in 1929, with his epic novel, The Good Companions. Priestley's later novels and plays took on more adventurous tones and uses of language.



Marcel Proust (French 1871-1922) - For nine years of his life, Marcel Proust spent every waking moment writing his sixteen-volume novel, A la recherche de temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past), which is now considered one of the greatest achievements of all time. The volumes were published as they were written, each opening to worldwide critical acclaim. The volumes followed in exact detail, the thoughts, observations and obsessions of the central protagonist.



Raymond Radiguet (French 1903-1923) - Although Radiguet only lived for twenty years, his works burst into exposure and his works Le Diable au Corps (Devil in the Flesh), and La Bal du Comte d'Orgel (Count d'Orgel's Ball) were likened to the works of Arthur Rimbaud and Jean Racine. Jean Cocteau was one of the many authors influenced by Radiguet.



Erich Maria Remarque (German 1898-1970) - Remarque's most famous work is All Quiet on the Western Front , a World War I novel accredited with being vividly anti-military.



Rainer Maria Rilke (German-Austrian 1875-1926) - Rilke founded his extensive career on romantic lyrical poetry, but after 1900 he focused on more direct styles of poetry. His greatest poem cycles, Sonnette au Orpheus (Sonnets to Orpheus) was published in 1923.



Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) - Robinson, Millay and Frost were the most lauded American poets of the 1920s. Robinson won three Pulitzers in one decade for Collected Poems in 1921, The Man Who Died Twice in 1924, and Triastam in 1927.



Romaine Rolland (French 1866-1944) - The French writer published many works throughout the 1920s, including Annette et Slyvie, Mahatma Gandhi, Soul Enchanted,the latter a political novel series that took him eleven years to write, and his most famous multi-volume novel, Jean Christophe.



Ole Rölvaag (Norwegian-lived in U.S. 1876-1931) - Giants in the Earth Rölvaag's most famous novel trailed the lives of Norwegian immigrants in South Dakota in the 19th century.



Jules Romains (French 1885-1972) - Used novels and plays as a medium to explore the social animal. Doctor Knock was one of his more successful plays.



Damon Runyon (1884-1946) - Runyon spent forty years writing newspaper articles, short stories, books, and plays that depicted the argot and lifestyles of gangsters, typical Hollywood personalities and other classic American stereotypes. His blend of the hardboiled and the sentimental lead to coining the term Runyonesque.



Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) - Primarily a poet and prose writer, Sandburg used a positive, impressionistic view of America. Good Morning, America and Smoke and Steel were among his volumes of published poetry, and went on to win awards for his multi-volume Life of Abraham Lincoln. He dabbled in children's literature, as well as folk songs.



George Bernard Shaw (English 1856-1950) - Many consider Shaw the best British playwright since Shakespeare. Shaw's farces, and satires of social class hypocrisy made up the majority of Shaw's fifty complete plays. Shaw's play Saint Joan won a Nobel Prize shortly after he published it in 1923.



Mikhail Sholokhov (Russian 1905-1984) - Sholokhov's novels centered around the lives of rural Russians were remarked as being Nobel Prize-worthy because of their drama and realism. He did win a Nobel Prize for literature in 1965 after publishing novels like Tales of the Don and The Silent Don.



Dame Edith Sitwell (English 1887-1964) - Sitwell's eccentric manner and enticing verses were fully captured in her poetry collections, The Sleeping Beauty, Gold Coast Customs and Facade, her most famous work.



Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) - Famous for promoting the careers and work of the then unknown Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, for mentoring expatriates like Ernest Hemingway and Thornton Wilder, Stein was also famous for her radically different style of free prose in the novel, The Making of Americans. In the late 1920s, she spent most of her time in Paris with her lover Alice B. Toklas.



Booth Tarkington (1869-1946) - Tarkington explored the decline of 19th century America in the novel The Magnificent Ambersons, and won a Pulitzer for it in 1919. In 1922 Tarkington earned a second Pulitzer for Alice Adams.



James Thurber (1894-1961) - Thurber started his career as a managing editor for the brand new New Yorker in 1927. In 1929 Thurber co-wrote (with E.B. White) Is Sex Necessary? followed by many other witty publications. Thurber became widely admired for his dry, charming cartoons depicting the dark aspects of everyday life.

Tristan Tzara (French-Romanian 1896-1963) - Writer and poet Tristan Tzara founded the Dada artistic movement in Zurich in 1916 and in 1920, moved it to the hub of American expatriate activities, Paris.

Sigrid Undset (Norwegian 1882-1949) - Considered one of the greatest writer in Scandinavia because of her novels which detailed the daily lives of young, working, contemporary women. She mixed scholarly details, and story-telling elan to pick apart issues such as love and religion in her three-volume novel Kristin Lavransdatter. Her hard work paid off when she received a Nobel Prize for literature in 1928.



Paul Valery (French 1871-1945) - Valery is known for exhaustively disassembling the mind, consciousness, metaphysics, art and every other philosophical topic he could think of, using poetry and prose. Thought of as one of the most influential French philosophers in the 1920s.



Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) - Became a journalist in the 1890s, and after joining the New York Times, Vechten became the first modern dance critic. After publishing two novels throughout the 1920s, Van Vechten dove into photography and received critical acclaim.



Edger Wallace (English 1875-1932) - Wallace was never regarded as a literary king in his time, but he was certainly the most prolific. During the American depression of the Twenties and Thirties, Wallace published over 170 detective novels and became the biggest-selling author of the time.



Sir Hugh Walpole (English 1884-1941) - Most notable work The Cathedral, Walpole was one of the most popular writers of the 1920s.



Evelyn Waugh (English 1903-1966) - The first of Evelyn's five famous novels, Decline and Fall was published in 1928. His novel satirized high British society. This series was followed by Brideshead Revisited and The Loved One a funeral satire.



H.G. Wells (English 1866-1946) - Wells is predominantly known for his book and radio program, War of the Worlds which caused tremendous upheaval when many confused the story with a live news report. In fact, in fifty years of writing, Wells wrote eighty books, favoring science fiction as a genre. In 1920, Wells published a two-volume chronicle called Outline of History.



Edith Wharton (1862-1937) - Wharton's novel, The Age of Innocence won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1921, but she was all ready an established writer. Wharton's book Ethan Frome earned much acclaim as she entered the 1920s.



E.B. White (1899-1985) - White started his career in 1926 when he join the staff of the New Yorker. He paired up with office cohort James Thurber to write Is Sex Necessary? a few years later. White is most famous for his children's tale of a pig and a spider, Charlotte's Web, published in 1952.



Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) - Wilder's career skyrocketed with the success of his play The Trumpet Shall Sound in 1926, which he followed up with the wildly popular novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey in 1927, and which received a Pulitzer Prize in 1928. Ten years later his metaphysical play Our Town won a Pulitzer Prize and then another in 1942 for The Skin of Our Teeth



Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) - Look Homeward, Angel was Thomas Wolfe's first autobiographical novel and numbered one of the four books he wrote in his short life.

Virginia Woolf (English 1882-1941) - Woolf's unique use of stream-of-thought consciousness, metaphor, and imagery made her books Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, and To the Lighthousewere regarded as important pieces of work.

William Butler Yeats (Irish 1865-1939) - Yeats has always been known as a great poet, and for twenty years, as his career took off, Yeats was the leader of the Irish Literary Renaissance. Yeats concerned his early work with the occult, the metaphysical and Celtic legends. While he was busy with the Abbey Theatre and writing Irish nationalistic plays, his poetry strengthened and was considered his best. Yeats earned a Nobel Prize for literature in 1923 for his poetry. From 1922 to 1928, Yeats served his country as a senator.



Page last updated on March 23, 1999.
Curators: Erin Giarda and Jillian Hurst