Author: Dinah Craik

John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. William Makepeace Thackeray (18 July 1811 24 December 1863) was a British novelist, author and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society. George Mac Donald (10 December 1824 18 September 1905) was a Scottish author, poet and Christian minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow writer Lewis Carroll. In addition to his fairy tales, Mac Donald wrote several works on Christian apologetics. Dinah Maria Craik (20 April 1826 12 October 1887) was an English novelist and poet. She is best remembered for her novel John Halifax, Gentleman, which presents the ideals of English middle-class life. Oscar Fingal O”Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London”s most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for “gross indecency”, imprisonment, and early death at age 46. Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit. Kenneth Grahame (8 March 1859 6 July 1932) was a Scottish writer, most famous for The Wind in the Willows (1908), one of the classics of children”s literature. He also wrote The Reluctant Dragon. Both books were later adapted for stage and film, of which A. A. Milne”s Toad of Toad Hall was the first. The Disney films The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and The Reluctant Dragon are other adaptations.