PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: memoir
American writer
Mark Twain was an American humorist, journalist, lecturer, and novelist who acquired international fame for his travel narratives, especially The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), and Life on...
British writer
Virginia Woolf was an English writer whose novels, through their nonlinear approaches to narrative, exerted a major influence on the genre. While she is best known for her novels, especially Mrs. Dalloway...
American director, writer, and actor
Woody Allen is an American motion-picture director, screenwriter, actor, comedian, playwright, and author who is best known for his bittersweet comic films containing elements of parody, slapstick, and...
British author
George Orwell was an English novelist, essayist, and critic famous for his profoundly influential novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), which examine the dangers of totalitarian rule....
American director
Vincente Minnelli was an American motion-picture director who infused a new sophistication and vitality into filmed musicals in the 1940s and â50s. (Read Martin Scorseseâs Britannica essay on film preservation.)...
34th president of the United States
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States (1953â61), who had been supreme commander of the Allied forces in western Europe during World War II. Eisenhower was the third of seven...
50th vice president of the United States
JD Vance is the 50th vice president of the United States (2025â ) in the second administration of Republican Pres. Donald Trump (2025â ). Vance became widely known as the author of Hillbilly Elegy (2016),...
French composer
Hector Berlioz was a French composer, critic, and conductor of the Romantic period, known largely for his Symphonie fantastique (1830), the choral symphony Roméo et Juliette (1839), and the dramatic piece...
British historian
Edward Gibbon was an English rationalist historian and scholar best known as the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776â88), a continuous narrative from the 2nd century...
British scholar and military officer
T.E. Lawrence was a British archaeological scholar, military strategist, and author best known for his legendary war activities in the Middle East during World War I and for his account of those activities...
American writer
Ernest Hemingway was an American novelist and short-story writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was noted both for the intense masculinity of his writing and for his adventurous...
American attorney and law enforcement official
During his career as a federal prosecutor, acting attorney general, and FBI director, James Comey has found himself lauded and reviled by members of both U.S. political parties. A polarizing figure known...
Russian writer
Maxim Gorky was a Russian short-story writer and novelist who first attracted attention with his naturalistic and sympathetic stories of tramps and social outcasts and later wrote other stories, novels,...
English poet, editor, and publisher
In 1891 a 20-year-old university student met the famed Irish writer and wit Oscar Wilde. The student, a golden-haired aristocrat and poet named Lord Alfred Douglas, soon began a romantic relationship with...
Canadian-born British author
Author Rachel Cusk began her career writing traditional novels that won high praise and awards. Then she published a series of raw, unsentimental memoirs about motherhood, family life, and divorce that...
Canadian author
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer best known for her prose fiction and for her feminist perspective. Among Atwoodâs many acclaimed works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, her most celebrated is the...
German author
Heinrich Heine was a German poet whose international literary reputation and influence were established by the Buch der Lieder (1827; The Book of Songs), frequently set to music, though the more sombre...
American chef, television personality, and author
Ina Garten is an American chef, entrepreneur, author, and television personality. She is best known as the founder of the Barefoot Contessa brand, which began as a gourmet food store that she owned and...
American Canadian actor
Matthew Perry was an American Canadian comedic actor best known for his portrayal of the wisecracking Chandler Bing on the hugely popular sitcom Friends (1994â2004). Matthew Perry was the only child born...
American author
Joan Didion was an American novelist and essayist known for her lucid prose style and incisive depictions of social unrest and psychological fragmentation. She was one of the foremost voices of New Journalism,...
American activist and author
Ron Kovic is a Vietnam War veteran, activist, and author who became a leading antiwar figure in the 1970s. Kovic had been wounded and paralyzed during his service in the war. In 1976 he detailed his experiences...
Russian writer
Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen was a political thinker, activist, and writer who originated the theory of a unique Russian path to socialism known as peasant populism. Herzen chronicled his career in My Past...
American poet, songwriter, and singer
Patti Smith is an American poet, songwriter, singer, and visual artist who blazed a trail for punk rock artists, especially women, in the 1970s. With her androgynous appearance, intense live performances,...
American writer
Alice Walker is an American writer whose novels, short stories, and poems are noted for their insightful treatment of African American culture. Her novels, most notably The Color Purple (1982), focus particularly...
American actor
Alec Baldwin is an American actor of great versatility who is especially known for his portrayal of roguish characters, notably Jack Donaghy on the sitcom 30 Rock (2006â13). Adept at comedy and drama,...
American author
Viet Thanh Nguyen is an American writer known for his novel The Sympathizer (2015), which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was adapted into a television miniseries in 2024. Nguyenâs work frequently...
British author
Graham Greene was an English novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and journalist whose novels treat lifeâs moral ambiguities in the context of contemporary political settings. Many of his most acclaimed...
president of France
François Hollande is a French politician who was president of France (2012â17). He earlier served as first secretary of the Socialist Party (1997â2008). The son of a physician in Franceâs northwestern...
Russian-German writer
Lou Andreas-SalomĂ© was a Russian-German writer who has been called âthe mother of psychoanalysis.â Socially unconventional and possessing a brilliant intellect, she was the first female psychoanalyst and...
French theologian and poet
Peter Abelard was a French theologian and philosopher best known for his solution of the problem of universals and for his original use of dialectics. He is also known for his poetry and for his celebrated...
Russian author
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist and historian, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. Solzhenitsyn was born into a family of Cossack intellectuals and brought up...
Canadian actor
Elliot Page is a Canadian actor best known for his performances in the comedy-drama film Juno (2007), which earned him an Academy Award nomination, and the Netflix television series The Umbrella Academy...
American author
Jesmyn Ward is one of the most acclaimed American writers of the 21st century, publishing novels and nonfiction works that explore the lives of poor African Americans living in coastal Mississippi, all...
British-American writer
Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born British-American writer whose allegorical novels examine historical and philosophical issues by means of surreal characters, brooding humor, and an effusive and melodramatic...
Chilean American writer
Isabel Allende is a Chilean American writer in the magic realist tradition who is considered one of the finest contemporary novelists from Latin America. Her best-known works include The House of the Spirits...
American author
Anne Rice was an American author known for her novels about vampires and other supernatural creatures. Her notable books include Interview with the Vampire (1976), which launched the best-selling Vampire...
American farmer and writer
Solomon Northup was an American farmer, labourer, and musician whose experience of being kidnapped and sold into slavery was the basis for his book Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a...
American author and musician
James McBride is an American author and musician known for his acclaimed works of historical fiction and autobiography, including the best-selling memoir The Color of Water (1996) and the National Book...
American author, academic, musician and artist
Joy Harjo is an American poet, writer, musician, and activist who was the first Native American to be named U.S. poet laureate (2019â22). Her poems feature Native symbolism, imagery, history, and ideas...
American author
Annie Proulx is an American writer whose darkly comic yet sad fiction is peopled with quirky, memorable individuals and unconventional families. Her novels and short stories, which are often about disintegrating...
American writer
With such books as Bluets (2009) and The Argonauts (2015), American writer Maggie Nelson is known for works that defy simple categorization by blending poetry, criticism, and autobiography. Her intensely...
Japanese author
Haruki Murakami is a Japanese novelist, short-story writer, and translator whose deeply imaginative and often ambiguous books became international bestsellers. His famous works include the novels Hard-Boiled...
American author
Jacqueline Woodson is an American author who has written more than 40 books for adults, young adults, and children that focus on African American experiences. Her work has helped to inspire children in...
American actress and businesswoman
Priscilla Presley is an American actress and businesswoman best known for her marriage to musician Elvis Presley. Although they eventually divorced, she remained in the public eye and established an acting...
American singer
Britney Spears is an American singer who helped spark the teen-pop phenomenon in the late 1990s and later endured intense public scrutiny for her tumultuous personal life. Spears, who grew up in Kentwood,...
Irish author
Colm TĂłibĂn is one of the most widely read writers in contemporary Irish literature. He has published fiction and nonfiction, including travelogues, essays, and criticism. His best-known works include...
She was drugged and abused by dozens of men. When she accused them in open court, she became a hero.
Until 2020 GisĂšle Pelicot thought she had the perfect French life. She had been happily married to Dominique Pelicot for nearly 50 years. They had three children, and she had a career as an executive at...
American author
Isaac Asimov was an American author and biochemist, a highly successful and prolific writer of science fiction and of science books for the layperson. He wrote or edited about 500 volumes, of which the...
American author
James Patterson is an American author, principally known for his thriller and suspense novels. His prolific output and business savvy made him a ubiquitous presence on best-seller lists in the late 20th...
American aviator
Amelia Earhart was an American aviator, one of the worldâs most celebrated, who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Her disappearance during a flight around the world in 1937 became...