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William Wells Brown (1814-1884) was a prominent abolitionist, historian, novelist, and playwright. Brown was an African-American pioneer in various literary genres. His novel Clotel; or, The President's Daughter (1853), was published in London, England in 1853. It is the story of Clotel and her sister Althesa who are fictional slave daughters of Thomas Jefferson, and explores the destructive effects of slavery on African-American families, the difficult lives of people of mixed-race, and the degraded and immoral relationship between master and slave.

Samuel Davies (1723-1761) was an evangelist, Presbyterian minister, composer of hymns, and prolific author. Davies was one of the first Puritan preachers in Virginia, and one of earliest missionaries to slaves in the British colonies. Davies’ sermons were infused by eschatological fervor as he proclaimed the need for the liberation of the soul from the claws of sin. Sins like avarice, prodigality, evil diversions, vanity, sensuality, and popery had for 150 years afflicted the land, he complains....

William Wymark Jacobs (1863-1943) was an English author of short stories and novels, well known for his comedies involving rural Essex characters. His most famous story, "The Monkey's Paw" (1902) is a tale of intense psychological horror. "The Old Man of the Sea" is a farcical comedy about a young man, George Wright, who tries to win a lady’s hand by pretending to be the only heir of a rich uncle.

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman, and Renaissance humanist. Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire. He wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about an imaginary island society and its religious, social, and political customs. While imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1534, he wrote A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation. It is a fictional dialogue focusing on the comfort of God in distress, the benefits of suffering, atonement for evil acts, faintheartedness and the temptation to suicide.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was a short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat. The short story "The Devil and Tom Walker" is about a miserly man who makes a deal with the devil. Irving’s fictional character Diedrich Knickerbocker is a Dutch-American historian and narrator of "The Conspiracy of the Cocked Hats" and the “golden age” of Wouter van Twiller, the Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam.

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was a novelist, short story writer and poet. The novel Little Women (1868) remains a beloved classic of children’s literature today. Loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters, the narrative follows the lives of the four March sisters, chronicling their passage from childhood to womanhood. "Cousin Tribulation's Story" is a short story about a family who wake up on Christmas morning to a sumptuous breakfast. Then they hear of an immigrant family with a sick mother who have nothing to eat.

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (1858-1919), the 26th president of the United States, was a conservationist and writer. Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail - published in 1888 - is the account of his adventures as a cowboy, hunter, herder, and deputy sheriff. The Rough Riders was the nickname given to the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, raised in 1898 for the Spanish-American War. The Rough Riders are best remembered for their charge up San Juan Hill, east of Santiago de Cuba, on July 1, 1898.

Robert William Dale (1829-1895) was an English Congregational church leader based in Birmingham. In "Christian Worldliness" he explores the endless conflict between Christianity and worldliness. He warns of "the bitter melancholy, this profound discontent with all things in Heaven above and on the earth beneath". Rejecting the idea of "the sanctity of misery" he criticizes the Book of Ecclesiastes and the image of the traditional "Romish Saint", and concludes by stating that for the miseries which we cannot avoid, Divine love offers infinite consolation.

Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was a Louisiana-based author of short stories and novels, and is considered a forerunner of 20th-century feminist authors from the South. In "The Storm", a man seeks shelter at the home of his former lover, a visit which reignites their passion, while "Her Letters" is a story about the husband of a woman who dies before she is able to destroy the letters written to her by a lover. In "Unexpected", Randall and Dorothea fall in and out of love; "The Locket" tells the tale of two young lovers during the American Civil War; and "Kiss" has a humorous twist.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was a prominent sociologist, novelist, and writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. In the short story "If I Were a Man", a married woman named Mollie Mathewson yearns with all her heart to be a man and is suddenly transported into the body and mind of her husband, Gerald. Through the character of Mollie, Gilman illustrates the roles and attitudes of women in early 19th-century society. The utopian novel Herland describes an isolated society composed entirely of women, with an ideal social order free of war, conflict, and domination.

Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) is considered the first important Black American novelist. The Conjure Woman is a collection of seven stories that began appearing in magazines in 1887 and were first published together in 1899. The narrator of The Conjure Woman is a White man from the North living in the South who passes along the stories told to him by the ex-slave Julius McAdoo. The narratives provide a realistic picture of the pre-Civil War South, including descriptions of brutish slave owners.

Clarence Larkin (1850-1924) was a pastor, author, and theologian. Published in 1918, The Book of Daniel examines the Biblical book of Daniel in detail. An entire chapter is devoted to the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel’s interpretation of it. Larkin also investigates and interprets the Book of Revelation, with reference to earlier books of the Bible.

Arrian of Nicomedia (c. 86/89-c. after 146/160 AD), was a Greek historian, public servant, military commander, and philosopher of the Roman period. Although written more than 400 years after Alexander's death, Arrian's Campaigns of Alexander is the most reliable account of Alexander from antiquity.

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865) was a writer, a minister’s wife, and mother of four daughters who worked among the poor and traveled widely. In the novel The Moorland Cottage, Maggie Browne, the daughter of a deceased clergyman, gives up her own life to devote herself to her brother, Edward. The nonfiction work An Accused Race is Gaskell’s reformist treatise on the oppression of the Cagots in Europe.

Daniel Defoe (c. 1660-1731) was an English trader, author, and journalist. Defoe was a prolific writer, publishing more than 300 works on a range of topics including economics, politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology, and the supernatural. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe (1719).

Edith Nesbit (Edith Bland,1858-1924) was an English author and poet. She authored or collaborated on more than 60 books of fiction for children, many of which have been adapted for film and television. She wrote tales of fantasy, magic, and misadventure in which children in normal circumstances are faced with extraordinary characters or events.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) had a profound influence on the shape of 19th-century thought and political discourse. His view of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to the unrestricted state. Mill favoured decentralised forms of socialism because he thought that a centralised model would discourage competition, neglect talent, and disregard freedom.