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“Make ’em cry, make ’em laugh, make ’em wait – exactly in that order.” William Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was the leading sensational novelist of the Victorian era, and during the 1860s his novels, published in weekly instalments, equalled the popularity of the works of his friend Charles Dickens. With ‘The Woman in White’ and ‘The Moonstone’, he is credited with the creation of the detective story.

By the time of her death, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was remembered for two things: having been the wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and for writing ‘Frankenstein’. Frankenstein’s, creation became an iconic figure in literature and film, but in more recent years Mary Shelley’s other works, such as the early science fiction work, ‘The Last Man’ and the disturbing ‘Mathilda’ have come to be widely appreciated.

David Stuart Davies (1946-2024), General Editor of Wordsworth’s Mystery and Supernatural series, was an editor, novelist, playwright and film historian.

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811 – 1863) was an English writer. His finest work, ‘Vanity Fair’, brought him fame, and comparisons with Dickens. The novel has retained its perennial appeal, and is widely considered to be one of the finest written during the nineteenth century.

Born Daniel Foe in London in 1660, Defoe was a prodigious writer on many subjects, producing over 500 books, pamphlets and articles. He is now remembered for his novels, primarily ‘The Life and Strange Suprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York’ and ‘The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders’ and is considered to be one of the key figures in establishing the format of the English novel.

Anthony Trollope (1815 -1882) was an English novelist who wrote forty-seven novels and a wealth of other material, both fiction and non-fiction. Enormously popular during his lifetime, his reputation has fluctuated since, partly because in his posthumous autobiography he confessed quite openly to writing for money, which offended many critics. ‘The Way We Live Now’ is probably his most popular novel now.

When ‘The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club’, his first novel, was published, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was just twenty-four. Published, like most of his books, in weekly instalments, it started him on a path to fame, wealth and international acclaim. Widely considered to be a literary genius second only to Shakespeare, Dickens’ works, such as ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’, remain as popular as ever.

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880), one of the leading writers of Victorian times. Like many of her contemporary female writers, she published her books using a male name in order to be taken seriously. Her novels, including ‘Adam Bede’, ‘The Mill on the Floss’ and ‘Middlemarch’, have remained perennially popular and the subject of numerous television adaptations.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) was an English novelist; building on the foundations put in place by Daniel Defoe and others, he was a major contributor to the form of the modern novel. He wrote four novels, of which the most enduring is ‘The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling’, widely regarded as among the finest books ever written.