Born in Dijon, he was educated by the Jesuits. Cazotte then worked for the French Ministry of the Marine and at the age of 27 he obtained a public office at Martinique.  It was not till his return to Paris in 1760 with the rank of commissioner-general that he made his public debut as an author. His ...

James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century. His historical romances depicting frontier and Native American life from the 17th to the 19th centuries created a unique form of American literature. He lived much of his boy...

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, ( 9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote a number of successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Da...

James Oliver Curwood (June 12, 1878 – August 13, 1927) was an American action-adventure writer and conservationist. His books were often based on adventures set in the Hudson Bay area, the Yukon or Alaska and ranked among the top-ten best sellers in the United States in the early and mid 1920s, acco...

Jane Austen, born December 16, 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, England, and died July 18, 1817 in Winchester, England, was an English novelist. known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Her works crit...

Rose-Jeanne-Mathilde Leroy-Allais, is the older sister of Alphonse Allais. She accompanied her brother to Paris where he studied at the School of Pharmacy. She teaches as a free teacher. It was in Paris that she met and married Charles Leroy, a friend of her brother Alphonse, editor of the newspape...

Jaroslav Hašek, (30 April 1883 – 3 January 1923) was a Czech writer, humorist, satirist, journalist, bohemian and anarchist. He is best known for his novel The Fate of the Good Soldier Švejk during the World War, an unfinished collection of farcical incidents about a soldier in World War I and a sat...

Jean de La Fontaine, (8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, as well as in Fr...

Zoé Berthier, (1823-1909) wife of Ernest Hello, is a novelist under the pseudonym Jean Lander. She would not only be his wife but also his main collaborator. After their marriage, they lived in the manor of Keroman near Lorient (destroyed) where they had set up a study in a round tower attached to a...

Jean-François Bladé (1827–1900) was a French magistrate, historian and folklorist. He is mainly known for his publication of the oral tradition of Gascony. He is particularly known for publishing an account of the Mass of Saint-Sécaire, used as a source by James Frazer in The Golden Bough. His bes...