Writers Who Changed History

This stunning visual celebration of the world's most celebrated novelists, poets, and playwrights tells the fascinating stories of their lives and works.

Lavishly illustrated with portraits of each writer, alongside photographs of their homes and studies, and personal artefacts - along with pages from original manuscripts, first editions, and their correspondence - Writers Who Changed History offers a unique window into the personalities of each individual, and their key ideas, themes, and literary techniques.

Introduced with a stunning portrait of each featured writer, biographical entries trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired and influenced their work, revealing insights into the larger-than-life characters, plots, and evocative settings that they created. Each entry explains how the person's writing developed during their lifetime, and sets it in context, conveying a powerful sense of the place and the period of history in which they lived.

Covering a broad range of authors, poets, and playwrights from the Middle Ages to the present day, Writers Who Changed History provides a compelling, entertaining, and accessible glimpse of the lives and loves of each one.

About the author

James Naughtie is one of the BBC's best-known journalists and broadcasters. As well as his work in news journalism, including presenting The World at One and Today, he has introduced music programmes on BBC radio and television for many years. He also presents Radio 4's monthly Bookclub and a variety of live events, including election specials at home and from the United States. His journalistic career began in Aberdeen, in his native North-east Scotland, and he was chief political correspondent of The Scotsman and The Guardian before joining the BBC in 1988. He was Laurence M. Stern Fellow on The Washington Post as well as Sony Radio Personality of the Year. Among his books are The Making of Music and two acclaimed accounts of the Blair years, The Rivals and The Accidental American.