Charles Robert Maturin (1782-1824) was an Irish playwright and novelist, born in Dublin. A contradictory figure, Maturin was both a friend of Lord Byron and a Protestant cleric.

His play Bertram so scandalised London that he was punished by the Church. He was also the great-uncle of Oscar Wilde, who renamed himself Melmoth while in exile as a tribute to his forebear. Melmoth the Wanderer is Maturin's best-known novel.

Laurence Sterne (1713-68) was an Irish-born Anglican minister.

He is most famous for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.

William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta in 1811. On his way to England from India, the small Thackeray saw Napoleon on St Helena.

In 1837, Thackeray came to London and became a regular contributor to Fraser's Magazine. From 1842 to 1851, he was on the staff of Punch, and this was when he wrote Vanity Fair, the work which placed him in the first rank of novelists. He completed it when he was thirty-seven.

In 1857, Thackeray stood unsuccessfully as a parliamentary candidate for Oxford. In 1859 he took on the editorship of the Cornhill Magazine. He resigned the position in 1862 because kindliness and sensitivity of spirit made it difficult for him to turn down contributors.

Thackeray drew on his own experiences for his writing. He had a great weakness for gambling, a great desire for worldly success, and over his life hung the tragic illness of his wife Isabella, with whom he had hree daughters, one dying in infancy.

Thackeray died December 24, 1863. He was buried in Kensal Green, and a bust by Marochetti was put up to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 and became the most popular novelist of the Victorian era.

A prolific writer, he published more than a dozen novels in his lifetime, including Oliver Twist, Great Expectations and Hard Times, most of which have been adapted many times over for radio, stage and screen.

Thomas De Quincey (1785 1859) was a journalist and author best known for Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Suspiria de Profundis ' and The English Mail-Coach '.

His extraordinary and wide-ranging influence can be felt in authors from Baudelaire to J.G. Ballard, with the former describing him as one of the most original minds in England.