From Shakespeare and Jane Austen to Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison, delve into more than 100 biographies of the world's greatest writers. Introduced with a stunning portrait of each featured novelist, playwright, or poet, biographical entries trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired each individual and influenced their work, revealing insights into the larger-than-life characters, plots, and evocative settings that they created. Lavishly illustrated with photographs and paintings of writers' homes, studies, and personal artefacts - along with pages from original manuscripts, first editions, and their correspondence - this book introduces the key ideas, themes, and literary techniques of each writer, revealing the imaginations and personalities behind some of the world's greatest novels, short stories, poems, and plays.With a foreword introduction by James Naughtie, and covering an eclectic range of authors from the Middle Ages to the present day, Writers provides a compelling glimpse of the lives and loves of each great writer.