Writers born in London

624 writers, born between 1343 to 1996.

Novels & literary fiction (227)Poetry (141)Essays & non-fiction (87)Drama & theatre (61)Fantasy & science fiction (49)

Books from London

Most widely known first.

James Bond by Ian Fleming
1719 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
1818 Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
1667 Paradise Lost by John Milton
1387 The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
1897 The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
1895 The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
Utopia by Thomas More
2011 Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James
1927 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
1897 The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells
1925 Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Writers

And 600 more, by birth year

John Heywood (1497)
Robert Copland (1508)
Thomas Chaloner (1521)
Edmund Campion (1540)
Richard Rowlands (1550)
Edmund Spenser (1552)
Thomas Lodge (1558)
Thomas Kyd (1558)
Emilia Lanier (1569)
Thomas Dekker (1572)
Thomas Middleton (1580)
Elizabeth Jane Weston (1581)
Robert Herrick (1591)
Thomas Carew (1594)
James Shirley (1596)
William Killigrew (1606)
John Suckling (1609)
Richard Crashaw (1612)
Thomas Killigrew (1612)
Richard Lovelace (1617)
Abraham Cowley (1618)
Lucy Hutchinson (1620)
George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1627)
Katherine Philips (1632)
John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1648)
Joshua Barnes (1654)
John Dennis (1658)
Anne Killigrew (1660)
Daniel Defoe (1660)
George Stepney (1663)
John Vanbrugh (1664)
Matthew Prior (1664)
Colley Cibber (1671)
Catharine Trotter (1674)
Henry Carey (1687)
George Lillo (1691)
Theophilus Cibber (1703)
Soame Jenyns (1704)
Benjamin Hoadly (1706)
John Cleland (1709)
Paul Whitehead (1710)
John Hoadly (1711)
Richard Glover (1712)
Charlotte Charke (1713)
Thomas Gray (1716)
Richard Owen Cambridge (1717)
Horace Walpole (1717)
Susanna Highmore (1725)
John Scott (1730)
Charles Churchill (1732)
Robert Lloyd (1733)
Thomas Holcroft (1745)
William Jones (1746)
Thomas Day (1748)
Mary Bowes, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne (1749)
Charlotte Turner Smith (1749)
Sophia Lee (1750)
Thomas James Mathias (1754)
Helen Maria Williams (1759)
John Williams (1761)
George Colman the Younger (1762)
Frank Sayers (1763)
Samuel Rogers (1763)
Elizabeth Cobbold (1764)
Ann Radcliffe (1764)
John Thelwall (1764)
Frederick Reynolds (1764)
Mary Lamb (1764)
Catherine Maria Fanshawe (1765)
John Fawcett (1768)
William Robert Spencer (1770)
Charlotte Bury (1775)
Charles Lamb (1775)
Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775)
William Henry Ireland (1775)
Harriet Downing (1778)
Horace Smith (1779)
Anna Vardill (1781)
Ann Taylor (1782)
Jane Taylor (1783)
Leigh Hunt (1784)
Harriette Wilson (1786)
Theodore Hook (1788)
Anna Eliza Bray (1790)
Henry Hart Milman (1791)
John Linnell (1792)
Frederick Marryat (1792)
Eleanor Anne Porden (1795)
James Planché (1796)
Mary Grimstone (1796)
Agnes Strickland (1796)
Frederick Chamier (1796)
Emily Eden (1797)
Alaric Alexander Watts (1797)
Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of Normanby (1797)
Thomas Hood (1799)
John Abraham Heraud (1799)
George Payne Rainsford James (1799)
Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere (1800)
John Henry Newman (1801)
George Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle (1802)
Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802)
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802)
Richard Henry Horne (1802)
Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803)
William Evans Burton (1804)
Jane Williams (1806)
Harriet Taylor Mill (1807)
Caroline Norton (1808)
Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton (1809)
Frances Anne Kemble (1809)
Mark Lemon (1809)
Thomas Adolphus Trollope (1810)
Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810)
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810)
Henry Alford (1810)
Mary Louisa Boyle (1810)
Arthur Hallam (1811)
Caroline Carleton (1811)
Edward Lear (1812)
James John Garth Wilkinson (1812)
John Oxenford (1812)
William James Linton (1812)
Eliza Cook (1812)
Anthony Trollope (1815)
Grace Aguilar (1816)
Julia Clara Byrne (1819)
Charlotte Maria Tucker (1821)
Frederick Locker-Lampson (1821)
Barbarina Grey (1823)
Coventry Patmore (1823)
William Brighty Rands (1823)
Augusta Theodosia Drane (1823)
Wilkie Collins (1824)
Katharine Macquoid (1824)
Sarah Lane (1825)
Adelaide Anne Procter (1825)
William Brough (1826)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828)
Arthur Locker (1828)
Henry Sutherland Edwards (1828)
George Walter Thornbury (1828)
Leopold Davis Lewis (1828)
Emma Tatham (1829)
Elizabeth Siddal (1829)
William Michael Rossetti (1829)
Christina Rossetti (1830)
Amelia Edwards (1831)
Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831)
Richard Watson Dixon (1833)
William Morris (1834)
Roden Noel (1834)
Tom Hood (1835)
Lillian Spender (1835)
George Ettienne Loyau (1835)
Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835)
W. S. Gilbert (1836)
F. C. Burnand (1836)
Henry Sambrooke Leigh (1837)
Annie Rothwell (1837)
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837)
Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie (1837)
Mary Dickens (1838)
Benjamin Farjeon (1838)
Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838)
Herman Charles Merivale (1839)
Ada Buisson (1839)
Walter Pater (1839)
William De Morgan (1839)
William Cosmo Monkhouse (1840)
Mary Charlotte Julia Gordon (1840)
Rosa Nouchette Carey (1840)
Julia Fraser (1841)
Clement Scott (1841)
John Payne (1842)
Margaret Thomas (1842)
Isabella Fyvie Mayo (1843)
Caroline Emily Lovett Cameron (1844)
Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1844)
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844)
Eugene Lee-Hamilton (1845)
Amabel Kerr (1846)
Marion Bernstein (1846)
Lucy Clifford (1846)
Flora Annie Steel (1847)
George Robert Sims (1847)
Alice Meynell (1847)
Louisa Parr (1848)
Francesca Maria Steele (1848)
Jessie Catherine Couvreur (1848)
Frank Cowper (1849)
Edmund Gosse (1849)
Alice Dixon Le Plongeon (1851)
William Davenport Adams (1851)
Arthur Montagu Brookfield (1853)
Richard Claude Critchett (1853)
Cecily Sidgwick (1854)
Henry Hamilton (1854)
Katharine Wylde (1854)
Marie Corelli (1855)
Arthur Wing Pinero (1855)
Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856)
Ella Hepworth Dixon (1857)
Clement King Shorter (1857)
Douglas Blackburn (1857)
Ella D'Arcy (1857)
Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe (1858)
Egerton Castle (1858)
Caroline Grosvenor (1858)
Edith Nesbit (1858)
James T. Tanner (1858)
Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell (1858)
Constance Lloyd (1859)
Cecil Spring-Rice (1859)
Henry Beeching (1859)
Gertrude Warden (1859)
Beatrice Heron-Maxwell (1859)
Ernest Rhys (1859)
David Nicoll (1859)
Adrian Ross (1859)
Florence Farr (1860)
Frederick Rolfe (1860)
William Arthur Satchell (1861)
Gertrude M. Robins (1861)
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861)
Harry Cust (1861)
Horace Annesley Vachell (1861)
Amy Levy (1861)
William Thomas Goodge (1862)
Ada Leverson (1862)
Mary Angela Dickens (1862)
Michael Morton (1862)
Anthony Hope (1863)
George Essex Evans (1863)
W. W. Jacobs (1863)
Arthur Morrison (1863)
Harry Beresford (1863)
Ada Barnett (1864)
Arthur St. John Adcock (1864)
Israel Zangwill (1864)
Beatrice Harraden (1864)
Herbert Horne (1864)
Basil Hood (1864)
Alfred Edward Woodley Mason (1865)
Guy du Maurier (1865)
Catherine Amy Dawson Scott (1865)
William Babington Maxwell (1866)
E. Phillips Oppenheim (1866)
Tom Gallon (1866)
Laura, Lady Troubridge (1867)
Ernest Dowson (1867)
Ridgwell Cullum (1867)
Katharine Glasier (1867)
Harry Arthur Saintsbury (1867)
Gabrielle Enthoven (1868)
George Arliss (1868)
E. V. Lucas (1868)
Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes (1868)
George Calderon (1868)
Algernon Blackwood (1869)
Frances Chesterton (1869)
Ada Chesterton (1869)
Arthur Gask (1869)
Evelyn Sharp (1869)
Cosmo Stuart (1869)
Charlotte Mew (1869)
Henry V. Esmond (1869)
Evelyn Byng, Viscountess Byng of Vimy (1870)
Cosmo Hamilton (1870)
Hubert Crackanthorpe (1870)
Erskine Childers (1870)
Laurence Irving (1871)
Alec John Dawson (1872)
Cicely Hamilton (1872)
Max Beerbohm (1872)
Cyril Harcourt (1872)
Mayne Lindsay (1873)
Judith Blunt-Lytton, 16th Baroness Wentworth (1873)
Walter de la Mare (1873)
Ford Madox Ford (1873)
Olive Custance (1874)
Maurice Baring (1874)
George Grossmith Jr. (1874)
Harry Graham (1874)
Edgar Wallace (1875)
Marmaduke Pickthall (1875)
Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875)
Olivia Rossetti Agresti (1875)
P. C. Wren (1875)
David Lindsay (1876)
Angela Forbes (1876)
Geoffrey Winthrop Young (1876)
Philip Gibbs (1877)
Renée Vivien (1877)
Harley Granville-Barker (1877)
Edward Thomas (1878)
Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (1878)
Beatrice Hastings (1879)
Vera Beringer (1879)
Mark Sykes (1879)
Lytton Strachey (1880)
Leonard Woolf (1880)
Eleanor Farjeon (1881)
Herbert Asquith (1881)
Daisy Ashford (1881)
Hilary Lofting (1881)
William McFee (1881)
Margery Williams (1881)
Susan Buchan, Baroness Tweedsmuir (1882)
John Drinkwater (1882)
Mina Loy (1882)
Marjorie Pickthall (1883)
Arnold Bax (1883)
Bernard Cronin (1884)
Geoffrey Scott (1884)
James Elroy Flecker (1884)
Clare Frewen Sheridan (1885)
Clifford Bax (1886)
Dorothy Shakespear (1886)
Charles Williams (1886)
Vyvyan Holland (1886)
Thomas Burke (1886)
Ray Strachey (1887)
Denis Pritt (1887)
Desmond FitzGerald (1888)
Clemence Dane (1888)
A. Hamilton Gibbs (1888)
Paul Selver (1888)
Julian Grenfell (1888)
Lady Dorothy Mills (1889)
Margaret Irwin (1889)
Paul Nash (1889)
Ivy Low Litvinov (1889)
Gerald Heard (1889)
Angela Thirkell (1890)
Eric Chappelow (1890)
Francis Meynell (1891)
Mary Stocks, Baroness Stocks (1891)
Edward Shanks (1892)
Osbert Sitwell (1892)
Rebecca West (1892)
Richard Church (1893)
Alfred Oliver Pollard (1893)
Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar (1893)
Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893)
Charles Langbridge Morgan (1894)
Violet Keppel Trefusis (1894)
C. E. Bechhofer Roberts (1894)
Cicely Mary Barker (1895)
Dorothy Wilde (1895)
Robert Graves (1895)
David Jones (1895)
Margaret Kennedy (1896)
R. C. Sherriff (1896)
Anne Dawson (1896)
Edmund Blunden (1896)
J. R. Ackerley (1896)
Iris Tree (1897)
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897)
Alec Waugh (1898)
Owen Barfield (1898)
Nevil Shute (1899)
Noël Coward (1899)
Val Gielgud (1900)
Roland Penrose (1900)
John Van Druten (1901)
Stella Gibbons (1902)
Georgette Heyer (1902)
Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford (1902)
Evelyn Waugh (1903)
Angela du Maurier (1904)
Lady Pansy Lamb (1904)
Nancy Mitford (1904)
Mary Renault (1905)
Anthony Powell (1905)
Valentine Ackland (1906)
Mollie Panter-Downes (1906)
John Betjeman (1906)
Barbara Noble (1907)
Daphne du Maurier (1907)
Christopher Caudwell (1907)
Pamela Frankau (1908)
Julian Bell (1908)
Kathleen Raine (1908)
Fanny Cradock (1909)
Stephen Spender (1909)
James Reeves (1909)
David Niven (1910)
Terence Rattigan (1911)
Mary Low (1912)
Pamela Hansford Johnson (1912)
Micky Burn (1912)
Robert Aickman (1914)
Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915)
Ian Stuart Black (1915)
Emanuel Litvinoff (1915)
Monica Dickens (1915)
Robin Maugham (1916)
Alex Comfort (1920)
William Tenn (1920)
Peter Ustinov (1921)
Kingsley Amis (1922)
Patrick Moore (1923)
Denise Levertov (1923)
Marjorie Boulton (1924)
William Auld (1924)
Sangharakshita (1925)
Anna Adams (1926)
John Berger (1926)
James Roose-Evans (1927)
U. A. Fanthorpe (1929)
Al Alvarez (1929)
Alan Simpson (1929)
John Osborne (1929)
Ruth Rendell (1930)
Ray Galton (1930)
Charles Higham (1931)
Caroline Blackwood (1931)
Arnold Wesker (1932)
Antonia Fraser (1932)
Terence Frisby (1932)
John Michell (1933)
Joan Collins (1933)
Gilli Smyth (1933)
Michael Frayn (1933)
Marty Feldman (1934)
Edward Bond (1934)
Jonathan Miller (1934)
Daniel Weissbort (1935)
Stella Rimington (1935)
Vera Rich (1936)
Peter Lovesey (1936)
David Seidler (1937)
Jackie Collins (1937)
Garry O'Connor (1938)
Michael Edwards (1938)
Derek Marlowe (1938)
Don Black (1938)
Caryl Churchill (1938)
Anne Perry (1938)
Alan Ayckbourn (1939)
Colin Thubron (1939)
Michael Moorcock (1939)
David Thomson (1941)
James P. Hogan (1941)
Ken Campbell (1941)
Richard Berengarten (1943)
Phil Cohen (1943)
Joe Winter (1943)
Aeronwy Thomas (1943)
James Herbert (1943)
Michael Morpurgo (1943)
Bernard Cornwell (1944)
Tim Jeal (1945)
Labi Siffre (1945)
Merlin Holland (1945)
Jane Asher (1946)
Clare Francis (1946)
Michael Rosen (1946)
Ruth Padel (1946)
David Downing (1946)
Antony Beevor (1946)
Helen Rappaport (1947)
M. A. Griffiths (1947)
Tanith Lee (1947)
Julia Blackburn (1948)
Carol Drinkwater (1948)
Norman Lebrecht (1948)
Julia Donaldson (1948)
Peter Hammill (1948)
Graham Swift (1949)
Jill Murphy (1949)
Peter Ackroyd (1949)
Chips Hardy (1950)
Patrick McGrath (1950)
Geraldine McCaughrean (1951)
Reggie Oliver (1952)
Andrew Motion (1952)
Helen Benedict (1952)
Stephen Poliakoff (1952)
Nigel Planer (1953)
Jo Shapcott (1953)
Colin Falconer (1953)
Joan Smith (1953)
John Hegley (1953)
Lisa St Aubin de Terán (1953)
Claire van Kampen (1953)
Ian Duhig (1954)
Kwame Anthony Appiah (1954)
Adam Mars-Jones (1954)
Arthur Smith (1954)
Hanif Kureishi (1954)
Louis de Bernières (1954)
Anthony Horowitz (1955)
Paul Stewart (1955)
Michael C. Burgess (1956)
Yvonne Green (1957)
Jane Caro (1957)
Stephen Fry (1957)
Mario Petrucci (1958)
Kathy Page (1958)
Martin Rowson (1959)
Louisa Young (1959)
Ben Elton (1959)
Julian Clary (1959)
Victoria Hislop (1959)
Kim Newman (1959)
Maggie Alderson (1959)
Rosie Garland (1960)
Anne Clark (1960)
Joygopal Podder (1960)
Joseph Pearce (1961)
Jasper Fforde (1961)
Adam LeBor (1961)
Will Self (1961)
Rachel Joyce (1962)
Elizabeth Fremantle (1962)
Jane Wenham-Jones (1962)
Malorie Blackman (1962)
Stewart Home (1962)
Polly Samson (1962)
Lavinia Greenlaw (1962)
Bernadette Strachan (1962)
Alex Wheatle (1963)
Stella Duffy (1963)
E. L. James (1963)
Peter Morgan (1963)
Esther Freud (1963)
Elly Griffiths (1963)
Fiona Sampson (1963)
Ben Aaronovitch (1964)
Laura Wilson (1964)
Patrick Marber (1964)
Margie Orford (1964)
Patience Agbabi (1965)
Dreda Say Mitchell (1965)
Paul Mendelson (1965)
Adam Roberts (1965)
Gérard Watkins (1965)
Zoë Heller (1965)
Kate Summerscale (1965)
Rachel Johnson (1965)
Richard K. Morgan (1965)
Clare Chambers (1966)
Daljit Nagra (1966)
Lauren Henderson (1966)
Tahir Shah (1966)
Jhumpa Lahiri (1967)
Bhanu Kapil (1968)
Lisa Jewell (1968)
Hari Kunzru (1969)
Rupinderpal Singh Dhillon (1969)
Jez Butterworth (1969)
Tom McCarthy (1969)
Julia Copus (1969)
Lucy Hawking (1969)
Bruno Maddox (1969)
Sophie Kinsella (1969)
Mona Arshi (1970)
Martin McDonagh (1970)
Alex Garland (1970)
Jane Goldman (1970)
The Spaceape (1970)
Diana Evans (1971)
Dorothy Koomson (1971)
Guy Walters (1971)
David Walliams (1971)
Pippa Goldschmidt (1972)
Darren O'Shaughnessy (1972)
Chris Cleave (1973)
Antony Dunn (1973)
Adam Foulds (1974)
Angela Misri (1975)
Zadie Smith (1975)
Erin Kelly (1976)
Emma Forrest (1976)
Antoine Cassar (1978)
Sophie Irene Hunter (1978)
Adam Thirlwell (1978)
Alice Kuipers (1979)
Daniel Tammet (1979)
Tom Rob Smith (1979)
Sophia McDougall (1979)
Morgan Lloyd Malcolm (1980)
Anno Birkin (1980)
Clemency Burton-Hill (1981)
Kia Abdullah (1982)
Anthony Anaxagorou (1983)
Kae Tempest (1985)
Rebecca Perry (1986)
Catherine Webb (1986)
Laura Dockrill (1986)
Polly Stenham (1986)
Michaela Coel (1987)
Jay Bernard (1988)
Hayley Squires (1988)
Dolly Alderton (1988)
Rosie Hewlett (1995)
Charly Cox (1995)
Ella McLeod (1996)