* In the novel Perdido Street Station, by British author China Miéville, engines similar to Babbage's serve as " brains " for the robotic constructs of the city of New Crobuzon.

* Adrian Goldsworthy ( born 1969 ), British historian and author who writes mostly about ancient Roman history

* 1886 – Ruth Manning-Sanders, British author ( d. 1988 )

Helen Beatrix Potter ( 28 July 186622 December 1943 ) was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children ’ s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.

More recently, William D. Rubinstein, Professor of Modern History at Aberystwyth University, Wales, wrote that Conservative politician and pro-Zionist Leo Amery, as Assistant Secretary to the British war cabinet in 1917, was the main author of the Balfour Declaration.

Cyril Northcote Parkinson ( 30 July 1909 – 9 March 1993 ) was a British naval historian and author of some sixty books, the most famous of which was his bestseller Parkinson's Law, which led him to be also considered as an important scholar within the field of public administration.

Colin Kapp ( 1928 – 3 August 2007 ) was a British science fiction author.

Martin Hewitt, created by British author Arthur Morrison in 1894, is perhaps the first example of the modern style of fictional private detective.

* 1892 – Osbert Sitwell, British author ( d. 1969 )

* 1867 – At Tremont Temple in Boston, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States.

* 2003 – Alan Davidson, British author ( b. 1924 )

* 1909 – James Riddell, British champion skier and author ( d. 2000 )

During the same year, British author George MacDonald Fraser published Flash for Freedom !, the third novel in the Flashman series that was set partially in Dahomey.

* 1914 – Alan Bullock, British author of the first biography of Hitler written in any language.

After its first release, this book sold far better than any of Butler's other works — perhaps because the British public assumed that the anonymous author was some better-known figure ( the favorite being Lord Lytton, who had published The Coming Race two years previously ).

* 1857 – Robert Baden-Powell, British soldier, author, and Scout movement founder ( d. 1941 )

* 1912 – George Mikes, Hungarian-born British author ( d. 1987 )

Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character introduced in a series of novels by British author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century.

* 1929 – Len Deighton, British author

Near its entrance, opposite the new British Library, a contemporary statue of Saint Joan commemorates Shaw as author of that play.

Trent's Last Case is an adaptation of British author E. C. Bentley's 1913 novel of the same name, and had already been adapted to film in England in 1920.

* Thomas Robson, author of The British Herald ( 1830 ).

Other luminaries include Keith Johnstone, the British teacher and writer – author of Impro, who founded the Theatre Machine and whose teachings form the foundation of the popular shortform Theatresports format, Dick Chudnow, founder of ComedySportz which evolved its family-friendly show format from Johnstone's Theatersports, Stan Wells, creator of the " Clap-In " longform style and founder of The Empty Stage Comedy Theatre in Los Angeles, and Bill Johnson, creator / director of The Magic Meathands, who pioneered the concept of " Commun-edy Outreach " by tailoring performances to non-traditional audiences, such as the homeless and foster children.

* 1944 – Jenny Nimmo, British author

* 1836 – John Cheyne ( physician ), British physician, surgeon and author ( b. 1777 )

Later in the 1960s and 1970s, Edmund Leach and his students Mary Douglas and Nur Yalman, among others, introduced French structuralism in the style of Lévi-Strauss ; while British anthropology has continued to emphasize social organization and economics over purely symbolic or literary topics, differences among British, French, and American sociocultural anthropologies have diminished with increasing dialogue and borrowing of both theory and methods.

Anne Brontë (; 17 January 1820 – 28 May 1849 ) was a British novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family.

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, ( 21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881 ) was a British Prime Minister, parliamentarian, Conservative statesman and literary figure.

The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary and antiquarian element and meant that the British Museum now became both national museum and library.

* 1943 – Terry Eagleton, British literary critic and philosopher

In British English usage, and in British academia, " philology " remains largely synonymous with " historical linguistics ", while in US English, and US academia, the wider meaning of " study of a language's grammar, history and literary tradition " remains more widespread.

* 6-Kathleen Raine, 95, British poet and literary critic.

A recent critic, who is a legal as well as a literary scholar, argues that Old Mortality not only reflects the evolution of Scottish nationalism but also invokes a foundational moment in British sovereignty, namely, the Act of Habeas corpus ( also known as the Great Writ ), passed by the English Parliament in 1679.

A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms.

* Samuel Johnson, British writer, lexicographer, poet, and literary critic

* July 14 – F. R. Leavis, British literary critic ( d. 1978 )

* April 14 – F. R. Leavis, British literary critic ( b. 1895 )

Other late-nineteenth-and early twentieth-century British literary usages suggest neutral usage.

* The Times Literary Supplement, a British weekly literary review

John Bowring, a British politician who had been Bentham's trusted friend, was appointed his literary executor and charged with the task of preparing a collected edition of his works.

By 1919, the year he founded the British Psychoanalytical Society, Jones could report proudly to Freud that psychoanalysis in Britain “ stands in the forefront of medical, literary and psychological interest ” ( letter 27 January 1919 ( Paskauskas 1993 )).

The British Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century introduced new aesthetic ideas to literary study, including the idea that the object of literature need not always be beautiful, noble, or perfect, but that literature itself could elevate a common subject to the level of the sublime.

In the British and American literary establishment, the New Criticism was more or less dominant until the late 1960s.

The city houses many cultural institutes such as the Russian Cultural Institute, the Polish Cultural Institute, the Hungarian Institute, the Czech and the Slovak Cultural Institutes, the Italian Cultural Institute, the French Cultural Institute, Goethe Institut, British Council, Instituto Cervantes, and the Open Society Institute, which regularly organise temporary expositions of visual, sound and literary works by artists from their respective countries.

During the post-war decades only a handful of books of any literary merit were published each year in Canada, and Canadian literature was viewed as an appendage to British and American writing.

In the " Hippogriff Cookbook " ( 2010 ) reportedly " the first literary work written exclusively for e-reader technology ," British authors Benjamin Leeds Carson and Perre DiCarlo introduce fictional wizards to the culinary value of the animal, which " giveth from its forelegs and wings a tender poultry, from its rear a robust steak, as well as both creamy milke and eggs that seemeth to emerge already soft boiled.

Nancy Holmes, professor at the University of British Columbia, speculated that its patriotic nature and usage as a tool for propaganda may have led literary critics to view it as a national symbol or anthem rather than a poem.

The Carnegie Medal in Literature, or simply Carnegie Medal, is a British literary award that annually recognizes one outstanding new book for children or young adults.