# The 23 authors > Lifelines of the 23 writers on the timeline: sourced birth and death dates, and each author's age when each work first appeared. Canonical page: https://lineageofshadows.com/authors/ ## Horace Walpole Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford. Born 5 Oct 1717 (24 Sep O.S.), Arlington Street, London; died 2 Mar 1797. Sources: S-walpole-dnb-grubstreet, S-otranto-gutenberg. Son of Sir Robert Walpole, first Earl of Orford; he turned his house at Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, into a Gothic villa, set up a private press there, and published The Castle of Otranto in December 1764 under an invented translator's name. - 1764: [The Castle of Otranto](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/castle-of-otranto/), at 47 ## Ann Radcliffe Ann Radcliffe (née Ward). Born 9 Jul 1764, London; died 7 Feb 1823. Sources: S-radcliffe-eb1911, S-radcliffe-btw. Published five novels between 1789 and 1797, ending with The Italian; died at her home in Pimlico, probably of a bronchial infection; Gaston de Blondeville appeared posthumously in 1826. - 1794: [The Mysteries of Udolpho](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/mysteries-of-udolpho/), at 29 or 30 ## Matthew Lewis Matthew Gregory Lewis. Born 9 Jul 1775, London; died 14 May 1818. Sources: S-lewis-dnb, S-lewis-encyclopedia-summers, S-lewis-encyclopedia-bio. Known as 'Monk' Lewis; wrote The Monk as a nineteen-year-old attache at The Hague, sat in Parliament, and died of yellow fever on the voyage home from Jamaica, buried at sea. - 1796: [The Monk](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/the-monk/), at 20 ## Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (née Godwin). Born 30 Aug 1797, The Polygon, Somers Town, London; died 1 Feb 1851. Sources: S-shelley-dnb, S-frankenstein-1831-gutenberg. Daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft; began Frankenstein at eighteen in Switzerland in the summer of 1816, in the circle of Byron and her future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. - 1818: [Frankenstein](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/frankenstein/), at 20 ## John Polidori John William Polidori. Born 7 Sep 1795, London; died Aug 1821. Sources: S-polidori-dnb, S-polidori-diary-gutenberg. Physician and travelling companion to Lord Byron in 1816; his tale The Vampyre appeared in 1819 under Byron's name, and he died in London two years later at twenty-five. - 1819: [The Vampyre](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/the-vampyre/), at 23 ## Charles Maturin Charles Robert Maturin. Born 1780 (or 1782), Dublin; died 30 Oct 1824. Sources: S-maturin-encyclopedia, S-maturin-jackson, S-maturin-sfe, S-maturin-dnb. Dublin clergyman (curate of St Peter's), playwright and novelist, who published his first novels as 'Dennis Jasper Murphy' and wrote Melmoth the Wanderer, his best-known work; Oscar Wilde was his grandnephew by marriage. Sources give his birth year as 1780 or 1782. - 1820: [Melmoth the Wanderer](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/melmoth-the-wanderer/), at 37 to 40 ## Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe. Born 19 Jan 1809, Boston; died 7 Oct 1849. Sources: S-poe-loc, S-poe-chronology-eapoe, S-poe-tga-eapoe. American poet, critic and tale-writer; his Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840) collected 'The Fall of the House of Usher', and 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' (Graham's Magazine, April 1841) is often called the first modern detective story. He died in Baltimore. - 1839: [The Fall of the House of Usher](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/fall-of-the-house-of-usher/), at 30 - 1841: [Murders in the Rue Morgue](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/murders-in-the-rue-morgue/), at 32 ## Thomas Peckett Prest Thomas Peckett Prest. Born 1810 (or 1809), London; died Jun 1859. Sources: S-prest-loc, S-varney-smith-lloyd. Hack writer, journalist and musician who wrote penny bloods for Edward Lloyd; long credited, now usually only as co-author or not at all, with Varney the Vampyre. His birth is given as 1809 or 1810; he died in June 1859. - 1845: [Varney the Vampire](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/varney-the-vampire/), at 34 to 36 ## James Malcolm Rymer James Malcolm Rymer. Born c. 1814; died 1884. Sources: S-rymer-loc, S-varney-smith-lloyd. Born about 1814; a prolific writer of penny bloods for the publisher Edward Lloyd; the bibliographer Helen Smith concludes that he, not Thomas Peckett Prest, wrote both Varney the Vampyre and Sweeney Todd's The String of Pearls, and records that he left over 8,000 pounds when he died in 1884. - 1845: [Varney the Vampire](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/varney-the-vampire/), at about 30 or 31 ## Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Brontë. Born 21 Apr 1816, Thornton, Yorkshire; died 31 Mar 1855. Sources: S-adj-cbronte-dnb, S-cbronte-vweb-chron, S-bronte-notice-gutenberg. Eldest surviving Brontë sister; published Jane Eyre in October 1847 as 'Currer Bell' and wrote the 1850 'Biographical Notice' explaining the three sisters' pseudonyms. She died at Haworth. - 1847: [Jane Eyre](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/jane-eyre/), at 31 ## Emily Brontë Emily Jane Brontë. Born 30 Jul 1818, Thornton, Yorkshire; died 19 Dec 1848. Sources: S-adj-ebronte-poetryfoundation, S-adj-ebronte-poets, S-gaskell-life-gutenberg. Published Wuthering Heights in December 1847 as 'Ellis Bell' and died of illness at Haworth Parsonage the following December, aged thirty. - 1847: [Wuthering Heights](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/wuthering-heights/), at 29 ## Wilkie Collins William Wilkie Collins. Born 8 Jan 1824, Marylebone, London; died 23 Sep 1889. Sources: S-adj-collins-dnb, S-moonstone-lewis-wcs. Novelist and staff writer on Dickens's Household Words and All the Year Round, where The Woman in White (1859-60) and The Moonstone (1868) were serialised. - 1859: [The Woman in White](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/the-woman-in-white/), at 35 - 1868: [The Moonstone](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/the-moonstone/), at 43 ## Sheridan Le Fanu Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Born 28 Aug 1814, Dublin; died 7 Feb 1873. Sources: S-adj-lefanu-dnb, S-lefanu-irishtimes, S-lefanu-vweb-intro. Irish novelist and ghost-story writer; his vampire novella Carmilla ran in The Dark Blue (1871-72) and was gathered in In a Glass Darkly (1872), the year before his death in Dublin. - 1871: [Carmilla](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/carmilla/), at 57 ## Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson. Born 13 Nov 1850, Edinburgh; died 3 Dec 1894. Sources: S-rls-victorianweb, S-rls-nls. Scottish essayist and novelist, born into the lighthouse-engineering Stevensons; he died of a brain haemorrhage at his home in Samoa and was called Tusitala, 'teller of tales', there. - 1886: [Jekyll and Hyde](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/jekyll-and-hyde/), at 35 ## Arthur Conan Doyle Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. Born 22 May 1859, Edinburgh; died 7 Jul 1930. Sources: S-doyle-victorianweb, S-doyle-acd-obit. Physician and writer; created Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet (1887) and died at Windlesham Manor, Crowborough, Sussex. - 1887: [Sherlock Holmes](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/sherlock-holmes/), at 28 - 1901: [The Hound of the Baskervilles](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/hound-of-the-baskervilles/), at 42 ## Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde. Born 16 Oct 1854, Dublin; died 30 Nov 1900. Sources: S-wilde-poets, S-wilde-victorianweb. Irish writer; The Picture of Dorian Gray is his only novel; he took the exile alias Sebastian Melmoth after prison and died in Paris. - 1890: [Dorian Gray](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/), at 35 ## Arthur Machen Arthur Llewellyn Jones (Arthur Machen). Born 3 Mar 1863, Caerleon, Monmouthshire; died 15 Dec 1947. Sources: S-machen-dwb, S-machen-society, S-pan-sfe. Welsh writer born Arthur Llewellyn Jones; Machen was his mother's surname. - 1890: [The Great God Pan](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/the-great-god-pan/), at 27 ## H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells. Born 21 Sep 1866, Bromley, Kent; died 13 Aug 1946. Sources: S-g4-bnf-wells, S-g4-sfe-wells. Born in Bromley and died in London; his scientific romances of 1895-98, from The Time Machine to The War of the Worlds, made his name. - 1895: [The Time Machine](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/the-time-machine/), at 28 - 1896: [Island of Doctor Moreau](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/island-of-doctor-moreau/), at 29 or 30 - 1897: [The War of the Worlds](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/war-of-the-worlds/), at 30 - 1897: [The Invisible Man](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/the-invisible-man/), at 30 ## Richard Marsh Richard Bernard Heldmann (Richard Marsh). Born 12 Oct 1857, St John's Wood, London; died 9 Aug 1915. Sources: S-beetle-vuohelainen, S-adj-marsh-reading. Born Richard Bernard Heldmann; wrote as Richard Marsh and died at Haywards Heath, Sussex, having written 76 volumes. - 1897: [The Beetle](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/the-beetle/), at 39 ## Bram Stoker Abraham Stoker. Born 8 Nov 1847, Clontarf, Dublin; died 20 Apr 1912. Sources: S-stoker-tcd. Irish writer and, for twenty-seven years, Henry Irving's manager at the Lyceum Theatre; he died in London. - 1897: [Dracula](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/dracula/), at 49 ## Henry James Henry James. Born 15 Apr 1843, New York; died 28 Feb 1916. Sources: S-g4-bnf-james. American-born novelist who died in London; he signed his work 'Henry James Jr.' until 1881 and was the brother of the philosopher William James. - 1898: [The Turn of the Screw](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/turn-of-the-screw/), at 54 ## Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski). Born 3 Dec 1857, Berdychiv (Berditchev), in present-day Ukraine; died 3 Aug 1924. Sources: S-g4-bnf-conrad, S-g4-uv-conrad. Born Korzeniowski, he became a naturalised British subject in 1886 and died at Oswalds, his home in Kent. - 1899: [Heart of Darkness](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/heart-of-darkness/), at 41 ## Gaston Leroux Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux. Born 6 May 1868, Paris; died 15 Apr 1927. Sources: S-g4-bnf-leroux, S-g4-ebsco-leroux. Trained as a lawyer, he worked as a court reporter for L'Echo de Paris and as a reporter for Le Matin before turning to fiction; he died in Nice. Sources give his death as 15 or 16 April 1927. - 1909: [The Phantom of the Opera](https://lineageofshadows.com/works/phantom-of-the-opera/), at 41