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Samuel Johnson, often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history".
Sir William Davenant, also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil War and during the Interregnum.
Henry Briggs was an English mathematician notable for changing the original logarithms invented by John Napier into common logarithms, which are sometimes known as Briggsian logarithms in his honour. The specific algorithm for long division in modern use was introduced by Briggs c. 1600 AD.
John Thurloe was an English politician who served as secretary to the council of state in Protectorate England and spymaster for Oliver Cromwell and held the position of Postmaster General between 1655 and 1660. He was from Great Milton in Oxfordshire and of Lincoln's Inn.
Abraham Cowley was an English poet and essayist born in the City of London late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his Works published between 1668 and 1721.
Samuel Sewall was a judge, businessman, and printer in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, best known for his involvement in the Salem witch trials, for which he later apologized, and his essay "The Selling of Joseph" (1700), which criticized slavery. He served for many years as the chief justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, the province's high court.
Thomas Percy was Bishop of Dromore, County Down, Ireland. Before being made bishop, he was chaplain to George III of the United Kingdom. Percy's greatest contribution is considered to be his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), the first of the great ballad collections, which was the one work most responsible for the ballad revival in English poetry that was a significant part of the Romantic movement.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791) by James Boswell is a biography of English writer and literary critic Samuel Johnson. The work was from the beginning a universal critical and popular success, and represents a landmark in the development of the modern genre of biography. Many have called it the greatest biography written in English, one of the greatest biographies ever written, and among the greatest nonfiction books of all time. The book is valued as both an important source of information on Johnson and his times, as well as an important and enduring work of literature.
John Heydon was an English Neoplatonist occult philosopher, Rosicrucian, astrologer and attorney.
Francis Osborne was an English essayist, known for his Advice to a Son, which became a very popular book soon after the English Restoration.
Sir Christopher Heydon was an English soldier, Member of Parliament, and writer on astrology. He quarrelled with his family over its estates in Norfolk.
Samuel Johnson was an English author born in Lichfield, Staffordshire. He was a sickly infant who early on began to exhibit the tics that would influence how people viewed him in his later years. From childhood he displayed great intelligence and an eagerness for learning, but his early years were dominated by his family's financial strain and his efforts to establish himself as a school teacher.
Francis Cleyn was a German-born painter and tapestry designer who lived and worked in England.
The Whole Duty of Man is an English high-church 'Protestant' devotional work, first published anonymously in 1658, with an introduction by Henry Hammond (1605–1660). It was both popular and influential for two centuries within the Anglican tradition that it helped to define. The title quotes Ecclesiastes 12:13, in the King James Version of the Bible: Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
Alexander Donaldson was a Scottish bookseller, publisher, and printer. Donaldson was the founding publisher of the weekly newspaper, the Edinburgh Advertiser. He was also known for selling cheap copies of books after their copyright had expired in disregard to London booksellers' opinions on literary property.
Thomas Osborne was an English publisher and bookseller noted for his association with author Samuel Johnson and his purchase of the library of Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford.
John Osborne (c.1630–1692) was an English barrister and law officer who spent much of his adult life in Ireland. He was the only surviving son of the celebrated writer Francis Osborne, and the subject of his father's most famous book, Advice to a Son (1656–1658).
Awnsham Churchill (1658–1728), of the Black Swan, Paternoster Row, London and Henbury, Dorset, was an English bookseller and radical Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1705 to 1710.
William Hammond (c.1635–c.1685) was an English gentleman and Grand Tourist. He has been identified since 1792 as the William Hammond who was an original Fellow of the Royal Society.
John Ranby (1743–1820) was an English pamphleteer, known for his anti-abolitionist writings. James Boswell interpolated in his Life of Johnson a reference to Ranby, his "learned and ingenious friend", as a pendant to Samuel Johnson's expressed wish for the abolition of slavery, stating that Johnson was poorly informed.