a German mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher

an English novelist and playwright known especially for The Woman in White (1859), and for The Moonstone (1868), which has been proposed as the first modern English detective novel.

a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales.

an English poet and cultural critic; characterized as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues.

a Swedish writer described as "Sweden's last Romantic" and by 1859 was "generally regarded in the first rank of Swedish novelists."

an Italian physicist and mathematician, and a student of Galileo. He is best known for his invention of the barometer, but also for his advances in optics and work on the method of indivisibles.