Max Bollinger (Other)
Oscar Wilde 1854 - 1900, one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. At university he proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. He became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States of America and Canada on the new English Renaissance in Art, and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde had become one of the most well-known personalities of his day.
Mikhail Lermontov (Author)
Mikhail Lermontov 1814 - 1841, a Russian Romantic writer and poet, sometimes called the poet of the Caucasus, was the most important presence in Russian poetry after Alexander Pushkin's death until his own death in a duel four years later, at the age of 26. Lermontov's life is one of the most epic and dramatic in the history of literature. After attacking the tsar as complicit in the de facto assassination of Pushkin, Lermontov himself fell in a duel that many believe was also the work of a tsarist conspiracy designed to silence nascent rebellion. His major works, which can be readily quoted from memory by many Russians, suffer from the generally poor quality of translation from Russian to English - Lermontov therefore, remains largely unknown to English-speaking readers.