12 of the Best Authors of Fiction

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As you walk through the aisles of a bookstore, the shelves are filled with countless stories waiting to be read. From classic novels to new works, fiction has the power to transport us to new worlds and broaden our perspectives. But with so many options, it can be difficult to know where to begin. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of 12 best authors of fiction, spanning different time periods and genres, to guide you on your literary journey.

From Charles Dickens to Neil Gaiman, each of the best authors of fiction we’ve selected left an indelible mark on the literary world. We analyse their unique writing styles, their most famous works, and examine their impact on the world of literature.

But the list doesn’t stop there. We also explore international fiction authors whose works have been translated into numerous languages. Additionally, we look at up-and-coming authors who are making waves in the literary world. With each author, we provide:

a brief biography,
overview of their works, and
examples of famous quotes and passages.

Whether you’re looking for best sellers or revisiting old favourites or discover new ones, this list will provide a wealth of options. Let’s dive into these 12 best authors of fiction and see what stories await.

Classic Fiction Authors

Charles Dickens

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.
Dickens’ most famous opening line is from the novel A Tale of Two Cities.

Charles Dickens is the most famous English novelist of all time. He created some of the most enduring novels and characters in literary history and he is still popular today. Born in 1812, Dickens had to leave school at the tender age of 12 to work in a factory. He had to do this o help pay off his father’s debts when he was incarcerated.

Three years later, he went back to school, and later when he was a young adult, he took up journalism. Dickens soon shifted to writing fiction, and he wrote fifteen novels and five novellas. Added to these twenty stories were hundreds of short stories and articles. Three of best known and popular novels are Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and A Christmas Carol. They turned them into films, tv movies or serials, and a musical.

Dickens’ style is generally a mixture of melodrama and satire. His work is known for shocking coincidences and plot twists, as well as comically exaggerated, often grotesque characters with extravagant and unforgettable names.

Some of the Strangest Charles Dickens Characters

Miss Havisham (Great Expectations): A wealthy and eccentric spinster who wears her tattered wedding dress and lives in a decaying mansion, still consumed by her past.
Uriah Heep (David Copperfield): A sly and hypocritical clerk who constantly expresses false humility while scheming to gain power and control over others.
Mr. Quilp (The Old Curiosity Shop): A grotesque and malevolent dwarf who delights in tormenting and manipulating those around him.
Krook (Bleak House): A rag and bone merchant who lives in a chaotic and filthy dwelling, surrounded by stacks of papers and spontaneous combustions.
The Artful Dodger (Oliver Twist): A clever and street-smart young pickpocket who is part of Fagin’s gang of child thieves.
Mrs. Gamp (Martin Chuzzlewit): A slovenly and alcoholic nurse who has a morbid fascination with death and an odd way of dispensing questionable medical advice.
Bradley Headstone (Our Mutual Friend): A brooding and obsessive schoolmaster who becomes increasingly unhinged and prone to violent outbursts.
Mrs. Jellyby (Bleak House): A neglectful and absent-minded philanthropist consumed with her overseas charitable work that she ignores her own family and surroundings.
Mr. Venus (Our Mutual Friend): A morbidly curious taxidermist fascinated by death, she keeps an array of bizarre and macabre items in his shop.
Miss Flite (Bleak House): An eccentric and slightly deranged woman who believes she is under the protection of birds and obsessively keeps caged birds as symbols of her hopes and dreams.

Jane Austen

Jane Austen is another of the best authors of fiction in the English language. Her books are still widely read today, although arguably more popular amongst female readers overall. Austen was born into a large family in December 1775. There were seven siblings, most of whom were brothers, and her father was a clergyman.

She grew up in the County of Hampshire, England, and began writing from a very young age. She wrote short plays, parodies, and poems, throughout her childhood. Remarkably, it took a decade after writing her first novel, Pride and Prejudice, for anyone to publish it. Her other most famous novels are Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Persuasion.

Austen’s books are often credited with creating the genre of romantic comedy. They’re extremely witty comedies of manners that often focus on sisters and their romantic entanglements. Her heroines are strikingly feminist for their time.

Her most famous passage is the opening of Pride and Prejudice:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald (Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald) was one of the best authors of fiction in America. Set in the Jazz Era, his books are still read and studied today. Born in 1896 in St Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald grew up in New York. He was an undergrad at Princeton University until he dropped out in 1917 to fight in World War I.

At first, he was stationed in Alabama, where he met his future wife, Zelda Sayre. Although she initially refused his proposal, she agreed after his first book, This Side of Paradise, sold well. They had a famously loving but tempestuous relationship, which he captured in his semi-autobiographical novel Tender is the Night.

His most famous novel of all is The Great Gatsby.

Fitzgerald’s books were known for typifying the excess and decadence of the Jazz Age. Not only that but he literally coined the term. His books are about ambition versus loss, class, money, and romance. A great example of Fitzgerald’s wit is in this quote from Gatsby:

And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.

Contemporary Fiction Authors

Stephen King

The grandmaster of horror and one of the bestselling authors ever, Stephen King is a legend. Born in Portland, Maine, in 1947, his dad abandoned his wife and sons when King was only two years old. As a kid, he watched a friend of his being killed by a train. This likely had a big impact on him and his later writing.

In 1970, King graduated from the University of Maine with an English degree. He met his future wife, Tabitha, there. King went on to write (2023):

64 novels,
5 works of non-fiction, and
200 short stories.

Amongst his most famous works are IT, The Stand, The Shining, Pet Sematary, and Misery.

King is known for writing terrifying horror novels that explore the dark underbelly of American suburbia. His everyday characters are richly drawn. The horrors of everyday life are often paralleled and exacerbated by the supernatural.

One of his most famous quotations is from The Stand:

Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long. And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again.

Toni Morrison

Another of the best authors of fiction in history but who happens to be more contemporary is Toni Morrison. A highly acclaimed African American writer, she won both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize. Born in Ohio in 1931, she attended Howard University, graduating in 1953. And later, she got a Masters in American Lit at Cornell.

Married with children, she was later divorced, and became the first Black woman to edit fiction for Random House. She eventually became an acclaimed author in her own right. Her most famous books are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved.

Morrison is mainly known for writing about the African American experience, often with a fantastical or supernatural elements. Her style often involves elements of poetry and stream-of-consciousness. It’s free-flowing and experimental.

Two of Morrison’s most famous quotations come from Beloved:

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

There is a loneliness that can be rocked…It’s an inside kind—wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams…It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing…

Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is one of the most popular and best contemporary authors. Although his books are of the fantasy genre, they’re of such broad appeal they’re loved by readers of all kinds. Born in Hampshire, England, in 1960, Gaiman spent most of his childhood consuming books. As a young man, he became a journalist and wrote biographies of Duran Duran and Douglas Adams.

He then went on to a successful career in comics, writing The Sandman, considered an epochal work of the genre. From there, he became an even more successful novelist. His other most famous works include Stardust, Neverwhere, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book.

Gaiman’s work is largely known for blending wide varieties of influences together. Everything from literary references to theatre to various world mythologies make their way into his work. His writing is darkly whimsical and playful but also deeply emotional.

One of Gaiman’s most famous quotations is from Coraline:

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

International Fiction Authors

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez was considered one of the best authors of fiction of the 20^th century. Born in Colombia in 1927, he went to law school before becoming a journalist. He married Mercedes in 1958 and they had two sons.

He was a highly successful journalist, but his novels are what made him a household name. The most famous are One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and Love in the Time of Cholera.

Márquez’s literary works are prominent examples of magical realism. Largely set in the real world they have a few fantastical or magical elements. In Márquez’s case he used it to explore Latin identity in the mid-20^th century through a deliberately surreal lens.

One of his most famous quotations is from One Hundred Years of Solitude:

The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.

Vladimir Nobokov

Vladimir Nobokov was an internationally acclaimed writer who wrote both in Russian and English. His works have been translated into many languages. Born in 1899 in Russia, Nabokov grew up as the child of a noble family. During the Revolution, however, his family was forced to flee for their lives.

As a young man, he lived in Berlin, and that’s where his first nine novels were published. They were all written in Russian. Berlin is also where he met Vera, his wife. In the 1940s, they moved to America, where Nabokov began writing novels in English. He lived there for years, teaching as a Russian literature professor at Cornell. In 1961, he moved to Switzerland.

Nabokov’s most famous works are the controversial Lolita and Pale Fire. His books are known for their darkly satirical style and wordplay. He was a master at point-of-view writing. Even to this day, many readers don’t understand that the protagonist of Lolita is meant to be the villain.

One of Nabokov’s most famous quotations is from Lolita:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie is one of the world’s most famous novelists whose work has been translated into many languages. Born in Bombay, India, in 1947, Rushdie spent most of his childhood there. Eventually, he moved to England where he attended Rugby School, followed by Cambridge University, where he graduated with a degree in history.

He went on to work in advertising while writing books on the side. His novel Midnight’s Children was his first big success, leading to him writing full-time. To this day, his most famous works are that and The Satanic Verses. The latter made him a highly controversial figure.

Because it was seen to depict the prophet Muhammad in an irreverent manner, the Ayatollah Khomeini put a fatwa on his head. Rushdie writes in the magical realism genre, with sardonic wit and clever bite.

One of his most famous quotations is from Midnight’s Children:

Memory selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimises, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else’s version more than his own.

Up-and-Coming Fiction Authors

Brendan Slocumb

Amongst the best modern fiction authors is Brendan Slocumb. Born in California and raised in North Carolina, Slocumb graduated from the University of North Carolina. He studied music education and was the concertmaster and principal violinist for the university’s symphony orchestra while there.

In the intervening years, he taught high school music and won numerous awards for his work. He also became the Kennedy Center’s educational consultant. He’s performed with numerous prestigious orchestras and founded a non-profit organisation called Hands Across the Sea. He also has a rock band called Geppetto’s Wud.

Brendan’s acclaimed first book, The Violin Conspiracy sprang from his passion for music. It’s about a young Black musician whose priceless Stradivarius is stolen right before he’s meant to compete in a major competition. The ensuing novel follows his quest to get it back.

One of its best quotations is:

…the rhythm that spurred on Tchaikovsky is the same rhythm that a kid in a redneck North Carolina town would beat with a stick against a fallen tree. It is a rhythm in all of us.

Grace D. Li

There isn’t a great deal of biographical information available about Grace D. Li. But we do know she was raised in Texas and attended Duke University. While there, she studied both creative writing and biology, and went on to study medicine at Stanford.

While pursuing her medical career, she also published the critically acclaimed Portrait of a Thief. The book shot to the New York Times bestseller list and sold well internationally.

The premise of the story is that a Harvard senior called Will Chen has hatched a heist plan. He and a crew will steal back Chinese works of art that were stolen by Western museums. It’s a thrill ride while also an examination of colonialism and Chinese American’s cultural identities.

Daniel Wiles

Being a new novelist, there’s even less biographical information available for Daniel Wiles than for Grace D. Li. We know Wiles was raised in England’s West Midlands and got his Masters degree at the University of East Anglia. He also won a Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship to attend.

His novel, Mercia’s Take, is set in 1870s England during the Industrial Revolution. It’s the story of an overworked miner called Michael who one day finds gold in the pit. This gold could change both his life and that of his son, forever. Unfortunately, one of the other workers has discovered it as well.

It’s a powerful debut that indicates a promising future for this up-and-coming author.

Final Thoughts

We should feel grateful for the profound impact these writers have had on the literary world. The power of fiction to transport us to new worlds and challenge our thinking is unparalleled. This ranges from the timeless works of classic authors to the fresh perspectives of up-and-coming writers.

As readers, we have the privilege of immersing ourselves in these stories. We can connect with characters who feel like old friends, experiencing the joys and sorrows of their lives. We can explore different cultures, times, and perspectives. And in doing so, we can gain a deeper understanding of the world around us.

Whether you prefer the romanticism of Jane Austen or the dark worlds of Stephen King, we hope this list inspires you to read more. Exploring the rich tapestry of fiction is a lifetime endeavour. Great authors guide us on our literary journey, with wondrous stories that inspire, challenge, and delight us through generations.

So, keep turning those pages and discovering new adventures.

The world of fiction is waiting for you.