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This article profiles author Herbert Ernest Bates. Bates was born on May 16, 1905 in Rushden, Northamptonshire, England. In a career spanning more than fifty years, B. published at a rate of over a book a year, making him one of the most prolific British authors of the last century. One of his best-known novels is Fair Stood the Wind for France, the story of John Franklin, a British bomber pilot trapped in occupied France and his struggle to make it back to England. In a different vein are the later comedic novels centered around the character of Pop Larkin such as The Darling Buds of May and A Breath of French Air.

Provides information on the works of Azorean dramatist Christopher Hampton. Theme of his play "When Did You Last See My Mother?"; List of works of other playwrights that Hampton have adapted in his plays; Plot of the epistolary novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" adapted by the dramatist.

This article features Hugh Leonard, one of the most successful Irish dramatists of the late 20th century. He was born on November 9, 1926 in Dublin, Ireland. Adopted shortly after his birth by a working-class family, Leonard chose as his nom de plume the name of a character from an early, unsuccessful play, The Italian Road (perf. 1954). Ironically, the first play he submitted under his pseudonym, The Big Birthday (perf. 1956), was accepted by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, which had rejected the earlier work. His earliest successes came with adaptations of other authors' novels and plays.

This article describes the works of British author Auberon Waugh. His first two novels, The Foxglove Saga and Path of Dalliance, are both set largely within academic milieus. In the first, the upper-class Martin Foxglove and the less well-off Kenneth Stoat attend a Catholic boarding school together, and the novel, inspired largely by Waugh's own experiences in school and the military, follows the characters through national service and hospital stays. Path of Dalliance again focuses on a pair of protagonists, Jamey Sligger and Frazer Robinson, this time at Oxford University. Although none of his characters is sympathetic, Waugh seems most critical, particularly in Path of Dalliance, of the lower classes and of ostensibly liberal student radicals, whose plans for the liberation of the world's oppressed are depicted as so much empty rhetoric and hypocrisy.

This article profiles poet Dannie Abse of Cardiff, Wales. He was born on September 22, 1923 in Cardiff. In addition to being a successful poet, Abse is a medical doctor, receiving his training at King's College, London, and at Westminster Hospital. Notable in this regard are poems that draw directly upon his experience as a doctor, such as The Stethoscope in Collected Poems and The Doctor, A Winter Visit, and Lunch and Afterwards, all of which appear in Way Out in the Centre. More recently, his publications have included White Coat, Purple Coat: Collected Poems, Remembrance of Crimes Past: Poems, and Be Seated Thou: Poems, among others.