Washington Irving was born in New York in 1783, he is known for his biographical works and such stories as 'Rip Van Winkle' and 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.' *** Oscar Wilde, born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, was a popular literary figure in late Victorian England, known for his brilliant wit, flamboyant style and infamous imprisonment for homosexuality. *** Bram Stoker was born in Ireland in 1847, he is best known for authoring the classic 19th century horror novel 'Dracula. *** H.G. Wells was born in England in 1866. His first novel, The Time Machine was an instant success and Wells produced a series of science fiction novels which pioneered our ideas of the future. *** Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on May 22, 1859, . In 1890 his novel, A Study in Scarlet, introduced the character of Detective Sherlock Holmes. Doyle would go on to write 60 stories about Sherlock Holmes. *** E.T.A. Hoffmann, born January 24, 1776, Königsberg, Prussia, was a German writer, composer, and painter known for his stories in which supernatural and sinister characters move in and out of men's lives, ironically revealing tragic or grotesque sides of human nature. *** Rudyard Kipling was born on December 30, 1865, in Bombay, India. The author is famous for an array of works like 'Just So Stories' and 'The Jungle Book.' He received the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature."