Through a remarkably varied and productive authorship of novels, plays, and essays, Per Christian Jersild, who debuted in 1960 with a collection of short stories, became one of the major Swedish authors of the last half of the twentieth ce...

Peter Fredrick Strawson (born 1919) was regarded as one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century. He was especially active in the movement known as ordinary language philosophy. Sir Peter Fredrick Strawson was born November 2...

One of the most distinguished of the English novelists who began their careers immediately following World War II is Percy Howard Newby. His sizable body of work is notable for seriousness of themes, mastery of fictional techniques and con...

P. K. Page, in a career that has lasted for almost half a century, has shown herself a Protean writer, continually overstepping the boundaries of genre and category. She has written a romantic novel, a number of novellas and short stories,...

P. N. Furbank has written three literary biographies: lives of Italo Svevo, E. M. Forster, and Denis Diderot. The first has made a neglected Italian writer more widely known; the last has clarified the myriad complexities of a famous Frenc...

Intelligence, practical shrewdness, vital energy, and persistence were the predominant qualities associated with Desmond Pacey. These were displayed in his own writing and editing, in his family and community life, and in academic administ...

Ron Padgett was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He received his A.B. from Columbia University in 1964 and was given the Boar's Head Poetry Prize and the George E. Woodberry Award in 1964. He studied in Paris as a Fulbright fellow in 1965-1966. Fr...

The Irish-American author Padraic Colum (1881-1972), best known for his poetry and plays, was active in the Irish Literary Revival. Padraic Colum was born in County Longford and as a youth met many who had lived through the Great Famine, w...

Francis Edward Paget is best known as one of the writers of Tractarian fiction, those children's and adult texts produced by members of the Oxford Movement that were intended to illustrate the doctrines of the Anglican High Church. Paget a...

Philip Pain may well be the most shadowy figure in all of American literature; nothing is known of his birth, his family, or his place of residence, and all we know of his death comes from the title page of his only book, where we are told...

Aldo Palazzeschi (nom de plume of Aldo Giurlani) began his literary career in search of a new mode of literary expression. Two literary/art movements,crepuscolarismo (twilight poetry) and futurismo, provided the tolerant atmosphere necessa...

Known to young readers all over the world as creator of the Brownies, Palmer Cox was one of the most popular American writers for children in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. A professional illustrator as well as a writer, h...

Jacob Paludan was one of Denmark's foremost novelists in the 1920s, and the two parts of his novel, first published as Torden i Syd: Jørgen Stein og hans Kreds (1932) and Under Regnbuen: Jørgen Stein og hans Kreds (1933), the...

Among modern novelists, Pamela Hansford Johnson is likely to be remembered best for her stylistic lucidity and psychological acumen. In an age of experimental novelistic techniques often intended to draw attention to themselves, Johnson's ...

Ivan Panaev's literary legacy consists mainly of his memoirs, in which he comments on literary Russia of the 1830s and 1840s from his association with the Natural School and from his work as copublisher and coeditor, with Nikolai Alekseevi...

A master of farce, Leif Panduro made his literary mark in novels, motion pictures, television, and radio drama--virtually every genre except critical essay and lyric poetry. Panduro's strengths as a writer lie in dramatic technique and in ...

One of the prominent writers of the post-World War II period in Soviet literature, Vera Panova gained fame and the esteem of Soviet readers for her short novel Sputniki (1946; translated as The Train, 1948). Sputniki offers a close and com...

One of the most important Romanian authors of the first half of the twentieth century, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu is particularly noteworthy for incorporating psychological analysis in her fiction. Often compared by critics in Romania to h...

Alfons Paquet made considerable and varied contributions to German writing during the first four decades of the twentieth century. His novels and short stories often reflect his imaginative involvement with political and social issues. His...

Poet, novelist, and critic, Suzanne Paradis has been publishing steadily since 1959. She has received several awards and honors for her literary work: the Prix Camille-Roy for Il ne faut pas sauver les hommes (1961); the Prix de la Provinc...

Américo Paredes, whose scholarly and creative-writing career began in the early 1950s, has been instrumental in the study of the folklore of the American Southwest, Chicano culture, and Chicano literature. His many publications led ...

Parke Godwin (25 February 1816-7 January 1904), social reformer, literary critic, and editor of the New York Evening Post, was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and died in New York City. He was a descendant of a notable New Jersey family that...

Stewart Parker loved theatricality. In Dramatis Personae: A Lecture Dedicated to the Memory of John Malone (1986) Parker outlines his ideas about theater and play. Play, he said, when it is freed from the connotations of frivolity and infa...

Printer, postmaster, and journalist, James Parker established printing houses in three colonies and founded several newspapers, including the first in Connecticut, the Connecticut Gazette, and the first in New Jersey, the Constitutional Co...

Bessie Rayner Parkes was a poet, feminist, activist, essayist, and journalist. In addition to publishing three volumes of poetry, Parkes played an important part in the beginning years of the women's rights movement in Great Britain. She m...