Arts and Culture

Famous British Writers

Playwrights

• William Shakespeare — born in Stratford-upon-Avon; wrote during the Elizabethan period
  • Famous plays: Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth

Novelists

• Charles Dickens — Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations
• Jane Austen — Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility
• Robert Louis Stevenson — Treasure Island, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — Scottish; created Sherlock Holmes
• Rudyard Kipling — Indian-born; The Jungle Book
• Roald Dahl — Welsh; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, George's Marvellous Medicine
• Agatha Christie — detective novels featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple
• J.K. Rowling — Harry Potter series
• Ian Fleming — created James Bond

Poets

• Robert Burns — Scottish poet known as "The Bard"; wrote Auld Lang Syne
• Dylan Thomas — Welsh; Under Milk Wood, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
• William Wordsworth — English Romantic poet; famous for poems about the Lake District
• Lord Byron, Shelley, Keats — Romantic poets

Music

• The Beatles and The Rolling Stones — 1960s pop and rock groups
• The Proms — annual eight-week summer season of orchestral concerts at the Royal Albert Hall
• The Last Night of the Proms is a particularly well-known event
• Other famous British musicians include Elton John and Adele

Architecture

• Sir Christopher Wren — designed St Paul's Cathedral (rebuilt after the Great Fire of London, 1666)
• Famous buildings: Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, Edinburgh Castle

Art

• Thomas Gainsborough and David Allan — famous 18th-century painters
• Henry Moore and John Constable — notable British artists
• Major galleries: Tate Modern, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery

The Turner Prize

• An annual award for contemporary art, named after the painter J.M.W. Turner
• Often controversial; one of the most publicised art prizes in the world