Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was born in 1818 in the province of Oryol. In 1827 he entered St Petersburg University where he studied philosophy. When he was nineteen he published his first poems and went to the University of Berlin.

After two years he returned to Russia and took his degree at the University of Moscow. After 1856 he lived mostly abroad, and he became the first Russian writer to gain a wide reputation in Europe. He wrote many novels, plays, short stories and novellas, of which First Love (1860) is the most famous. He died in Paris in 1883.

English novelist and playwright John Galsworthy (1867–1933) was among the first writers of the Edwardian era to challenge the social ideals portrayed in Victorian literature. The plight of women trapped in unhappy marriages is among his recurring themes, and in addition to championing women's rights, his work promoted prison reform and animal welfare.