William Dampier

William Dampier (1651 - 1715) was an English pirate, explorer and navigator who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He has also been described as Australia's first natural historian, as well as one of the most important British explorers of the period between Sir Walter Raleigh and James Cook.

Dampier was the son of a Somerset farmer. He sailed to Newfoundland and the East Indies while still a boy and took part in the Third Dutch War. After a brief sojourn in Jamaica as undermanager of a plantation, he joined the buccaneers of the Caribbean in Capt. Morgan's heyday. In 1686 Capt. Swan of the Cygnet, in which Dampier was sailing, decided to seek

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In the New World, he and three other persons survived the expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez of 1527. During eight years of traveling across the southwest, he traded and encountered and in faith healed various Native American tribes before he reconnected with forces in 1536. After returning in 1537, he wrote an account, first published in 1542 as La Relación ("The Relation", or in more modern terms "The Account"), retitled Naufragios ("Shipwrecks") in later editions. People ably consider and note Cabeza de Vaca as a proto-anthropologist for his detail
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Henry Walter Bates

After British naturalist Henry Walter Bates, a palatable or harmless species of insects especially in Batesian mimicry, a protective form, closely resembles one that predators therefore avoid.

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Douglas Adams

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Douglas Noel Adams was an English author, humourist, and screenwriter, best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGTTG). Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy developed into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It was further developed into a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.
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Herodotus (Greek: Ηρόδοτος) (c. 484 – c. 425 BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He is known for having written the Histories – a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus was the first writer to perform systematic investigation of historical events. He has been described as "The Father of History", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero.
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Terry Pratchett

Sir Terence David John Pratchett was an English author, humorist, and satirist, best known for the Discworld series of 41 comic fantasy novels published between 1983–2015, and for the apocalyptic comedy novel Good Omens (1990), which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman.
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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

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Cormac McCarthy

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Patrick O'Brian's acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series of historical novels has been described as "a masterpiece" (David Mamet, New York Times), "addictively readable" (Patrick T. Reardon, Chicago Tribune), and "the best historical novels ever written" (Richard Snow, New York Times Book Review), which "should have been on those lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century" (George Will).

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Marco Polo

From 1271, Marco Polo of Venice explored Asia to 1295; the only available Travels of Marco Polo accounted China to Europeans until the 1500s.

Marco Polo spun a tale of how people gave a life of sensual pleasure and a potion to make young Assassins to yearn for paradise, their reward for dying in action, before their secret missions.

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People well knew this trader. He recorded his adventures in a published book. People lost the original copies of his works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo
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Patricia C. Wrede

Patricia Collins Wrede was born in Chicago, Illinois and is the eldest of five children. She started writing in seventh grade. She attended Carleton College in Minnesota, where she majored in Biology and managed to avoid taking any English courses at all. She began work on her first novel, Shadow Magic, just after graduating from college in 1974. She finished it five years later and started her second book at once, having become permanently hooked on writing by this time.

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John Wyndham

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Anton Gill

Anton Gill worked for the English Stage Company, the Arts Council of Great Britain, and the BBC before becoming a full-time writer in 1984. He has written more than twenty books, mainly in the field of contemporary history.

aka Oliver Bowden
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Nicholas Pileggi is best known for writing the book Wiseguy, which he adapted into the movie Goodfellas, and for writing the book and screenplay Casino. The movie versions of both were co-written and directed by Martin Scorsese. Pileggi also wrote the screenplay for the 1996 film City Hall. He began his career as a journalist and had a profound interest in the Mafia. This is where he developed his intuition to author books such as Wiseguy and Casino. He is also the author of the book Blye: Private Eye.
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Spanish colonial administrator Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca explored parts of present-day Florida, Texas, and Mexico and aroused interest in the region with his vivid stories of opportunities.

In the New World, he and three other persons survived the expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez of 1527. During eight years of traveling across the southwest, he traded and encountered and in faith healed various Native American tribes before he reconnected with forces in 1536. After returning in 1537, he wrote an account, first published in 1542 as La Relación ("The Relation", or in more modern terms "The Account"), retitled Naufragios ("Shipwrecks") in later editions. People ably consider and note Cabeza de Vaca as a proto-anthropologist for his detail
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Poerrepont

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Henry Walter Bates

After British naturalist Henry Walter Bates, a palatable or harmless species of insects especially in Batesian mimicry, a protective form, closely resembles one that predators therefore avoid.

This fellow of royal, Linnean, and geological societies and an English explorer gave the first scientific account in animals. He started his most famous expedition to the rainforests of the Amazon River with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1848. Wallace returned in 1852 but lost his collection on the return voyage, when his ship caught fire. Bates sent back more than 14,712 samples, including eight thousand new scientific specimens, and after a full eleven years arrived home in 1859. Bates wrote up his findings in The Naturalist on the River Amazons , his
Buy books on Amazon
al-Mas'udi

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Yuval Noah Harari

Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli historian and philosopher. He is considered one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals working today.

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Neil Gaiman

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Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen, a recent British Children’s Laureate, has written many acclaimed books for children, including WE'RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, and I’M NUMBER ONE and THIS IS OUR HOUSE, both illustrated by Bob Graham. Michael Rosen lives in London.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Mary H. Kingsley

Mary Henrietta Kingsley was born in Islington, London on 13 October 1862, the daughter and oldest child of doctor, traveler, and writer George Kingsley and Mary Bailey.

Kingsley wrote two books about her experiences: Travels in West Africa (1897), which was an immediate best-seller, and West African Studies (1899), both of which granted her vast respect and prestige within the scholarly community. Some newspapers, however, refused to publish reviews of her works, such as the Times colonial editor Flora Shaw. Though some argue this is likely on the grounds that her beliefs countered the imperialistic intentions of the British Empire and the notion that Africans were inferior peoples, this is not entirely true, as she did support British trade
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al-Mas'udi

al-Masʿūdī (c. 896 – 956) was a historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus of the Arabs". A polymath and prolific author of over twenty works on theology, history (Islamic and universal), geography, natural science and philosophy, his celebrated magnum opus The Meadows of Gold (Murūj al-Dhahab) combines universal history with scientific geography, social commentary and biography.
Buy books on Amazon