
Sample of authors
Fowles, John
John Robert Fowles was born in a middle-class family in the Essex town of Leigh-on-Sea. His father, Robert Fowles, dreamt of a career in the legal profession, but when the First World War broke out he was instead forced to take over the family's tobacco business. His mother, Gladys May, was a housewife. Fowles grew up in the security of a terraced housing estate, but later in life he confessed...

Sample of authors
McCall Smith, Alexander
The British author Alexander McCall Smith – called Sandy by family and friends – was born in Bulawayo in the then British colony of Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) as the youngest of four children to a British public prosecutor and his wife. He was schooled at the Christian Brothers College in Bulawayo before travelling to Scotland in 1966 to start studying Law at the University of Edi...