Scottish author, poet, and essayist Robert Louis Stevenson isperhaps bestknown for his worksTreasure Island(1881) andThe Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde(1886) though he wrote many others. A late reader and compulsive writer, his earlier works of romance and adventure evolved into dark realism. Though he battled life-long physical illness, he travelled widely and wrote constantly, before hispassing atforty-four years.In 2018, he was ranked just behind Charles Dickens as the 26th-most-translated author in the world.

Herbert George Wells was born in England in 1866. He wrote more than 50 novels and dozens of short stories and was widely known as a social critic and futurist. He is understood to be one of the greatest pioneers of the science fiction genre, building worlds full ofaircraft, space travel, and biological engineering. Some of his most famous works includeThe Invisible Man(1897),The War of the Worlds(1898), andThe Island of Doctor Moreau(1896). He was a four-time Nobel Prize nominee. He died in 1946.