Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (née Godwin; 30 August 1797 - 1 February 1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel "Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus" (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

After Wollstonecraft's death less than a month after her daughter Mary was born, Mary was raised by Godwin, who was able to provide his daughter with a rich, if informal, education, encouraging her to adhere to his own liberal political theories. When Mary was four, her father married a neighbor, with whom, as her stepmother, Mary came to have a troubled relationship.

In 1814, Mary began a romance with one of her father's political followers, the then married Percy Bysshe Shelley. Together with Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont, Mary and Shelley left for France and traveled through Europe. Upon their return to England, Mary was pregnant with Percy's child. Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt, and the death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816, after the suicide of Percy Shelley's first wife, Harriet.

In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel "Frankenstein". The Shelleys left Britain in 1818 for Italy, where their second and third children died before Mary Shelley gave birth to her last and only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley. In 1822, her husband drowned when his sailing boat sank during a storm near Viareggio. A year later, Mary Shelley returned to England and from then on devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and a career as a professional author. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, probably caused by the brain tumor that was to kill her at the age of 53.

Until the 1970s, Mary Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish her husband's works and for her novel "Frankenstein", which remains widely read and has inspired many theatrical and film adaptations. Recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of Mary Shelley's achievements. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include the historical novels "Valperga" (1823) and "Perkin Warbeck" (1830), the apocalyptic novel "The Last Man" (1826), and her final two novels, "Lodore" (1835) and "Falkner" (1837). Studies of her lesser-known works, such as the travel book "Rambles in Germany and Italy" (1844) and the biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner's "Cabinet Cyclopaedia" (1829-46), support the growing view that Mary Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Mary Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practiced by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and the Enlightenment political theories articulated by her father, William Godwin

Schubert was musically educated at the "Hofkapelle" in Vienna where he sang as a boy but then had to quit in order to help his father at school. Four years later, he became an independent composer and was destined to live in poverty from then onwards. Having an introverted personality, Schubert played his songs mostly amongst a couple of friends who shared his romantic passion. Within his short life Schubert composed many pieces of music, including eight symphonies.

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was born November 29, 1797 in Bergamo, Italy. He was born in a windowless cellar into a poor family of a government clerk. At the age of 9 he became a protégé of Johann Simon Mayr, Maestro di Cappella of the Lombard city. Johann Mayr hosted and educated young Donizetti, and later sent the talented boy to study music under the renowned Padre Stanislao Mattei, the head master of the Music School in Bologna. After graduation he enlisted in the Army, and avoided going back to poor life in Bergamo.

In 1818 Donizetti's first operas were performed in Venice with modest success. In 1822 Donizetti settled in Naples and there had his first big success with two operas: "Zoraida di Granada" (1822) and "La zingara" (1822). He was developing the Bel canto style, writing his hallmark melody lines in a perfect match to Italian lyrics. Donizetti played with variety of genre from the comedy "L'ajo nell'umbarazzo" (1824), to the heroic neo-classical drama "L'esule di Roma" (1828), to the romantic melodrama "Il Paria" (1829).

Donizetti became famous beyond Italy with his opera "Anna Bolena" (1830). The superb quality of his music made him the rival of Vincenzo Bellini and Gioachino Rossini. Donizetti's next operas "L'elisir d'amore" (1832), "Parisina" (1833), "Lucrezia Borgia" (1833), and "Maria Stuarda" (1834) were performed in Rome, Genoa, Florence, and Teatro alla Scala in Milano. Meanwhile he had a teaching position at the Naples Conservatoire and had a good reputation for his warmth, generosity and devotion to his work.

His opera "Lucia di Lammermoor" (1835) straddled the annals of the day more brilliantly than any other opera. Donizetti went to Paris, and soon after was given the position of the Court Composer in Vienna. His later operas were written to French texts, with the inevitable loss of Bel canto smoothness, which was best in his melodies written to Italian lyrics. His last works of "grand-opera" scale integrated ballet numbers in spectacular settings. "Don Pasquale" (1843) was Donizetti's last opera. He died of paralysis on April 8. 1848, in Bergamo, Italy.

Vocally challenging "L'elisir d'amore" (The Elixir of Love 1832) remains a perennial favorite of the Bel canto opera repertoire worldwide. It is a story of a young love-struck Nemorino, who bought a bottle of magic drink from a traveling drug-pusher, who claims it to be a 'love potion'. Nemorino is trying to win the heart of the coquettish Adina, who eventually discovers that Nemorino's love is true and sincere. It was made into the eponymous film in 1992, starring Luciano Pavarotti as Nemorino and Kathleen Battle as Adina.

"Una furtiva lagrima" from the opera "L'elixir d'amore" is among the most famous tenor arias. It's legendary 1904 Victor recording by Enrico Caruso was used in 'Match point' (2005), 'Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino' (1977), and many other films, often uncredited.

Józef Korzeniowski was born on 19 March 1797 in Brody, Galicia, Habsburg Monarchy [now Ukraine]. Józef was a writer, known for Karpaccy górale (1915) and Mistrz tanca (1969). Józef died on 17 September 1863 in Dresden, Saxony, Germany.

Benjamin Webster was born on 3 September 1797 in Bath, England, UK. He was a writer, known for The Bond of Blood (1916). He was married to Harriet Herbert Ireland. He died on 8 July 1882 in London, England, UK.

Born in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1797 to a Jewish family, Heine was sent to Hamburg as a young man to work for his rich uncle. He studied at the universities at Bonn, Berlin and Göttingen, and got a law degree in 1825; he also changed his name to Heinrich Heine to ease his integration into German society. In 1821 he published his poem "Gedichte", but after a spat with another poet damaged his reputation, he moved to Paris to be a journalist. There he met an illiterate shopgirl named Crecence Eugénie Mirat, whom he married in 1841. Heine's criticism of Germany won him censorship from his native land, and he retired permanently to France.

He died in Paris on February 17 1856. Heine was controversial in Germany, and because of his Jewish origins, his poems had to be marked as 'author unknown' under the Nazi regime. He influenced many poets and composers, including Rainer Maria Rilke, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert, Karl Marx, and Robert Schumann.

Mirza Ghalib was born on 27 December 1797 in Agra, Mughal Empire. He was a writer, known for Masaan (2015), Mirza Ghalib (1954) and Ghalib (1961). He died on 15 February 1869 in Delhi, British India.

Jeremias Gotthelf was born on 4 October 1797 in Murten, Fribourg, Switzerland. He was a writer, known for Die Käserei in der Vehfreude (1958), Uli der Knecht (1954) and Die schwarze Spinne (1921). He died on 22 October 1854 in Lützelflüh, Bern, Switzerland.

Samuel Lover was born on 24 February 1797 in Dublin, Kingdom of Ireland [now Ireland]. He was a writer, known for Handy Andy (1921), Rory O'More (1911) and National Velvet (1944). He was married to Mary Wandby and Lucy Berrel. He died on 6 July 1868 in St. Heliers, Isle of Jersey, Channel Islands, UK.

Annette von Droste Hülshoff was interested in music and poetry from an early age, which were also talents she was born with. Her independent thinking was already nipped in the bud by the family; she was considered an outsider. A relationship with a middle-class student in 1819 and 1820 broke up at family instigation. This meant that the future poet's thinking and ideas were also directed towards the conservative, which she also expressed in her works. She joined the family by accompanying her mother on trips or by tolerating censorship interference in her works by her brother. There was hardly any opportunity for everyday outbursts. In the years 1825 and 1826 as well as 1828 she traveled to Cologne and Bonn. During this time she met Sibylle Mertens. Due to her unstable health, Annette Droste-Hülshoff was always sickly.

Their natural habitat was the Münsterland, the Paderborner Land, the Rhineland and the area around Lake Constance. Her sister was married to the German scholar Joseph von Lassberg and lived first in Eppishausen, Switzerland, and then in Meersburg. In the years 1835 and 1836 as well as in the 1940s she spent long periods visiting her sister in Eppishausen and Meersburg. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's complete works include, among other things, narrative prose, drama fragments, verse epics and novels. Sacred and secular poetry form the center of her work. The novel "Ledwina" about a young woman was written around 1821, but it remained a fragment. The drama entitled "Berta or the Alps" also remained unfinished around 1814.

In 1838 the title "Poems" was created, in which the verse epics make up a large part. In it the poet proved her way to her own poetic expression. In her later poems such as "The Battle of the Loener Bruch" she expressed her Westphalian motif. The volume of poetry "The Spiritual Year" was written between 1820 and 1839, in which the poet continued the religious baroque tradition and dealt with her own problems in life and faith. Nature poetry and symbolic cognitive poetry were the content of her later poetic work, which gained importance in this creative phase. In addition to the insights into landscape areas of the heath and moor, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff succeeds in creating a new way of representation by confronting the perceivable aesthetics of nature with the uncanny side of nature.

In 1842 the novella with the title "Die Judenbuche" was written, which was first printed in the "Morgenblatt for educated readers" in April and May of the same year. In this narrative work she successfully combined elements of the horror novel and the crime story.

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff died on May 24, 1848 in Meersburg.

François Joseph Méry was born on 21 January 1797 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. François Joseph was a writer, known for Don Carlos (1962), The Metropolitan Opera HD Live (2006) and Tonio Kröger (1964). François Joseph died on 17 June 1865 in Paris, France.