Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), was a German-Dutch canon regular of the late medieval period and the author of The Imitation of Christ, one of the most popular and best known Christian devotional books. His name means Thomas "of Kempen", his home town, and in German he is known as Thomas von Kempen (in Dutch, Thomas van Kempen). He was a member of the Modern Devotion, a spiritual movement during the late medieval period, and a follower of Geert Groote and Florens Radewyns, the founders of the Brethren of the Common Life. (Wikipedia)

Paul Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. (Wikipedia)

Vera Dorothea Stanley Alder (29 October 1898 – 26 May 1984) was an English portrait painter and mystic. She wrote several books and pamphlets on self-help and spirituality. She founded the World Guardian Fellowship.  (Wikipedia)

Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and also a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. (Wikipedia)

William Somerset Maugham, CH (1874-1965), better known as W. Somerset Maugham, was an English playwright, novelist, and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era. (Wikipedia)

Wu Cheng'en was a Chinese novelist and poet of the Ming Dynasty, and is considered by many to be the author of Journey to the West, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. (Wikipedia)