Famous Authors Born in July

From Nobel laureates to new genre trailblazers to one of the bestselling children's authors of all time, July is the birth month of many notable and acclaimed wordsmiths. We're delighted to celebrate them and their beloved works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, theater, and more. 

Literary legends born in July

July 1

• George Sand (1804–1876), French novelist, born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, Indiana
• James M. Cain (1892–1977), Minnesotan novelist, Double Indemnity
• Lisa Scottoline (1955– ), mystery author, What Happened to the Bennetts
  

July 2

• Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), German-Swiss novelist and poet, Siddhartha
• Wislawa Szymborska (1923–2012), Polish poet and Nobel laureate, Map: Collected and Last Poems
  

July 3

• Franz Kafka (1883–1924), Czech writer (Several of his books were published against his wishes after his death!), Metamorphosis
  

July 4

• Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864), American novelist and short story writer, The Scarlet Letter
• Neil Simon (1927–2018), New York City-based playwright and screenwriter, The Collected Plays of Neil Simon, Vol. 1
  

July 5

• Jean Cocteau (1919–1994), French writer, artist, and film maker, Les Enfants Terribles
• Bill Watterson (1958– ), American cartoonist, Calvin and Hobbes
  

July 6

• Hilary Mantel (1952–2022), British author, Wolf Hall
  

July 7

• Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988), Missouri-born science-fiction writer, Stranger in a Strange Land
• Margaret Walker (1915–1998), Alabama-born African-American poet and novelist, Jubilee
• Eric Jerome Dickey (1961–2021), American crime novelist, The Other Woman
• Jeff VanderMeer (1968– ), American author known for the Southern Reach series, Annihilation
  

July 8

• Anna Quindlen (1953– ), Philadelphia native and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and novelist, Black and Blue
  

July 9

• Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823 ), London-born Gothic novelist, The Mysteries of Udolpho
• Oliver Sacks (1933–2015), British neurologist and author, Awakenings
• Dean Koontz (1945– ), American novelist known for his suspense thrillers, Odd Thomas
  

July 10

• Marcel Proust (1871–1922), French novelist, Swann's Way
• Alice Munro (1931–2024), Canadian short story writer and Nobel laureate, Dear Life
  

July 11

• B. White (1899–1985), New England writer famous for his essays and children's books, Stuart Little
• Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (1938– ), Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian and author, A Midwife's Tale
  

July 12

• Henry David Thoreau, American writer and transcendentalist (1817–1862), Walden
• Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and Nobel laureate (1904–1973), Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
  

July 13

• Wole Soyinka (1934– ), Nigerian playwright, poet, and Nobelist, Death and the King's Horseman
• Jane Hamilton (1957– ), American novelist, The Book of Ruth
  

July 14

• Owen Wister (1860–1938), American writer known as the "father of Western fiction," The Virginian
• Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–1991), Yiddish/Polish novelist and Nobelist, The Collected Stories
• Laura Numeroff (1953– ), American author and illustrator of children's books, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
• Brian Selznick (1966– ), American children's author and illustrator, Wonderstruck
  

July 15

• Iris Murdoch (1919–1999), Irish novelist, The Sea, The Sea
• Clive Cussler (1931–2020), American adventure novelist, Pacific Vortex!
• Richard Russo (1949– ), American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter, Empire Falls
  

July 16

• Anita Brookner (1928–2016), British novelist and art historian, Hotel du Lac
  

July 17

• Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970), American author and lawyer best known for the Perry Mason series
• Cory Doctorow (1971– ), Canadian-British author, Little Brother
  

July 18

• William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), Victorian novelist, Vanity Fair
• Hunter S. Thompson (1949–2005), American journalist known for originating the Gonzo style of journalism, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• Elizabeth Gilbert (1969– ), American journalist and author, Eat Pray Love
  

July 19

• Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson (1875–1935), New Orleans native, poet, essayist, and short story writer, Violets and Other Tales
• Jayne Anne Phillips (1952– ), Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, Lark and Termite
• Garth Nix (1947– ), Australian author of children's and YA fantasy novels, Sabriel
  

July 20

• Cormac McCarthy (1933–2023), Pulitzer Prize-winning Tennessee-based novelist, No Country for Old Men
• Jess Walter (1965– ), American author, So Far Gone
  

July 21

• Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), American novelist and short-story writer, The Old Man and the Sea
• Tess Gallagher (1943– ), Washington-born poet, Midnight Lantern
  

July 22

• Emma Lazarus (1849–1887), American author whose poem "The New Colossus" is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Vol. 1
• Tom Robbins (1932–2025), American novelist, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
• David Shields (1956– ), Los Angeles-based writer, Reality Hunger
  

July 23

• Raymond Chandler (1888–1959), Chicago-born mystery writer known for the Philip Marlowe series, The Big Sleep
• Lauren Groff (1978– ), Florida-based author and owner of The Lynx, an independent bookstore, Matrix
  

July 24

• Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870), French novelist, The Three Musketeers
• Robert Graves (1895–1985), prolific British poet, novelist, and translator, I Claudius
• Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948), American author and the wife of Scott Fitzgerald, Dearest Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
• John D. MacDonald (1916–1986), American crime novelist, The Deep Blue Good-By
  

July 25

• Robyn Carr (1951– ), native Minnesotan historical novelist, Virgin River
  

July 26

• George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Irish Playwright and Nobelist, Pygmalion (the basis for My Fair Lady)
• Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), British novelist and essayist, Brave New World
  

July 27

• Bharati Mukherjee (1940–2017), Indian-American-Canadian author, Desirable Daughters
  

July 28

• Beatrix Potter (1866–1943), British children's author, The Tale of Peter Rabbit
• John Ashbery (1927–2017), Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
• Natalie Babbitt (1932–2016), American writer and illustrator of children's books, Tuck Everlasting
  

July 29

• Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), French political scientist and writer, Democracy in America
• Chester Himes (1909–1984), Missouri-born African American novelist, If He Hollers Let Him Go
• Chang-rae Lee (1965– ), South Korean-born American novelist, Native Speaker
  

July 30

• Emily Brontë (1818–1848), British author, Wuthering Heights
• José Antonio Villarreal (1924–2010), L.A. native and novelist, Pocho
  

July 31

• Primo Levi (1919–1987), Italian chemist and Holocaust survivor, Survival in Auschwitz
• Susan Cheever (1943– ), NYC author and daughter to author John Cheever, Home Before Dark
• K. Rowling (1965– ), British author, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

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