Sources from classical antiquity posit Homer as a blind bard from what is now Anatolia, Turkey. The Homeric question debates this, asking if The Iliad and The Odyssey, written in the late 8th or early 7th Century BC, were indeed the work of one genius or of a series of contributors and numerate rewrites. Whichever is true, Homer as a person, or a group of people, there is no doubting the significance of their contribution to Western literature.

Samuel Butler (1835-1902) was an English novelist, essayist, and critic whose satire Erewhon (1872) foreshadowed the collapse of the Victorian illusion of eternal progress. He is known for his translations of the Iliad and Odyssey which are still consulted today. The Way of All Fresh (1903), his autobiographical novel, is generally considered his masterpiece).

T.E. Lawrence (1888-1935) was a British scholar and military officer, also known by the names T.E. Shaw and Lawrence of Arabia. He is best known for his legendary war activities in the Middle East during World War I and for his book on the conflict The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. He is also celebrated as one of the major letter writers of his generation and for his prose translation of the Odyssey.