ILLINOIS STATE LIBRARY
Illinois Authors
Illinois Authors on the Illinois State Library
One of the unique features on the Illinois State Library, Gwendolyn Brooks Building, is the 35 names of Illinois authors etched on the building's exterior fourth-floor frieze. Each of these authors has made a mark in the history of literature as well as the history of Illinois.
These authors also serve as the foundation for the State Library's Illinois Authors Room, where a collection of works by Illinois authors are preserved and displayed. The collection grows daily as new authors donate signed copies of their books. In 1999, then-state Senator Barack Obama donated a copy of his book Dreams from My Father to the Illinois Authors Collection.
George Ade, 1866-1944
Nelson Algren, 1909-1981
Sherwood Anderson, 1876-1941
Paul Angle, 1900-1975
L. Frank Baum, 1856-1919
Saul Bellow, 1915-2005
Black Hawk, 1767-1838
Ray Bradbury, 1920-2012
Gwendolyn Brooks, 1917-2000
Cyrus Colter, 1910-2002
Theodore Dreiser, 1871-1945
Finley Peter Dunne, 1867-1936
Eliza Farnham, 1815-1864
James T. Farrell, 1904-1979
Edna Ferber, 1887-1968
Henry Blake Fuller, 1857-1929
Hamlin Garland, 1860-1940
Ben Hecht, 1894-1964
Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961
Robert Herrick, 1868-1938
James Jones, 1921-1977
Ring Lardner, 1885-1933
Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865
N. Vachel Lindsay, 1879-1931
Edgar Lee Masters, 1868-1950
William Maxwell, 1908-2000
Frank Norris, 1870-1902
Donald Peattie, 1898-1964
Elia Peattie, 1862-1935
Carl Sandburg, 1878-1967
Upton Sinclair, 1878-1968
Louis (Studs) Terkel, 1912-2008
Richard Wright, 1908-1960
Illinois Authors Wiki
The Illinois Authors Wiki is a project of the Illinois Center for the Book. It is a comprehensive resource for information on authors, photographers and illustrators who have published books and have lived in Illinois or written about Illinois.