Jean-François Regnard, "the most distinguished, after Molière, of the comic poets of the seventeenth century", was a dramatist, born in Paris, who is equally famous now for the travel diary he kept of a voyage in 1681.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher (philosophe), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic, and educational thought.

Jean-Marie Guyau was a French philosopher and poet.

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont was a French novelist who wrote the best known version of Beauty and the Beast. Her third husband was the French spy Thomas Pichon (1757–1760).

Jeannette Augustus Marks was an American professor at Mount Holyoke College. She is the namesake of the Jeannette Marks Cultural Center, which provides support and programming for LGBT students and allies.

Jean-Paul Marat was a Swiss-born French political theorist, physician, and scientist. A journalist and politician during the French Revolution, he was a vigorous defender of the sans-culottes, a radical voice, and published his views in pamphlets, placards and newspapers. His periodical L'Ami du peuple made him an unofficial link with the radical Jacobin group that came to power after June 1793.

Jean-Pierre Camus was a French bishop, preacher, and author of works of fiction and spirituality.

Jeffery Farnol was a British writer from 1907 until his death in 1952, known for writing more than 40 romance novels, often set in the Georgian Era or English Regency period, and swashbucklers. He, with Georgette Heyer, largely initiated the Regency romantic genre.

Jeffries Wyman was an American naturalist and anatomist, born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Wyman died in Bethlehem, New Hampshire of a pulmonary hemorrhage.

Jennette Barbour Perry Lee was an American writer and academic. Born in Connecticut, she began to teach at a local school in her teens. She graduated from Smith College in 1886 and started teaching English at the college level shortly thereafter. Lee published numerous novels and short stories, many of which featured characters from New England.