Sebastian Brant was a German humanist and satirist. He is best known for his satire Das Narrenschiff.

Selig Perlman was an economist and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Selina Bunbury (1802–1882) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and traveler.

Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish writer. She published her first novel, Gösta Berling's Saga, at the age of 33. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she was awarded in 1909. Additionally, she was the first woman to be granted a membership in the Swedish Academy in 1914.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature.

Seymour Eaton was a Canadian-born American author, journalist, editor, and publisher. He founded the Booklovers' Library in 1900 which became known as the world's largest circulating library, and is credited with coining the name "Teddy bear".

Sheldon Dibble was a missionary to Hawaii who organized one of the first books on Hawaiian history, and inspired students to write more.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic tales, mystery novels, and horror fiction. He was a leading ghost story writer of his time, central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. M. R. James described Le Fanu as "absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories". Three of his best-known works are the locked-room mystery Uncle Silas, the lesbian vampire novella Carmilla, and the historical novel The House by the Churchyard.

Alpheus Sherwin Cody was an American writer and entrepreneur who developed a long-running home-study course in speaking and writing and a signature series of advertisements asking “Do You Make These Mistakes in English?” A critic of traditional English education, Cody advocated colloquial style and grammar. His course, presented in a patented workbook format which he described as self-correcting, was purchased by over 150,000 students from its inception in 1918. He published essays, books and articles virtually nonstop from 1893 through 1950. In a book published in 1895, he gave the advice, "Write what you know—so go out and know something."

Sherwood Anderson was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and Elyria, Ohio. In 1912, Anderson had a nervous breakdown that led him to abandon his business and family to become a writer.