William Babington Maxwell (1866–1938) was a British novelist and playwright.

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and politician. One of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature in the English-speaking canon, he was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish literary establishment who helped to found the Abbey Theatre. In his later years, he served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State.

William Chambers Morrow was an American writer, now noted mainly for his short stories of horror and suspense. He is probably best known for the much-anthologised story "His Unconquerable Enemy" (1889), about the implacable revenge of a servant whose limbs have been amputated on the orders of a cruel rajah.

W. C. Tuttle was an American writer who sold more than 1000 magazine stories and dozens of novels, almost all of which were westerns.

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After completing graduate work at the Friedrich Wilhelm University and Harvard University, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

William Gershom Collingwood was an English author, artist, antiquary and professor of Fine Arts at University College, Reading. A long-term resident of Coniston, Cumbria, he was President of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian Society and the Lake Artists' Society.

William Henry Denham Rouse was a pioneering British teacher who advocated the use of the "direct method" of teaching Latin and Greek.

William Henry Davies was a Welsh poet and writer, who spent much of his life as a tramp or hobo in the United Kingdom and the United States, yet became one of the most popular poets of his time. His themes included observations on life's hardships, the ways the human condition is reflected in nature, his tramping adventures and the characters he met. He is usually classed as a Georgian Poet, though much of his work is not typical of the group in style or theme.

William John Loftie was a British clergyman and writer, on the history of London, travel, art and architecture.

Walter Lionel George was an English writer, chiefly known for his popular fiction, which included feminist, pacifist, and pro-labour themes.