William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798).

William Wycherley was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for the plays The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer.

Willibald Alexis, the pseudonym of Georg Wilhelm Heinrich Häring, was a German historical novelist, considered part of the Young Germany movement.

Willis Fletcher Johnson, was an author, journalist, and lecturer who had a twenty-year tenure as the foreign and diplomatic editorial writer for The New York Tribune.

Willis George Emerson (1856–1918) was an American novelist, Chicago newspaperman, lawyer, politician, and promoter, who formed the North American Copper Company in Wyoming. He founded the town of Encampment, Wyoming.

Wilson Armistead was a Quaker, businessman, abolitionist and writer from Leeds. He led the Leeds Anti-Slavery Association and wrote and edited anti-slavery texts. His best known work, A Tribute for the Negro, was published in 1848 in which he describes slavery as "the most extensive and extraordinary system of crime the world ever witnessed". In 1851 he hosted Ellen and William Craft, including them on the census return as 'fugitive slaves' in an act that has been described as "guerrilla inscription".

Wilson Lloyd Bevan (June 17, 1866 – April 8, 1935) was an American historian.

Winifred Holtby was an English novelist and journalist, now best known for her novel South Riding, which was posthumously published in 1936.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.

Winston Churchill was an American best-selling novelist of the early 20th century.