As a published fiction author myself, JK Rowling absolutely belongs among the top of the listers.
I am in awe of writers like her, Herbert, Asimov, and Tolkien. They create raw worlds, cultures, and universes from nothing. I can’t do that. My writing has to be grounded in a reality. Writing like they do requires a higher level chess mind, able to keep track not only of what you created, but also to extend that fantasy into a longer term reality.
In the world of literature, these people are giants of mind…
No love for Chaucer? I guess technically he wasn’t British. But, then neither was Shakespeare.
No Byron, Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, or Wordsworth? Or Dickens?
Preposterous. Sheer philistinism.