She turned to intimate friends, such as Walter Berry, Henry James and Bernard Berenson, and, in her late 40s, fell into an all-consuming love affair with the dodgy and bisexual Morton Fullerton.

ECONOMIST: Literary biography

He made superb fighters like Bernard Hopkins and James Toney look ordinary.

BBC: Jones out to prove his greatness

Thriller writers James Patterson, John Grisham, Ian Rankin and Bernard Cornwell were in the top 10, alongside children's writers Mick Inkpen, Janet and Allan Ahlberg and Roald Dahl.

BBC: Dame Catherine wrote more than 100 novels