An Armory of Famous Writers

* Johann-Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832; Saxony, ennobled by the Emperor 1782):
Arms: azure, a star and a border or. 
                         [Rietstap]
* Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805, knighted Sep. 7, 1802): Arms: per fess, Or a unicorn issuant argent, Azure a fess or. Crest: a crown of laurels vert. [Rietstap]
* Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860): Vert a bend between two stars of six points all argent. [Klaus K] * Pierre Corneille (1606-84, an. 1637): Azure on a fess or between three mullets argent, three lions' heads gules. [Rietstap]
* Jean de La Fontaine (1621-95): Or three frets sable. [D'Hozier Soissons, registered to his widow.] * Jean Racine (1639-99): azure a swan argent beaked and armed sable. [Rietstap]
* Bossuet: Azure three wheels or. [ANF 1845] * Brantôme: Or two griffin's paws in pale gules armed azure. [ANF 1845] * Buffon: Argent on a bend gules a mullet or. [ANF 1845] * Fénelon: Or three bends vert. [ANF 1845] * Florian: Or an eagle sable on a chief azure a sun or to which the eagle looks. [ANF 1845] * Malherbe: ermine six roses gules. [ANF 1845] * Scarron: Azure a bend embattled counter embattled or. [ANF 1845] * Vaugelas: Argent a chevron azure between three Moor's heads sable wreathed of the first. [ANF 1845] * Charles Perrault (1628-1703): Or on an escutcheon azure an escutcheon argent. [ANF 1884] * François Quinault (1635-88): azure a chevron or between three "soucis" slipped or. [ANF 1884] * Furetière: Gules three cucumbers argent. [ANF 1884] * Montesquieu (Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et, 1689-1755): Azure 2 escallops or and a crescent argent. [any French 200F bill]
* Voltaire (Arouet, 1694-1778): azure three flames or. [D'Hozier Paris, Rietstap] * Claude-Adrien Helvetius (1715-71), philosopher: Azure two wings or beneath an eye argent. [D'Hozier Paris 3:585]
* Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (1741-1803): Azure two arrows per saltire or shafted argent 
between four flames of the second, on a chief gules 9 billets of the second 5 and 4.
        [Jougla de Morenas. Author of Les Liaisons Dangereuses.]

* Victor Hugo (1802-85): Azure, on a chief argent two martlets sable.
        [Rietstap.]
* Charles-Augustin de Sainte-Beuve (1804-69): Azure three rings argent.
        [D'Hozier Paris 3:593]
* Alfred de Musset (1810-57): Azure a sparrow-hawk (épervier) or, with hood, leash and perch gules. [Rietstap] * Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616): within a bordure gules charged with saltires couped or, azure, two stags or. Helm, mantling and feathers, but no crest. [Klaus K] * Dante Alighieri (1265-1321): per pale or and sable a fess argent. (Moderns arms of the family: azure a wing argent). [Pompeo Litta, Famiglie Celebri Italiane]
* Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527): Argent, a cross angle with four nails azure. [Pompeo Litta, Famiglie Celebri Italiane]
* Lodovico Ariosto (1474-1533): per fess, or an eagle displayed sabel crowned or, and pally of 6 azure and argent. [Pompeo Litta, Famiglie Celebri Italiane] * Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540): Azure three bugle-horns argent stringed gules. [Pompeo Litta, Famiglie Celebri Italiane]
* Giacomo Casanova (1725-98): alleged son of Gaetano C., an actor, and Giovanna Farussi, daughter of a shoemaker, and an actress/dancer herself. Casanova was considered by many, including himself, to be the natural son of Michele Grimani, a Venitian patrician who owned the theater S. Anselmo where C.'s parents worked and lived. Grimani had a coat of arms: pally of eight, Argent and Gules. Casanova took the name of chevalier de Seingalt: chevalier because he was made knight of the Golden Spur, a rather easy-to-obtain Papal order, in 1760. Seingalt is a pseudonym of unknown origin. * Geoffrey Chaucer, Esq (ca. 1342-1400): per pale argent and gules, a bend counter changed. Crest: a tortoise proper. [Rietstap]
* Sir Thomas Malory (fl. 1470): Quarterly: 1 & 4 Ermine, a chevron gules and a border engrailed sable (for Revel); 2 & 3 Or, three lions passant sable (for Malory). [A. Wagner] * Sir Thomas More (1478-1535): Quarterly, 1 and 4. argent, a chevron engrailed between three moorcocks armed, crested and jelloped gules, all sable; 2 and 3. argent, on a chevron between three unicorn's heads couped sable, three bezants or. [Rietstap] (see a bibliography)
* Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86): Or, a pheon azure.
* William Shakespeare (1564-1623): Or, on a bend sable a spear of the first, pointed argent. Crest: a falcon rising argent, holding in its dexter claw a spear in pale or. Motto: Non sans droict. * Ben Jonson (1572-1637): Argent, a saltire Sable, on a chief Gules, three cushions Or. * John Milton (1608-74): Argent, a double-headed eagle displayed gules, beaked and legged azure. [A. Wagner. Rietstap]
* Dryden (1631-1700): Azure, a lion rampant and in chief a sphere between two estoiles or. For cadency, a mullet. [A. Wagner]
* Samuel Pepys (1633-1703): Sable, on a bend or between two horses' heads erased argent three fleurs de lys of the field. For cadency, a crescent. [A. Wagner]
* Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): Sable, an anchor in pale or, stock azure, the stem entwined by a dolphin descending argent. [A. Wagner]
* Henry Fielding (1707-54): Argent, on a fess azure three lozenges or. For cadency, a mullet within an annulet. [A. Wagner] * David Hume (1711-76): vert a lion argent on a bordure gules nine torteaux [on his bookplate on a copy of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks, in the National Library of Scotland, reproduced in The David Hume Library by Norton and Nortn (1996). Motto: true to the end.] * Laurence Sterne (1713-68): or a chevron between three crosslets flory sable. Crest: a starling. [In his Sentimental Journey (1768; vol. 2, chap. 5), Sterne tells the story of a starling he found in an inn of Paris, that had been taught to say "I can't get out!". "from that time to this, I have borne this poor starling as the crest to my arms. -- Thus:
And let the heralds officers twist his neck about if they dare."] * Edward Gibbon (1737-94): (Probably) Sable, a lion rampant argent between three escallops or. [A. Wagner] * Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832, Baronet Apr. 22, 1820): Arms: Quarterly: 1 and 4, Or two five-pointed stars in chief and a crescent in base within an orle azure; 2 and 3 Or, on a bend azure three mascles of the first, in senester chief an oval buckle of the second.
* Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): Argent, on a mount in base vert an otter statant proper, on a chief gules a dove close proper between two crosses patee fitchee or. For cadency, an annulet. [A. Wagner]
* Jane Austen (1775-1817): Or a chevron gules between three lions' gambs erased.
         [from a bookplate taken from Jane Austen's Letters to her Sister Cassandra and 
Others edited by R. W. Chapman (1952, p. 523), used by a paternal cousin.  
These arms were also used, e.g., by her brother Edward Knight as a quartering.
See Henry Churchyard's Jane Austen Info Page.
A. Wagner has three bezants on the chevron, only on the basis of a 16th c.
Visitation.]
* Lord Byron, George Gordon (1788-1824): argent, three bendlets enhanced gules. 
Crest: a mermaid holding a comb and a mirror proper.  Supporters:
two horses argent. Motto: CREDE BYRON
        [Rietstap]
* Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): Sable, a fess engrailed between three whelk shells or. For cadency, a label. [A. Wagner]
* Lord Macaulay (William Babbington Macaulay, 1800-59, baron 1857): Gules, two arrows saltirewise points downward argent surmounted by as many barrulets compony or and azure between two buckles in pale of the third, all within a bordure engrailed also of the third. Crest: a spurred boot. Motto: Dulce periculum. [A. Wagner, Rietstap]
* Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-92): Gules, on a bend nebuly or between three leopards' faces jessant-de-lis of the last, a wreath of laurel proper. [A. Wagner]
* William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63): Vert, two garbs or, in base an arrow argent, on a chief purpure a cherub's head proper between two estoiles of the third. For cadency, a mullet. [A. Wagner] * Anthony Trollope (1815-82): Vert three stags argent attired or within a bordure of the second. [Burke's; Anthony Trollope was the second great-grandson of Sir Thomas Trollope, 4th baronet; eventually his line succeeded to the title and his descendant is the 16th baronet.] * John Ruskin (1819-1900): Sable on a chevron between six spearheads argent three crosses crosslets tichy gules. [A. Wagner]
* Oscar Wilde (1854-1900): ???. [2nd son of Sir William Ralph Wills Wilde (1815-76), prominent eye surgeon. Did he bear arms?] * Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: quarterly Doyle, Foley, Pack, Percy of Ballintemple. (See an illustration. [Arms granted in 1951 to his second Adrian in 1951 (Sunday Telegraph, 6 Sep 1992).] * Friedrich August Hayek (1899-1992): Von S. und B. schrgr. get., oben eine r. funfblaettige g. besamte Blume, unten ein schrgr. s. Anker; auf gekr. H. mit b.-s. Decken 3 Straussenfedern b.-s.-b., deren mittle zu oberst mit d. beschriebenen Blume bel. ist. [arms granted 11 Aug 1789 upon ennobmement of Josef Hayek. Wiener genealogisches Taschenbuch, 1927-28, p. 119.]