Matthew Pearl is an American novelist and educator, born on October 2, 1975. He is renowned for his thrilling and intellectually stimulating novels which include The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow, The Last Dickens, The Technologists, and The Last Bookaneer.

Matthew Pearl's novels have been international and New York Times bestsellers, translated into more than 30 languages. His nonfiction writings have appeared in prominent publications such as the New York Times, the Boston Globe, The Atavist Magazine, and Slate. He has been praised by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as contributing to "the growing genre of novel being written nowadays -- the learned, challenging kind that does not condescend." Globe and Mail describes him as "a writer of rare talents."