Most Influential Authors of All Time

The Top Ten
1 William Shakespeare William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.

The only writer I know..and don't like at all.

He wrote frivolous things without making sense, tragedies which are of no use at all, no morals, he was a racist and his racism and idiocy can be seen in many of his plays, such as "Merchant of venice" or " Much ado about nothing" and of course his silly garbage known as "romeo and juliet".

Plays from the 1600s and they still have relevance today. And come on, everyone loves to use the Romeo and Juliet storyline, so of course he could be viewed as influential.

No fear for Shakespeare is here!

2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000... read more
3 Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.

His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels... read more
4 J.R.R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973), known by his pen name J. R. R. Tolkien, was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor who is best known as the author of the classic high-fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.
5 Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.
6 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was a British writer and physician, most noted for creating the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and writing stories about him which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction.
7 Stephen King Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. Many of his most well-known novels include Carrie, It, The Shinning, The Stand, Misery, The Dark Tower series, and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which was later adapted into the film The Shawshank Redemption which is widely regarded as one of the greatest films... read more

"Influential? " Hardly. Besides, he's basically rewritten the same story over and over and...

He's my favorite author.

8 Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early... read more
9 Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time.
10 William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays, and screenplays. He is primarily known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life.

The Newcomers

? Selma Lagerlöf
The Contenders
11 Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, sometimes transliterated Dostoevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher.
12 Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616), was a Spanish writer who is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists.

He wrote the first modern novel or the first novel.

13 Dante Alighieri Durante degli Alighieri, simply called Dante (c. 1265 – 1321), was a major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.
14 Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was an English crime novelist, short story writer and playwright. She is the best-selling novelist ever. She also made the longest play ever. She is remembered for making multiple mystery books including; And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express, A.B.C. Murders, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
15 J.K. Rowling Joanne Rowling, CH, OBE, FRSL, FRCPE, writing under the pen names J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, is a British novelist, philanthropist, film and television producer and screenwriter best known for writing the Harry Potter fantasy series.

You're equating "popular" with "influential."

16 Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story... read more
17 H.G. Wells Herbert George Wells - known as H. G. Wells - was a prolific English writer in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, and social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. He was most famous for his works of science fiction (War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, First Men on the Moon) and is known as the father or parent of science fiction.
18 G.K. Chesterton
19 Jane Austen Jane Austen was an English novelist known principally for her five major novels which interpret, critique and comment upon the life of the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century.
20 Lloyd Alexander Lloyd Chudley Alexander (1924-2007) was an American author of fantasy novels for children and young adults. His most famous work is the fantasy series The Chronicles of Prydain (which was later adapted into the 1985 Disney film The Black Cauldron, which has also earned a reputation for being one of the worst films in Disney history). He's also known for coining the term "high fantasy" which means... read more
21 Victor Hugo Victor Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. Hugo is considered to be one of the greatest and best-known French writers.

Outside of France, his most famous works are the novels Les Misérables, 1862, and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (French: Notre-Dame de Paris), 1831. In France, Hugo is known primarily for his poetry... read more
22 Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, née Godwin (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher... read more
23 Henry David Thoreau
24 Giambattista Basile
25 Margaret Atwood
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