The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Literature,
#7601
Augustin Daly
1838 - 1899 (61 years)
John Augustin Daly was one of the most influential men in American theatre during his lifetime. Drama critic, theatre manager, playwright, and adapter, he became the first recognized stage director in America. He exercised a fierce and tyrannical control over all aspects of his productions. His rules of conduct for actors and actresses imposed heavy fines for late appearances and forgotten lines and earned him the title "the autocrat of the stage." He formed a permanent company in New York and opened Daly's Theatre in New York in 1879, and a second one in London in 1893.
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Nicolaus Delius
1813 - 1888 (75 years)
Nicolaus Delius was a German philologist. Delius was born at Bremen; he was distinguished especially as a student of Shakespeare and for his edition of Shakespeare's works. Life and work Nikolaus Delius went to school in Bremen. After passing his A-levels he read philosophy, history, Greek literature, and Sanskrit at the universities of Bonn and Berlin. In 1838 Delius finished his studies with a promotion in Bonn and taught at Berlin University afterwards. In 1844/1845 he wrote articles amongst others for the new Weser-Zeitung in Bremen. About a year later he made up his mind to work as a private lecturer at Bonn University.
Go to Profile#7603
Hermann Fränkel
1888 - 1977 (89 years)
Hermann Ferdinand Fränkel was a German American classical scholar. He served as professor of Ancient Greek philology at Stanford University until 1953. Son of professor Max Fränkel and younger brother of Charlotte Fränkel, Fränkel studied classics at Berlin, Bonn and Göttingen. He later lectured at Göttingen, but was denied a professorship after the Machtergreifung. Eluding increasing racial discrimination by the Nazis, Fränkel immigrated to the United States in 1935. He was offered a professorship at Stanford shortly after. He also held guest professorships at University of California, Berke...
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Enid Starkie
1897 - 1970 (73 years)
Enid Mary Starkie CBE , was an Irish literary critic, known for her biographical works on French poets. She was a Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, and Lecturer and then Reader in the University.
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Alexander Adam
1741 - 1809 (68 years)
Alexander Adam was a Scottish teacher and writer on Roman antiquities. Life Alexander Adam was born near Forres, in Moray, the son of a farmer. From his earliest years he showed uncommon diligence and perseverance in classical studies, notwithstanding many difficulties and privations. In 1757 he went to Edinburgh, where he studied at the University of Edinburgh. During this period he lodged with a Mr Watson on Restalrig.
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Paul Lehmann
1884 - 1964 (80 years)
Paul Lehmann was a German paleographer and philologist. Biography Paul Lehmann was the son of businessman Gustav Lehmann and his wife Louisa Meyer. After attending school in his hometown, Lehmann started studying at the University of Göttingen. A successor to Ludwig Traube, Paul Lehmann began as docent at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1911 and became professor of medieval Latin philology there in 1917. Author of a dissertation on Franciscus Modius and a Habilitationsschrift on Johannes Sichardus, he made numerous contributions to the Sitzungsberichte der bayerischen Akademie. He is best known for Parodie im Mittelalter .
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Stuart Sherman
1881 - 1926 (45 years)
Stuart Pratt Sherman was an American literary critic, educator and journalist known for his philosophical "feud" with H. L. Mencken. The two men were very close in age, and their career paths have sometimes been compared, but Mencken outlived Sherman by three decades.
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Lal Shahbaz Qalandar
1177 - 1274 (97 years)
Sayyid Usman Marwandi, popularly known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar , was a Sufi saint and poet who is revered in South Asia. Born in Marwand, Sistan, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar eventually settled in Sindh and is revered by the local Sindhi population.
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Christina Stead
1902 - 1983 (81 years)
Christina Stead was an Australian novelist and short-story writer acclaimed for her satirical wit and penetrating psychological characterisations. Christina Stead was a committed Marxist, although she was never a member of the Communist Party. She spent much of her life outside Australia, although she returned before her death.
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Khalil Mardam Bey
1895 - 1959 (64 years)
Khalil Mardam Bey was a Syrian poet and critic who is most notable for composing the lyrics of the Syrian National Anthem. Early life and career Mardam Bey was born in Ottoman Damascus to a well-known family of Turkish origin. His father was Ahmed Mukhtar Mardam Bey and his mother was Fatima Mahmoud Hamzaoui; they had six children - of which Mardam Bey was the only son. He was one of the descendants of the Ottoman general, statesman, and Grand Vizier Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha. He was chosen as the leader of the Syrian Literature Association, which was founded in 1926 and annulled by the French.
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Rod Serling
1924 - 1975 (51 years)
Rodman Edward Serling was an American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, and narrator/on-screen host, best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his anthology television series The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen, and helped form television industry standards. He was known as the "angry young man" of Hollywood, clashing with television executives and sponsors over a wide range of issues, including censorship, racism, and war.
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Giuseppe Giacosa
1847 - 1906 (59 years)
Giuseppe Giacosa was an Italian poet, playwright and librettist. Life He was born in Colleretto Parella, now Colleretto Giacosa, near Turin. His father was a magistrate. Giuseppe went to the University of Turin, studying in the University of Turin, Faculty of Law. Though he gained a degree in law, he did not pursue a legal career.
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Karl Hoeck
1794 - 1877 (83 years)
Karl Friedrich Christian Hoeck was a German classical historian and philologist as well as a librarian. Life After attending the gymnasium at Wolfenbüttel, Hoeck studied classical studies in Göttingen from 1812 until 1816. During his period as a student he was already connecting to the university library; in 1814 he became accessist, and in 1815 secretary. Towards the end of his studies he was a member, together with Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen, Karl Lachmann and Ernst Schulze, of the Philological Seminary and specialized in ancient history under the direction of Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren.
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Saadi Shirazi
1210 - 1291 (81 years)
Saadi Shīrāzī, better known by his pen name Saadi , also known as Sadi of Shiraz , was a Persian poet and prose writer of the medieval period. He is recognized for the quality of his writings and for the depth of his social and moral thoughts.
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Friedrich Ranke
1882 - 1950 (68 years)
Friedrich Ranke was a German medievalist philologist and folklorist. His Old Norse textbook Altnordisches Elementarbuch remains a standard, and all literature concerning Gottfried von Strassburgs Tristan und Isold uses Ranke's line numbering for references to the text.
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Lev Ivanov
1834 - 1901 (67 years)
Lev Ivanovich Ivanov was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer and later, Second Balletmaster of the Imperial Ballet. As a performer with the Imperial Ballet, he achieved prominence after performing as an understudy in a benefit performance of La Fille Mal Gardée. He is most famous as the choreographer of Acts II and IV of Swan Lake, which include the Dance of the Little Swans, Act II of Cinderella, and The Nutcracker, which he choreographed alongside Marius Petipa.
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Gustav Neckel
1878 - 1940 (62 years)
Gustav Neckel was a German philologist who specialized in Germanic studies. Life and career His parents were Gustav Neckel , an industrialist and businessman, and Amanda, née Paetow . After completing his Abitur in Wismar in 1896, Neckel studied German philology at Munich , Leipzig and Berlin , where he earned his doctorate in 1900 under Andreas Heusler. He then worked as a teacher until completing his Habilitation and becoming a lecturer at the University of Breslau in 1909.
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John Jordan
1930 - 1988 (58 years)
John Jordan was an Irish poet and short-story writer. Early life and education Born in the Rotunda Maternity Hospital, Dublin on 8 April 1930, Jordan was educated at Synge Street CBS, University College, Dublin and Pembroke College, Oxford. In his teens he acted on the stage of the Gate Theatre, Dublin, before winning a Scholarship in English and French to Oxford University from U.C.D.
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Maksim Haretski
1893 - 1938 (45 years)
Maksim Haretski , also known as Maksim Harecki and Maksim Goretsky, was a Belarusian prose writer, journalist, activist of the Belarusian national renewal, folklorist, lexicographer, and professor. Maksim Harecki was also known by his pen-names Maksim Biełarus, M.B. Biełarus, M.H., A. Mścisłaŭski, Dzied Kuźma, Maciej Myška, and Mizeryjus Monus. In his works he often appeared as Kuźma Batura, Liavon Zaduma.
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Karl Wilhelm Dindorf
1802 - 1883 (81 years)
Karl Wilhelm Dindorf was a German classical scholar. He was born and died at Leipzig. From his earliest years he showed a strong taste for classical studies, and after completing F. Invernizi's edition of Aristophanes at an early age, and editing several grammarians and rhetoricians, he was in 1828 appointed extraordinary professor of literary history in his native city. Disappointed at not obtaining the ordinary professorship when it became vacant in 1833, he resigned his post in the same year, and devoted himself entirely to study and literary work.
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Aleksey Shakhmatov
1864 - 1920 (56 years)
Aleksey Aleksandrovich Shakhmatov was a Russian philologist and historian credited with laying the foundations for the science of textology. Shakhmatov held the title of Doctor of Russian language and philology . He was a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1899 and a chair of the Department of Russian language and philology of the Academy of Sciences , a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party and the Russian Empire State Council .
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Karl Felix Halm
1809 - 1882 (73 years)
Karl Felix Halm , was a German classical scholar and critic. Life He was born at Munich. In 1849, having held appointments at Speyer and Hadamar, he became rector of the newly founded Maximiliansgymnasium at Munich, and in 1856 director of the royal library and professor in the University of Munich. These posts he held till his death.
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James Sheridan Knowles
1784 - 1862 (78 years)
James Sheridan Knowles was an Irish dramatist and actor. A relative of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Knowles enjoyed success writing plays for the leading West End theatres. Later in his career he also produced several novels.
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Georges Vanier
1888 - 1967 (79 years)
Georges-Philias Vanier was a Canadian military officer and diplomat who served as governor general of Canada, the first Quebecer and second Canadian-born person to hold the position. Vanier was born and educated in Quebec. In 1906, he was valedictorian when he graduated with a BA from Loyola College. After earning a university degree in law, he served in the Canadian army during the First World War; on the European battlefields, he lost a leg and was commended for his actions with a number of decorations from King George V.
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Saishū Onoe
1876 - 1957 (81 years)
Saishū Onoe was the pen name of Hachirō Onoe, a Japanese tanka poet, educator, and calligrapher. Biography After finishing Tokyo Imperial University in 1901, after teaching at Tetsugaku-kan, Onoe professed at the early days of Ochanomizu Women's College
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Mary Lascelles
1900 - 1995 (95 years)
Mary Madge Lascelles was a British literary scholar, specialising in Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, and Walter Scott. She was vice-principal of Somerville College, Oxford, from 1947 to 1960, and a university lecturer then reader in English literature 1960 from to 1967 at the University of Oxford.
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Berechiah ha-Nakdan
1200 - 1300 (100 years)
Berechiah ben Natronai Krespia ha-Nakdan was a Jewish exegete, ethical writer, grammarian, translator, poet, and philosopher. His best-known works are Mishlè Shu'alim and Sefer ha-Ḥibbur . Biography Little is known for certain about Berechiah's life and much discussion has taken place concerning his date and native country. He is thought to have lived sometime in the 12th or 13th century, and is likely to have lived in Normandy and England, with some placing him about 1260 in Provence. It is possible that he was a descendant of Jewish scholars of Babylonia. He also knew foreign languages and...
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James D. Hart
1911 - 1990 (79 years)
James David Hart, was an American literary scholar and professor at University of California, Berkeley for fifty-four years. He is most notable for writing The Oxford Companion to American Literature and A Companion to California.
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Edith Birkhead
1889 - 1951 (62 years)
Edith Birkhead was a lecturer in English Literature at the University of Bristol and a Noble Fellow at the University of Liverpool. She wrote a pioneering work on Gothic literature: The Tale of Terror . This work described the fascination with supernatural fiction in English literature from the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto in 1764 to Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer in 1820 on to modern times. She included works from Europe as well as America, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.
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Andrew Fleming West
1853 - 1943 (90 years)
Andrew Fleming West was an American classicist, and first dean of the Graduate School at Princeton University. Biography West was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania on May 17, 1853. He studied at Princeton University from 1870 to 1874. In his final year at Princeton he founded the Princeton Glee Club. After graduating, he taught Latin at a high school in Cincinnati for six years. He then went to Europe to carry out academic study, before taking up a position as principal of the Morris Academy in Morristown, New Jersey.
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Albert Harkness
1822 - 1907 (85 years)
Albert Harkness was an American classical scholar and educator. He was professor of Greek at Brown University, and helped found the American Philological Association and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
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Albert Schinz
1870 - 1943 (73 years)
Albert Schinz was an American French and philosophical scholar, editor, and professor of French literature. Although he was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Schinz died in the United States at an Iowa State University Hospital, in Iowa City, of pneumonia.
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Lewis Campbell
1830 - 1908 (78 years)
Lewis Campbell was a Scottish classical scholar. Biography Campbell was born in Edinburgh. His father, Robert Campbell, RN, was a first cousin of Thomas Campbell, the poet. His mother was the author Eliza Constantia Campbell. His father died when he was two years of age. In 1844 his mother married Colonel Morrieson.
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Vasile Alecsandri
1821 - 1890 (69 years)
Vasile Alecsandri was a Romanian patriot, poet, dramatist, politician and diplomat. He was one of the key figures during the 1848 revolutions in Moldavia and Wallachia. He fought for the unification of the Romanian Principalities, writing "Hora Unirii" in 1856 and giving up his candidacy for the title of prince of Moldavia, in favor of Alexandru Ioan Cuza. He became the first minister of foreign affairs of Romania and was one of the founding members of the Romanian Academy. Alecsandri was a prolific writer, contributing to Romanian literature with poetry, prose, several plays, and collections...
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Arthur Hübner
1885 - 1937 (52 years)
Arthur Hübner was a German philologist. He specialized in research of German literature from the Middle Ages . From 1904 to 1909, he studied classical and German philology at the Universities of Graz and Berlin, where he was influenced by the work of Germanist Gustav Roethe. In 1918 he became an associate professor in Berlin, later relocating to Münster as a full professor of medieval Germanic studies . In 1927 he succeeded Roethe as professor at the University of Berlin.
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James K. Baxter
1926 - 1972 (46 years)
James Keir Baxter was a New Zealand poet and playwright. He was also known as an activist for the preservation of Māori culture. He is one of New Zealand's most well-known and controversial literary figures. He was a prolific writer who produced numerous poems, plays and articles in his short life, and was regarded as the preeminent writer of his generation. He suffered from alcoholism until the late 1950s. He converted to Catholicism and established a controversial commune at Jerusalem, New Zealand, in 1969. He was married to writer Jacquie Sturm.
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Ferdinand Gotthelf Hand
1786 - 1851 (65 years)
Ferdinand Gotthelf Hand , German classical scholar, was born at Plauen in Saxony. He studied at Leipzig. In 1810 he became professor at the Weimar gymnasium, and in 1817 professor of philosophy and Greek literature at the University of Jena, where he remained till his death.
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John Ogilby
1600 - 1676 (76 years)
John Ogilby was a Scottish translator, impresario, publisher and cartographer. He was probably at least a half-brother to James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Airlie, though neither overtly acknowledged this. Ogilby's most-noted works include translations of the works of Virgil and Homer, and his version of the Fables of Aesop.
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Cecil Bendall
1856 - 1906 (50 years)
Cecil Bendall was an English scholar, a professor of Sanskrit at University College London and later at the University of Cambridge. Bendall was educated at the City of London School and at the University of Cambridge, achieving first-class honours in the Classical Tripos in 1879 and the Indian Languages Tripos in 1881. He was elected to a fellowship at Gonville and Caius College.
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E. N. Tigerstedt
1907 - 1979 (72 years)
Eugène Napoleon Tigerstedt was a Finnish-Swedish academic. In his lifetime, Tigerstedt was one of the leading and most respected literary historians in Scandinavia and is best known internationally for his contributions to Plato scholarship.
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Emil Ermatinger
1873 - 1953 (80 years)
Emil Ermatinger was a Swiss professor for Germanic philology. Ermatinger studied classical philology in Zurich and Berlin. 1897 he wrote his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Zurich. His doctoral advisor was the classical archaeologist and philologist Hugo Blümner. 1909 Ermatinger became a professor for Germanic philology at ETH Zurich. 1912 till 1943 he was professor at the University of Zurich. 1939 he was visiting professor at the Columbia University in New York City.
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Friedrich Wilhelm Schneidewin
1810 - 1856 (46 years)
Friedrich Wilhelm Schneidewin , was a German classical scholar. Biography He was born on 6 June 1810 at Helmstedt. In 1833, he became a teacher at the Braunschweig gymnasium. In 1837 he was appointed an associate professor, and in 1842, a full professor of classical languages and literature at the University of Göttingen where he died on 11 January 1856.
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Tirso de Molina
1579 - 1649 (70 years)
Gabriel Téllez , better known as Tirso de Molina, was a Spanish Baroque dramatist, poet and Roman Catholic monk. He is primarily known for writing The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, the play from which the popular character of Don Juan originates. His work is also of particular significance due to the abundance of female protagonists, as well as the exploration of sexual issues.
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Terence Rattigan
1911 - 1977 (66 years)
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background. He wrote The Winslow Boy , The Browning Version , The Deep Blue Sea and Separate Tables , among many others.
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Andrew Marvell
1621 - 1678 (57 years)
Andrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, satirist and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1659 and 1678. During the Commonwealth period he was a colleague and friend of John Milton. His poems range from the love-song "To His Coy Mistress", to evocations of an aristocratic country house and garden in "Upon Appleton House" and "The Garden", the political address "An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland", and the later personal and political satires "Flecknoe" and "The Character of Holland".
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Johan Ludvig Heiberg
1854 - 1928 (74 years)
Johan Ludvig Heiberg was a Danish philologist and historian. He is best known for his discovery of previously unknown texts in the Archimedes Palimpsest, and for his edition of Euclid's Elements that T. L. Heath translated into English. He also published an edition of Ptolemy's Almagest.
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Simon Kaukhchishvili
1895 - 1981 (86 years)
Simon Kaukhchishvili was a Georgian historian and philologist known for his critical editions of old Georgian chronicles; Doctor of Historical Sciences , Professor , Academician of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences .
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Joshua Logan
1908 - 1988 (80 years)
Joshua Lockwood Logan III was an American theatre and film director, playwright and screenwriter, and actor. He shared a Pulitzer Prize for co-writing the musical South Pacific and was involved in writing other musicals.
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Francis Turner Palgrave
1824 - 1897 (73 years)
Francis Turner Palgrave was a British critic, anthologist and poet. Life He was born at Great Yarmouth, the eldest son of Sir Francis Palgrave, the historian to his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the banker Dawson Turner. His brothers were William Gifford Palgrave, Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave and Reginald Palgrave. His childhood was spent at Yarmouth and at his father's house in Hampstead. At fourteen he was sent as a day-boy to Charterhouse; and in 1843, having in the meanwhile travelled extensively in Italy and other parts of the continent, he won a scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford. ...
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Johannes Vodnianus Campanus
1565 - 1622 (57 years)
Johannes Vodnianus Campanus was a Czech humanist, composer, pedagogue, poet, and dramatist. He was born in Vodňany , in southern Bohemia. He studied at the University of Prague and in 1596 and was made Master of Liberal Arts there. He became a teacher in Prague and Kutná Hora. From 1603 he taught Greek and Latin at the University of Prague. He also taught history and Latin poetry. He was repeatedly appointed as dean, prorector, and rector of this university.
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