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.
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List of the most influential people in Literature,
#9451
John Crowne
John Crowne was a British dramatist. His father "Colonel" William Crowne, accompanied the earl of Arundel on a diplomatic mission to Vienna in 1637, and wrote an account of his journey. He emigrated to Nova Scotia where he received a grant of land from Cromwell, but the French took possession of his property, and the home government did nothing to uphold his rights.
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Jovan Đorđević
1826 - 1900 (74 years)
Jovan Đorđević was a Serbian writer, dramatist, Minister of Education and the co-founder of the Novi Sad Serbian National Theatre in 1861, the National Theatre in Belgrade in 1868 and the Academy of Dramatic Art in 1870. He is most famous for writing the lyrics to the Serbian National anthem Bože pravde in 1872. He was also a member of Matica Srpska.
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Arlo Bates
1850 - 1918 (68 years)
Arlo Bates was an American author, educator and newspaperman. Biography Arlo Bates was born at East Machias, Maine. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1876. In 1880 Bates became the editor of the Boston Sunday Courier and afterward became professor of English at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1900.
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Ernst Ludwig von Leutsch
1808 - 1887 (79 years)
Ernst Ludwig von Leutsch was a German classical philologist born in Frankfurt am Main. He studied classical philology at the University of Göttingen, where he had as instructors Georg Ludolf Dissen, Christoph Wilhelm Mitscherlich and Karl Otfried Müller. It was during this time period that he became lifelong friends with Friedrich Wilhelm Schneidewin.
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Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens
1704 - 1771 (67 years)
Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens was a French rationalist, author and critic of the Catholic Church, who was a close friend of Voltaire and spent much of his life in exile at the court of Frederick the Great.
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James Cousins
1873 - 1956 (83 years)
James Henry Cousins was an Irish-Indian writer, playwright, actor, critic, editor, teacher and poet. He used several pseudonyms, including Mac Oisín and the Hindu name Jayaram. Life Cousins was born at 18, Kevor Street in Belfast, Ireland, the descendant of Huguenot refugees. His father was James Cousins, a mariner, and Susan, née Davis. Largely self-educated at night schools, he worked some time as a clerk became private secretary and speechwriter to Sir Daniel Dixon, 1st Baronet, the Lord Mayor of Belfast. In 1897 he moved to Dublin where he became part of a literary circle which included William Butler Yeats, George William Russell and James Joyce.
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Clyde Fitch
1865 - 1909 (44 years)
William Clyde Fitch was an American dramatist, the most popular writer for the Broadway stage of his time . Biography Born in Elmira, New York, and educated at Holderness School and Amherst College , William Clyde Fitch wrote over 60 plays, 36 of them original, ranging from social comedies and farces to melodrama and historical dramas.
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Christian Adolph Klotz
1738 - 1771 (33 years)
Christian Adolph Klotz was a German philologist and controversialist. He is a notable representative of the transition period between the Age of Enlightenment and Sturm und Drang. Education Klotz, son of a senior church official, was born in Bischofswerda, Lusatia. He attended the gymnasium in Meißen and Görlitz. From 1758 until 1760, he studied at the University of Leipzig. In these years, he was already publishing his first philological works. Then he moved to the University of Jena, where he wrote polemic papers against Pieter Burman the Younger. Klotz defended his dissertation, qualified ...
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Ghalib
1797 - 1869 (72 years)
Mirza Beg Asadullah Khan , also known as Mirza Ghalib, was an Indian poet of the Urdu and Persian languages. He was popularly known by the pen names Ghalib and Asad. His honorific was Dabir-ul-Mulk, Najm-ud-Daula. During his lifetime, the already declining Mughal Empire was eclipsed and displaced by the British East India Company rule and finally deposed following the defeat of the Indian Rebellion of 1857; these are described through his work.
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Steele Rudd
1868 - 1935 (67 years)
Steele Rudd was the pen name of Arthur Hoey Davis an Australian author, best known for his short story collection On Our Selection. In 2009, as part of the Q150 celebrations, Rudd was named one of the Q150 Icons for his role in Queensland literature.
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Babette Deutsch
1895 - 1982 (87 years)
Babette Deutsch was an American poet, critic, translator, and novelist. Background Babette Deutsch was born on September 22, 1895, in New York City. Her parents were of Michael Deutsch and Melanie Fisher Deutsch. She matriculated from the Ethical Culture School and Barnard College, graduating in 1917 with a B.A. She published poems in magazines such as the North American Review and the New Republic while she was still a student at Barnard.
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Václav Černý
1905 - 1987 (82 years)
Václav Černý was a Czechoslovak literary scholar, writer and philosopher. He was an enthusiast of Spanish literature and philosophy and translated into Czech a number of literary and philosophical works by Spanish writers as Ortega y Gasset, Unamuno and Cervantes.
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Henri Weil
1818 - 1909 (91 years)
Henri Weil was a French philologist. Biography Born to a Jewish family in Frankfurt, he was educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Leipzig. He went to France, and continued his studies at Paris, graduating as Docteur ès lettres in 1845, and becoming "agrégé" in 1848. Appointed professor of ancient literature at the University of Besançon, he was in 1872 elected dean of the faculty. In 1876 he was called to Paris to fill a vacancy as instructor at the École Normale Supérieure and to assume charge of the École Pratique des Hautes Études, both of which positions he resigned in 1891. I...
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Tristan Bernard
1866 - 1947 (81 years)
Tristan Bernard was a French playwright, novelist, journalist and lawyer. Life He studied law, and after his military service, he started his career as the manager of an aluminium smelter. In the 1890s, he managed the Vélodrome de la Seine at Levallois-Perret and the Vélodrome Buffalo, events that were an integral part of Parisian life, being regularly attended by personalities such as Toulouse-Lautrec. He reputedly introduced the bell to signify the last lap of a race.
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Rodolfo Oroz
1895 - 1997 (102 years)
Rodolfo Oroz was a Chilean writer, professor, and philologist. He won the Chilean National Prize for Literature in 1978.
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Jacob Geel
1789 - 1862 (73 years)
Jacob Geel was a Dutch scholar, critic and librarian. He was born in Amsterdam. In 1823 he was appointed as a librarian, and in 1833 as university librarian and honorary professor at Leiden University, where he remained until his death. Geel materially contributed to the development of classical studies in the Netherlands. He was the author of editions of Theocritus , of the Vatican fragments of Polybius , of the Olympikos of Dio Chrysostom and of numerous essays in the Rheinisches Museum and Bibliotheca critica nova, of which he was one of the founders. He also compiled a valuable catalogue...
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Vasile Conta
1845 - 1882 (37 years)
Vasile Conta was a Romanian philosopher, poet, and politician. The son of a priest, he was born in Ghindăoani, a village in Bălțătești commune, Neamț County. He attended primary school in Târgu Neamț , and graduated from the Academia Mihăileană in Iași in 1868. Beneficiary of a fellowship, he went to study in 1871 in Belgium, first in Antwerp, and then at the Free University of Bruxelles, from which he graduated with a law degree in 1872. Upon returning to Romania, he was appointed professor at the University of Iași's Law School.
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Alberto Lista
1775 - 1848 (73 years)
Alberto Rodríguez de Lista y Aragón , Spanish poet and educationalist, was born in Seville. Biography He began teaching at the age of fifteen, and when little over twenty was made professor of elocution and poetry at the University of Seville. In 1813 he was exiled, on political grounds, but pardoned in 1817. He then returned to Spain and, after teaching for three years at Bilbao, started a critical review at Madrid. Shortly afterwards he founded the celebrated college of San Mateo in that city. The liberal character of the San Mateo educational system was not favored by the government, and in...
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Otto Ribbeck
1827 - 1898 (71 years)
Johann Carl Otto Ribbeck was a German classical scholar. His works are mostly confined to criticisms of Latin poetry and to classical character sketches. Biography He was born at Erfurt in Saxony. In early life he went to Berlin, where he studied under Karl Lachmann, Franz Bopp and August Böckh, and from there to Bonn where he was a close student of the methods of Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker and Friedrich Ritschl. Having received his degree in Berlin and traveled for a year through Italy, in 1853 he returned to Berlin, where he entered Böckh's school. He then taught at Elberfeld and Bern. Hav...
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Nasif al-Yaziji
1800 - 1871 (71 years)
Nāṣīf bin ʻAbd Allāh bin Nāṣīf bin Janbulāṭ bin Saʻd al-Yāzijī was a Lebanese author at the times of the Ottoman Empire and father of Ibrahim al-Yaziji. He was one of the leading figures in the Nahda movement.
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Justus Hermann Lipsius
1834 - 1920 (86 years)
Justus Hermann Lipsius was a German classical philologist. He was the brother of theologian Richard Adelbert Lipsius. He studied theology and philology at the University of Leipzig , where he later served as an associate professor and full professor of classical philology. In 1891/92 he was university rector.
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Ted Ray
1905 - 1977 (72 years)
Ted Ray was an English comedian of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, on radio and television. His BBC radio show Ray's a Laugh ran for 12 years. Biography Ray was born Charles Olden in Wigan, Lancashire, England, to comic singer and mimic Charles Olden and his wife Margaret Ellen . His parents moved to Liverpool within days of his birth, and Liverpudlians regard him as a local. He was educated at Anfield council school and Liverpool Collegiate School, and as a youth wished to become a footballer. As a comedian of the 1940s and 1950s, he demonstrated his ad-libbing skills in his weekly radio show Ray's A Laugh from 1949 until 1961.
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Carl Michael Bellman
1740 - 1795 (55 years)
Carl Michael Bellman was a Swedish songwriter, composer, musician, poet, and entertainer. He is a central figure in the Swedish song tradition and remains a powerful influence in Swedish music, as well as in Scandinavian literature, to this day. He has been compared to Shakespeare, Beethoven, Mozart, and Hogarth, but his gift, using elegantly rococo classical references in comic contrast to sordid drinking and prostitution—at once regretted and celebrated in song—is unique.
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John McCarten
1911 - 1974 (63 years)
John McCarten was an American writer who contributed about 1,000 pieces for The New Yorker, serving as the magazine's film critic from 1945 to 1960 and Broadway theatre critic from 1960 to 1967. McCarten was born in Philadelphia into an Irish-American family. After serving in the Merchant Marine, he started writing for American Mercury, Fortune, and Time during the 1930s.
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Wilhelm Konrad Hermann Müller
1812 - 1890 (78 years)
Wilhelm Konrad Hermann Müller was a philologist of Germanic studies. From 1830 he studied philology and theology at the University of Göttingen as a student of Karl Otfried Müller. In 1841 he started work as a lecturer of German language and literature at Göttingen, becoming an associate professor in January 1845. From 1856 up until his death in 1890, he was a full professor of philology at Göttingen.
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Joseph Bosworth
1788 - 1876 (88 years)
Joseph Bosworth was an English scholar of the Anglo-Saxon language and compiler of the first major Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Biography Born in Derbyshire in 1788, Bosworth was educated at Repton School as a 'Poor Scholar' but left in his early teens and did not go to university. Despite the lack of a degree he somehow gained sufficient academic standing for the Church of England to allow him to become a priest. He became a curate in Bunny, Notts in 1814 and three years later became vicar of Little Horwood, Buckinghamshire. He was proficient in many European languages and made a particular study of Anglo-Saxon.
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Adolf Stern
1835 - 1907 (72 years)
Adolf Stern was a German literary historian and poet. He was born in Leipzig. He studied at the universities of Leipzig and Jena, and in 1868 was appointed professor of the history of literature in the Königlich-Sächsischen Polytechnikum of Dresden. His publications include the compilation Fünfzig Jahre deutscher Dichtung ; two collections of essays, Aus dem achtzehnten Jahrhundert , Geschichte der neuern Litteratur ; Grundriss der allgemeinen Literaturgeschichte ; and editing of Hauff, Herder, and Körner, Sr. His literary works include: Gedichte ; fourth edition, 19001866188018871911Leipzig...
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Jakob Bernays
1824 - 1881 (57 years)
Jacob Bernays was a German philologist and philosophical writer. Life Jacob Bernays was born in Hamburg to Jewish parents. His father, Isaac Bernays was a man of wide culture and the first orthodox German rabbi to preach in the vernacular; his brother, Michael Bernays, was also a distinguished scholar.
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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.
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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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