Can you name the 50 most influential novelists, playwrights and poets of all time? by chaste

Place	Author	Time
1		1564-1616
2		1265-1321
3		750 BC(?)
4		1828-1910
5		1340-1400
6		1812-1870
7		1882-1941
8		1608-1674
9		70-19 BC
10		1749-1832
11		1547-1616
12		978-1030
13		496-406 BC
14		1897-1962
15		1821-1881
16		1888-1965
17		1871-1922
18		1775-1817
19		1819-1880
20		1865-1939
21		1799-1837
22		480-406 BC
23		1572-1631
24		1819-1891
25		1795-1821

Place	Author	Time
26		43 BC-17 AD
27		712-770
28		1757-1827
29		525-456 BC
30		1821-1880
31		1883-1924
32		1622-1673
33		1770-1850
34		450-385 BC
35		1875-1955
36		1828-1906
37		1860-1904
38		1843-1916
39		1899-1977
40		1819-1892
41		1799-1850
42		1667-1745
43		1783-1842
44		1840-1928
45		1856-1950
46		1899-1961
47		1885-1930
48		1821-1867
49		1906-1989
50		1882-1941

Javascript is not currently enabled on your browser.
If you do have Javascript enabled:
This site uses javascript to make the magic happen.
Please turn on javascript and reload this page, or use a more current browser (like Firefox)

You might also like these games:
Name that Author	Famous Epic Poems	20 Most Anthologized Poems

There are 14 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

Most influential authors Quiz

by chaste

Created Oct 18, 2010 in History
Game Plays 831

Friend Scores and Standings

Loading friend results....

Top Games Today in History

Top Games with Similar Tags

Top User Games in History

	hellofromUK:	Oct 18th, 2010 at 11:00 GMT		1 point
	I'm really surprised this list doesn't include the most famous English diarist, Samuel Pepys, or Scotland's most famous poet, Robert Burns, or even Confucius, after which his teachings have created a religion for many millions of followers.

	Glorfino:	Oct 18th, 2010 at 12:13 GMT		4 points
	Please accept Dante alone

	thedpr:	Oct 18th, 2010 at 14:21 GMT		3 points
	... and Dostoyevsky.

	Weave:	Oct 18th, 2010 at 15:31 GMT		4 points
	Extremely surprised at the lack of the likes of Poe, Stoker, both Shelleys, Byron, Pope, Defoe (who arguably wrote the first novel!)...but good quiz because of it, I suppose.

	Terentius_Varro:	Oct 18th, 2010 at 19:37 GMT		1 point
	Sorry Weave, Defoe didn't write the first novel. Novels were written in Ancient times already. But I'm really surprised Homer isn't the number one. Without him, European literature would have been totally different. Almost all early literature was based on or inspired by Homer, and it all just rolled from there. Without Homer, there would've been no Shakespeare or Dante.

	johnlk:	Oct 18th, 2010 at 23:34 GMT		1 point
	The absence of Sir Walter Scott is puzzling - he was enormously influential in the nineteenth century, even if he's no longer considered very good. He was probably more influential than Dickens. The absence of Byron is similarly hard to defend - Keats was perhaps more influential on English poetry, but when you're looking at world literature as a whole, Byron was incomparably more influential, because Keats' influence has never extended beyond anglophones, and Byron's influence extended to prose writers as well as poets.

	pianoshootist:	Oct 19th, 2010 at 01:00 GMT		2 points
	Accept just "Murasaki"? She's usually known as Lady Murasaki.

	Trotbot:	Oct 19th, 2010 at 15:28 GMT		1 point
	Goodness, so many authors of unreadable classics, and no space for Agatha Christie, Rudyard Kipling, HG Wells, George Orwell and many others. If you want influential, JK Rowling inspired a generation of kids to read instead of playing computer games, and what could be more influential than that?

	NinedenLtD:	Oct 19th, 2010 at 20:39 GMT		3 points
	Mark Twain and George Orwell, to me, are are the most glaring omissions.

	Pit_trout:	Oct 20th, 2010 at 00:09 GMT		2 points
	Voltaire is another extraordinary omission! And @Tarentius_Varro: Defoe is certainly an arguable the candidates for the first novel, depending on how that's defined; see Wikipedia articles on “novel” and “first novel in English” for some discussion of these issues. Lovely quiz in any case!

	dollymix:	Nov 8th, 2010 at 16:38 GMT		1 point
	A lot of the early developers of the modern novel are missing - Defoe, Fielding, Sterne, Richardson. A lot of surprising French ommissions: Sartre, Camus, Zola, Rabelais, Voltaire... That said, it's hard to argue with most of the people on the list, except Shaw (I like him a lot but who did he influence?) and maybe Keats and Ibsen. Good quiz!

	tallonator:	Apr 8th, 2011 at 20:40 GMT		1 point
	This is list is very troubling to me, what is this based on? Is this your opinion or based on some reliable source?

	govertje:	Nov 6th, 2011 at 16:11 GMT		1 point
	Could you please accept Aeshylos too? He was after all a Greek.

	Fruitbat:	Nov 26th, 2011 at 11:24 GMT		1 point
	According to the link, the list is from from the book "The Literary 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Time" (Checkmark Books/Facts On File, Inc.: New York, 2001), written by Daniel S. Burt. Some of the "missing" names mentioned in above comments occur in the second half of the list. Given the preponderance of vampire literature these days, perhaps Bram Stoker is another surprising omission.