Novelist

Explore 6 of history's most influential novelist, ranked by historical influence. Each figure links to a full biography, feats, trivia and similar people.

Portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

92

Writer · 1749 – 1832

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, poet, and statesman, widely regarded as the greatest figure in German literature and one of the towering minds of European culture.

  • Faust
  • The Sorrows of Young Werther
Portrait of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

92

Novelist · 1828 – 1910

Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist and moral philosopher whose epics War and Peace and Anna Karenina rank among the greatest works of fiction, and whose later doctrine of nonviolence influenced Gandhi and King.

  • War and Peace
  • Anna Karenina
Portrait of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

91

Novelist · 1821 – 1881

Fyodor Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist whose psychologically penetrating works, including Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, probe faith, guilt, and freedom and helped shape modern existential thought.

  • Crime and Punishment
  • The Brothers Karamazov
Portrait of Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes

91

Novelist · 1547 – 1616

Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish writer whose novel Don Quixote is widely regarded as the first modern novel and one of the greatest works in world literature.

  • Don Quixote
  • The first modern novel
Portrait of Victor Marie Hugo

Victor Marie Hugo

89

Novelist · 1802 – 1885

Victor Hugo was a French novelist, poet, and dramatist, the towering figure of French Romanticism, whose novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame are monuments of world literature.

  • Les Misérables
  • The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Portrait of Jane Austen

Jane Austen

88

Novelist · 1775 – 1817

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose witty, incisive novels of manners, including Pride and Prejudice and Emma, are masterpieces of English literature and remain enduringly popular.

  • Pride and Prejudice
  • Sense and Sensibility