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LITERATURE
Popularity
Greatest Writers Of All Time (Forbes)
This list features the greatest writers in history according to Forbes.
RANK | AUTHOR | WORKS | LIFESPAN |
1 | William Shakespeare | Hamlet (1601) | 1564–1616 |
2 | Homer | The Iliad (c. 8th century BC) | c. 8th century BC |
3 | Virgil | The Aeneid (29–19 BC) | 70–19 BC |
4 | Leo Tolstoy | War and Peace (1865) | 1828–1910 |
5 | Ernest Hemingway | The Old Man and the Sea (1952) | 1899–1961 |
6 | Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice (1813) | 1775–1817 |
7 | Charles Dickens | Oliver Twist (1837–1839) | 1812–1870 |
8 | Fyodor Dostoevsky | Crime and Punishment (1866) | 1821–1881 |
9 | Virginia Woolf | Mrs Dalloway (1925) | 1882–1941 |
10 | Geoffrey Chaucer | The Canterbury Tales (1387–1400) | 1343–1400 |
References
Forbes, (2023). Famous authors. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/entertainment/article/famous-authors/ [Accessed 1 December 2025].
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