Influential Non-Fiction & Essay Writers Rankings
Fifty of the most influential non-fiction writers and essayists of all time.
Art & LiteratureTop 50
🌍 World Ranking
▲ Top 5
#1
George Orwell (1903–1950)
+5
#2
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
+4
#3
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
+3
#4
Albert Camus (1913–1960)
+2
#5
Michel Foucault (1926–1984)
+1
▼ Bottom 5
#1
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
-5
#2
William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
-4
#3
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
-3
#4
D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930)
-2
#5
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002)
-1
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All Items (50)
George Orwell (1903–1950)+5
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)+4
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)+3
Albert Camus (1913–1960)+2
Michel Foucault (1926–1984)+1
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)—
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)—
Charles Lamb (1775–1834)—
Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859)—
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)—
John Ruskin (1819–1900)—
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)—
T.S. Eliot (1888–1965)—
Edmund Wilson (1895–1972)—
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986)—
Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)—
James Baldwin (1924–1987)—
Gore Vidal (1925–2012)—
Susan Sontag (1933–2004)—
Joan Didion (1934–2021)—
John McPhee (1931–present)—
Annie Dillard (1945–present)—
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011)—
David Foster Wallace (1962–2008)—
Rebecca Solnit (1961–present)—
Zadie Smith (1975–present)—
Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975–present)—
Roxane Gay (1974–present)—
bell hooks (1952–2021)—
Toni Morrison (essays) (1931–2019)—
Edward Said (1935–2003)—
Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)—
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)—
Roland Barthes (1915–1980)—
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)—
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963)—
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895)—
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)—
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)—
E.B. White (1899–1985)—
Lewis Thomas (1913–1993)—
Oliver Sacks (1933–2015)—
Yuval Noah Harari (1976–present)—
Malcolm Gladwell (1963–present)—
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960–present)—
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002)-1
D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930)-2
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)-3
William Hazlitt (1778–1830)-4
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)-5