The Literary 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Time

A necessary and comprehensive resource for any literary buff.

Here is the revised and expanded edition of Daniel S. Burt's fascinating assessment of the 100 most influential novelists, playwrights, and poets of all times and cultures now with 25 additional entries and some reassessments. From Doris Lessing and Gabriel García Márquez to Homer and Marcel Proust, the entries provide a compelling, accessible introduction to significant writers of world literature.

All of the writers selected have helped to redefine literature, establishing a standard with which succeeding generations of writers and readers have had to contend. The ranking attempts to discern, from the broadest possible perspective, what makes a literary artist great and how that greatness can be measured and compared. Each profile distills the essence of the writer's career and character to help prompt consideration of literary merit and relationships by the reader.

New writers include:

• Chinua Achebe
• W.H. Auden
• Bertolt Brecht
• Robert Frost
• Nikolai Gogol
• Seamus Heaney
• Heinrich Heine
• Horace
• Ben Jonson
• Kalidasa
• Doris Lessing
• Li Po
• Christopher Marlowe
• Arthur Miller
• Chikamatsu Monzaemon
• Toni Morrison
• George Orwell
• Harold Pinter
• Luigi Pirandello
• Samuel Richardson
• Rainier Maria Rilke
• Sappho
• Edmund Spenser
• Tennessee Williams
• Kawabata Yasunari.

Daniel S. Burt holds a Ph.D. from New York University and has taught undergraduate and graduate literature courses at New York University and Wesleyan University. He is the author of The Drama 100 and The Novel 100, both for Facts On File and Checkmark Books. He is also the author of The Biography Book and What Historical Novel Do I Read Next? He was the Associate Dean of the College at Wesleyan University for nine years and previously served as the Director of Undergraduate Studies at New York University. He currently teaches in Middletown, Connecticut, and lives in South Ohatham, Massachusetts.