← Fame through time1600-1699
The 17th century
Whose working lives fell in the 17th century. Books are measured from 1800 and readers from 2015, so for this period we can say who lived then, not who was talked about then.
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 17th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Matthew Henry22 decades - 2
Edward Alleyn22 decades - 3
John Cotton22 decades - 4
Samuel Rutherford20 decades - 5
John Lightfoot15 decades - 6
Gilbert Sheldon11 decades - 7
William Pynchonnot measured- - 8Thomas Shepardnot measured-
- 9
Peter Heylin10 decades - 10
John Davenportnot measured- - 11Isaac Peningtonnot measured-
- 12
Robert Southnot measured- - 13
William Twissenot measured- - 14Christopher Beestonnot measured-
How to read these rankings
- Attention, not reputation. A place on these lists reflects the attention a person still draws in the public record. It is not a judgement on the life.
- Fame in print. The curves show how often a name appeared in the books of each decade from 1800 to 2019, drawn from the Google Books Ngram corpus.
- Gaps are left as gaps. Where the record is too thin to be fair, we would rather show nothing than guess.