← Fame through time1700-1799
The 18th century
Whose working lives fell in the 18th 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 18th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Johann Sebastian Bach22 decades - 2
Frederick the Great22 decades - 3
George Frideric Handel21 decades - 4
George II of Great Britainnot measured- - 5
Peter III of Russia21 decades - 6
Friedrich Schiller22 decades - 7
William Herschel22 decades - 8
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing22 decades - 9
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitznot measured- - 10
Augustus II the Strong19 decades - 11
Johann Gottlieb Fichte22 decades - 12
Baron Munchausen0 decades - 13
Leopold Mozart20 decades - 14
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher3 decades - 15
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach15 decades - 16
Adam Weishaupt18 decades - 17
Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria8 decades - 18
Christoph Willibald Gluck9 decades - 19
Frederick, Prince of Wales0 decades - 20
Georg Philipp Telemann12 decades - 21
Samuel Hahnemann20 decades - 22
Jean Paul22 decades - 23
Augustus III of Poland22 decades - 24
Moses Mendelssohn22 decades - 25
Johann Christian Bach12 decades
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.