← Fame through time1800-1899
The 19th century
Whose names filled the books of the 19th century - anyone at all, however long dead - counted as mentions per million words printed, so a period that simply published more does not inflate anyone.
Talked about then
Whose names appeared most in English books during the 19th century, whenever they lived.
- 1
Jesus94 - 2
Homer15 - 3
Cicero13 - 4
Augustus13 - 5
Plato10 - 6
Virgil9.6 - 7
Aristotle9.4 - 8
Socrates6.4 - 9
Herodotus6.2 - 10
Plutarch5.6 - 11
Ovid4.2 - 12
Strabo4.1 - 13
Charlemagne3.9 - 14
Demosthenes3.8 - 15
Lord Byron3.6 - 16
Livy3.4 - 17
Origen3.1 - 18
Cleopatra3.0 - 19
Xenophon3.0 - 20
Walter Scott3.0 - 21
Tertullian2.7 - 22
James II, Count of Urgell2.6 - 23
Robert Peel2.6 - 24
Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor2.6 - 25
Pericles2.5
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 19th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Edgar Allan Poe17 decades - 2
Mark Twain16 decades - 3
Emily Dickinson13 decades - 4
Henry David Thoreau13 decades - 5
Walt Whitman17 decades - 6
Harriet Tubman9 decades - 7
Herman Melville18 decades - 8
Frederick Douglass18 decades - 9
Louisa May Alcott14 decades - 10
Nathaniel Hawthorne19 decades - 11
Henry James18 decades - 12
Harriet Beecher Stowe17 decades - 13
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow18 decades - 14
Washington Irving22 decades - 15
Edith Wharton13 decades - 16
L. Frank Baum8 decades - 17
William Tecumseh Sherman14 decades - 18
Helena Blavatsky2 decades - 19
Sojourner Truth13 decades - 20
O. Henry14 decades - 21
James Fenimore Cooper18 decades - 22
Buffalo Bill15 decades - 23
Elizabeth Cady Stanton15 decades - 24
Ellen G. White6 decades - 25
Frances Hodgson Burnett15 decades - 26
Sholem Aleichem10 decades - 27
Clara Barton15 decades - 28
Charles Taze Russell0 decades - 29
Louisa Adams0 decades - 30
Dolley Madison7 decades - 31
Mary Baker Eddy13 decades - 32
Charlotte Perkins Gilman9 decades - 33
Margaret Fuller18 decades - 34
Kate Chopin8 decades - 35
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.not measured- - 36
Francis Scott Key14 decades - 37
Albert Pike18 decades - 38
Jeanette Jerome0 decades - 39
Elbert Green Hubbard0 decades - 40
Alfred Thayer Maannot measured- - 41
Emma Lazarus15 decades - 42
Bret Harte16 decades - 43
Elizabeth Ann Seton2 decades - 44
Charles J. Guiteau1 decades - 45
Lucretia Mott18 decades
- 46
Mary Harris Jones0 decades - 47
Julia Ward Howe16 decades - 48
Allan Pinkerton13 decades - 49
James Russell Lowell18 decades - 50
John Greenleaf Whittier16 decades - 51
Edward Bellamy16 decades - 52
William Cullen Bryant20 decades - 53
Dorothea Dix13 decades - 54
Horatio Alger16 decades - 55
Frederick Jackson Turner12 decades - 56
Harriet Jacobs3 decades - 57
Ernest Thompson Seton12 decades - 58
George Dewey15 decades - 59
Thomas Mayne Reid0 decades - 60
Carrie Nation8 decades - 61
A. E. Waite2 decades - 62
Henry Steel Olcott0 decades - 63
Juliette Gordon Low0 decades - 64
Virginia Eliza Clemm Poenot measured- - 65
William Dean Howells14 decades - 66
Anna J. Cooper0 decades - 67
Lydia Maria Child16 decades - 68
Frances Willard14 decades - 69
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper3 decades - 70
Henry van Dyke8 decades - 71
Frederick Russell Burnham0 decades - 72
Sarah Grimké1 decades - 73
Wilhelm Weitling14 decades - 74
Joshua Slocum6 decades - 75
Sylvester Graham8 decades - 76
Charles Grandison Finney5 decades - 77
Andrew Dickson White13 decades - 78
Ella Wheeler Wilcox13 decades - 79
Mirabeau B. Lamar6 decades - 80
Oliver Otis Howard4 decades - 81
William Hickling Prescott8 decades - 82
Sarah Orne Jewett14 decades - 83
Charles Brockden Brown21 decades - 84
Katharine Lee Bates6 decades - 85
Archibald Gracie IVnot measured- - 86
Richard Henry Dana16 decades - 87
Edward Everett Hale16 decades - 88
Naftali Herz Imber0 decades - 89
Sidney Lanier15 decades - 90
Francis Parkman20 decades - 91
Varina Davisnot measured- - 92
Henrietta Szold11 decades - 93
Sarah Winnemucca4 decades - 94
John Burroughsnot measured- - 95
George Washington Williamsnot measured- - 96
Catharine Beechernot measured- - 97
William Gillettenot measured- - 98
William Chester Minornot measured- - 99
Laura Bridgmannot measured- - 100
Caroline Ingallsnot 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.