Most Influential Authors.

I've been writing a paper about Leo Tolstoy's influence the past few days for my Lit class, and thought this might make for an interesting topic.

Who would you consider to be some of the most influential authors? To make it a bit more narrow let's say in the past 300 years. An example with Tolstoy, he played an indirect hand at breaking apart Britain's colonies by influencing Gandhi with the idea of non-violent protesting.

I think the book of ON THE ROAD is the most influential book to me.Its writer is called Jack Kerouac.I think he is the most influential writer to me.

I enjoyed On The Road, but I don't know if I'd call Kerouac the most influential author.

Hmm... Marx and Engels? Marxism influenced Lenin, who developed Leninism and led the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution blah blah blah USSR. Though that happened after his death.

Well Shakespeare comes to mind, but I haven't read anything by him myself...also, maybe not an author per see, since he mainly wrote plays but eh.

One name comes to mind. Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Besides brilliant writing he introduced complex psychology behind characters. He also contributed heavily to modern philosophy.

Anyway I will copy list of people he influenced from wikipedia:

• Bulgakov · Camus · Chekhov · Dick · Faulkner · Freud · Gide · Hamsun · Hemingway · Hesse · Jung · Joyce · Kafka · Kerouac · Mann · Márquez · Nabokov · Nietzsche · Proust · Puzo · Sabato · Sartre · Shestov · Solzhenitsyn · Tolstoy · Woolf · Wright · Zola

Dostoyevsky had a major impact on the Modernists because some of his writing verged on stream of consciousness and his writings reflected (like in some ways Melville's) aspects of the philosophical paradigms of Modernism (existentialism should come to mine).

However, I would grant James Joyce the title of the most influential novelist. Ulysses is the great experiment of twentieth century fiction, and many authors owe a debt to his willingness to experiment both formally and in terms of content.

Good point on Joyce. He surely broaden vocabulary and syntax. However It is not all about literature.
I cant call Marx influential author, because his works aren't fiction (though they are utopian). In the same way I cant call Einstein, Newton, Smith, Papias of Hierapolis etc. an author.

And another not so serious entry.
E. M. Remarque for being gateway drug to enlightenment.