Google N-gram Viewer - some Western comparisons

Today, I very belatedly discover this tool:

http://books.google.com/ngrams

 

Here are some of the tests I did, based on English-language books from 1900-2000:

 

1.Tolstoy >> Pushkin ~Dostoevsky >> Mickiewicz > Solovyov

2.Dante > Hugo >> Voltaire > Montaigne > Petrarch; Dante was vastly more mentioned than Hugo in 1900, but in 2000 it is just slightly above Hugo. Voltaire also shifted from between Dante and Hugo between 1900, to just a little above Montaigne in 2000

3. Shakespeare > Milton > Chaucer

4. Among English romantic poets, Wordsworth and Byron are very closed together

5. Charles Dickens > Jane Austen in 1900; Jane Austen > Charles Dickens in 2000

6. Mark Twain >> Walt Whitman > Emily Dickinson

7. William James > John Dewey > Charles Peirce

8. William James > John Locke > David Hume > J.S. Mill (the last one is not so easy to search, so I wouldn't trust the data. For William James, it could be American-centric sampling issue

9. In 1900: Kant > Descartes > Marx > Nietzsche ; In 2000: Marx > Kant > Nietzsche > Descartes

10. Shakespeare >> Dante ~ Goethe ~ Hugo > Tolstoy > Cervantes

11. Jane Austen > William Shakespeare > John Milton > William Wordsworth

12. Shakespeare > Marx. The lead in 1900 was strong, lead in 2000 weak. Marx overtook Shakespeare around 1971 - 1993

13. Gibbon > Burckhardt > Ranke (position of last 2 switched around the middle of the century)

14. Luther >~ Augustine >> Calvin > Aquinas

15. Augustine >> Origen >~ Eusebius 

16. (This is surprising!) Horace > Cicero > Virgil > Ovid > Tacitus ~ Livy (Tacitus stronger than Livy in 1900, but now about the same)

17. Herodotus > Thucydides > Xenophon (Herodotus' lead vs. Thucydides is clearer than what I would have thought)

18. Plato > Aristotle between 1900-1956; Aristotle > Plato in 1956-2000

19. Euripides > Sophocles > Aristophanes > Aeschylus

20. Homer >> Euripides ~ Sophocles ~ Sappho (Sappho came up strongly during the century

21. Aristotle > Plato > Homer > Herodotus

22. Horace > Homer before 1956; Homer > Horace (mostly after 1956)

23. Bible > > Shakespeare > Aristotle. For about 50 years between 1920s to 1970s, Shakespeare often surpassed Bible

24. 1900: Luther > Kant > Marx; 2000: Marx > Kant > Luther

25. Aristotle > Marx; but Marx > Aristotle between 1966-1996

26. Herodotus >~ Gibbon > Tacitus >s Eusebiu (only slight lead in 1900; almost the same in 2000)

 

So at least in English language representation, things seem to come down to:

Bible > Shakespeare > Aristotle (but not always vs. Plato or Marx) >> Herodotus (and Gibbon)