TIME The 100 Most Influential People Who Never Lived

TIME The 100 Most Influential People Who Never Lived

We know them better than we know our friends: brilliant Sherlock Holmes; stingy Ebenezer Scrooge; the idealistic Don Quixote; the obsessed Captain Ahab. Hamlet is indecisive and world-weary; Romeo and Julief are young, lusty and impulsive; Indiana Jones is dashing, learned and courageous. We speak of men with Oedipus Complexes or Peter Pan Syndromes. We know women who dream of being Cinderella - or Madame Bovary. We fear Orwell's Big Brother, Bram Stoker's Count Dracula and Dr. Frankenstein's Creature. And we marvel at odd couples: Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. D'Arcy; Huckleberry Finn and Jim; Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock; Humbert Humbert and Lolita. Yet all of these unforgettable icons - who have shaped civilization and embodied our deepest archetypes - are not human: they are fictional constructs, some created by great authors, others by long processes of folklore and myth. Now TIME has enlisted a host of brilliant authors to ponder the impact of these remarkable figures. Imagine Paul Ryan saluting Ayn Rand's he