Jason English
The All-Time Best-Selling Books
by Jason English - May 22, 2007 - 10:38 AM

zidian.jpgWe’ve discussed the top rated TV shows, most popular video games, best-selling albums, and the albums that topped the charts the longest. Today, let’s talk about the all-time best-selling books. If you’re a budding author, it looks like books outlining some sort of religious doctrine would be the way to go. Boy wizardry is another area rich with potential.

1. The Bible (6.7 billion copies)

2. Quotations from Chairman Mao, Mao Tse-Tung (900 million)

3. The Qur’an (800 million)

4. Xinhua Zidian (400 million — a Chinese dictionary, first published in 1953)

5. The Book of Common Prayer, Thomas Cranmer

6. Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan

7. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, John Foxe

8. The Book of Mormon, Joseph J. Smith, Jr. (123 million)

9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J.K. Rowling (107 million — UK title was …and the Philosopher’s Stone)

10. And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie (100 million)

11. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien (100 million)

12. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling (65 million)

13. The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown (65 million)

14. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling (60 million)

15. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger (60 million)

The other three Harry Potter titles are 16, 17 and 18. The list continues at Wikipedia.

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Click here to get a Risk-Free issue of mental_floss magazine
Comments (37)

  1. Does the Bible really count as one distinct book? There are dozens, if not hundreds of different versions in as many languages. You might as well include “the dictionary” or “the phonebook”.

    posted by Chris on 5-22-2007 at 11:47 am

  2. Does this list refer to TOTAL sales world-wide, or English language only?

    posted by Larriann on 5-22-2007 at 12:48 pm

  3. A billion people in China and only 900 million Quotations from Chairman Mao sold. Maybe they aren’t all good citizens.

    posted by Dan on 5-22-2007 at 1:47 pm

  4. I think it’s safe to count the bible as a single book, as opposed to the book of Mormon, or the Torah, say.
    Also, n.b. Thomas Cranmer, not Cranmar

    posted by mudi-b on 5-22-2007 at 5:30 pm

  5. harry potter. 5 books on the top 20. harry *#@&ing potter beat salinger.

    ah, christ.

    posted by jenni on 5-22-2007 at 7:27 pm

  6. I am amazed that the holy Vedas, Mahabharata and Ramayana are simply ignored.

    There are probably tens of billions of printings of Mahabharata alone.

    posted by foo on 5-22-2007 at 10:31 pm

  7. this list has to be for total sales worldwide and not just english language only. i cant really see 900 million english speaking people buying “Quotations from Chairman Mao”.

    also it doesnt matter if tens of billions of printings were made. if they werent sold then they wont make it on the all time best selling books list.

    posted by xe on 5-23-2007 at 12:56 am

  8. 4. Xinhua Zidian (400 million — a Chinese dictionary, first published in 1953)???
    Seems a little big.

    posted by Chinese dictionary on 5-23-2007 at 3:56 am

  9. jenni: Catcher in the Rye is not a good book. It just plays to the disinterested, disaffected, do-nothing in people. There just happens to be a lot of this in these post-post-modern times.

    posted by parker on 5-23-2007 at 7:01 am

  10. Also don’t forget that every bible placed by the gideons in a hotel room or handed out by a missionary is considered a “sale” as both the gideons and the missionaries must “purchase” the bibles they distribute. Most suppliers provide bibles to these types of organizations at massively reduced costs. Also given that the bible was the ONLY book actually mass-produced when printing presses came about, it’s no stretch to say that they’ve sold the most. In terms of actual readership though, I’d be willing to bet the bible doesn’t even make the top 20.

    posted by meatpie on 5-23-2007 at 10:05 am

  11. I don’t know, meatpie- Paris Hilton is walking around with a shiny new Bible these days and so I expect readership of the Bible to sky rocket soon.

    posted by Larry on 5-23-2007 at 10:54 am

  12. One wonders…does the Book of Common Prayer ranking include only Cranmer’s version or also all other versions since then, including the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the ECUSA?

    posted by Carl on 5-23-2007 at 10:55 am

  13. Note to Mental Floss people:

    Joseph Smith had no middle name or initial. And used the colloquial abbreviation “Jun.”, not “Jr.”

    Hence: Joseph Smith Jun. is correct.

    posted by Mark Gelter on 5-23-2007 at 1:45 pm

  14. Catcher in the Rye was a f-ing horrible book. It made my eyes bleed.

    posted by Sandra on 5-23-2007 at 1:47 pm

  15. Religious books such as the Bible should be classified in its catagory not with some of the mediocre text that is selling as much. Also true religious books should only be included, the book of Morman oops mormon is a book created by man, just as the catholic religion and the muslim’s all fantasies of fanatics trying to change God’s word and control people.

    posted by William Davis on 5-23-2007 at 4:11 pm

  16. Are you claiming that only YOUR Bible is the true “word of God” and everyone else’s religious books are distortions of this truth? How can you be so sure?

    There is no way to tell, other than faith – faith means ones does not know, one just believes anyway.

    posted by Daniel on 5-23-2007 at 7:55 pm

  17. So it starts @ William…
    That didn’t take long.

    posted by Tim Reaves on 5-23-2007 at 8:15 pm

  18. It is nice to see there is no correlation between book sales and book quality.

    posted by Ryan on 5-23-2007 at 8:45 pm

  19. I like to eat cheese steaks with cheddar cheese instead of american. I’m writing a book about it. I believe it will make this list. I am a small king, but I rule well.

    posted by Ted on 5-24-2007 at 10:23 am

  20. wow…I can’t believe that many of you really don’t like Cather in the Rye. I think it’s one of the best books ever written, and if you guys don’t think it is, then I’m beginning to wonder what books you guys do like. Surely you don’t like Harry Potter or the Davinci Code over Catcher in the Rye. And in response to Sandra, I really don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Even if you don’t like it, it’s a great book, extremely well-written. You might not like the message (or maybe not even get it) but I still don’t think you should say it’s a bad book. Let’s see you write something like that.

    posted by jason on 6-8-2007 at 1:56 pm

  21. Does anybody on here believe that the likes of Paris Hilton and co. would actually read any books that they might be seen carrying around?
    Afterall, Hilton didn’t even read the letter that told her that her driver’s license had been cancelled…

    posted by David Laurie on 7-22-2007 at 10:43 am

  22. jason, i can’t believe that you think that if people like sandra disagree with you over catcher in the rye that they must have inferior taste. who says we all have to agree, and moreso, agree with YOU? just because most of us don’t write books doesn’t mean we can’t have differing but intelligent opinions about what constitutes a great or well-written book.

    maybe you’re the one who doesn’t “get it” about having and expressing opinions. maybe you should buy a copy of chairman mao’s quotations and move somewhere where everyone must agree.

    posted by schmickey on 7-25-2007 at 3:21 pm

  23. I received Comment #23 via email and thought it was the craziest criticism I’d ever received. Then I realized there is more than one Jason in our little corner of the blogosphere.

    posted by Jason on 7-25-2007 at 3:44 pm

  24. haha, yes, to clarify, my comment was in response to jason #21 and NOT Jason the author of the (completely objective) post :)

    posted by schmickey on 7-25-2007 at 4:11 pm

  25. I am rather glad to see both religious texts and secular in the ‘top’ list. It comforts me to know that people are reading different types of books. I have read the Bible (not in its entirety-that is a WIP), The Book of Mormon, Catcher in the Rye and all of the Harry Potter books. RIF -Reading is FUNdamental!

    posted by JaneM on 7-30-2007 at 8:04 am

  26. I am the list…

    posted by Required on 9-6-2007 at 6:29 pm

  27. I want to know how many total copies of K.C. Constantine’s books have been sold.
    How can we find that out? Any suggestions?

    posted by Laszlo Hege on 10-1-2007 at 1:31 pm

  28. I love DaVinci Code,the Bible,and all religious books and novels.A lot better than Catcher in the Rye and Harry Potter [which I never read].

    posted by johnny on 5-30-2009 at 11:14 pm

  29. Totally agree with Jason. While Catcher in the Rye can actually be considered a work of literature, the other books are not even worthy of mention in the same sentence. They are cheap bubblegum. Now, the fact is that some people have inferior tastes and if you want to be politically correct and tiptoe around them be my guest. I don’t see any reason to. People with inferior tastes shape the sales figures and damage writing as an art form, reducing it to a mere commerce. The same holds true for music today. And anyone who is truly literate and knowledgeable in the context of language, literature and writing, would appreciate the fact that Catcher of the Rye is a brilliant book. You may not like the book or it’s message, but you would be able to appreciate the fact that it is an exceptional work as compared to many of the other books you may like a lot more.

    posted by Shaun Schon on 3-1-2010 at 11:12 pm

  30. there would be a billion copy sold each for ramayana and mahabharata.

    posted by vijay on 5-29-2011 at 3:55 pm

  31. Two corrections:

    1) Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the English-language title everywhere other than the US; not just the UK.

    2) There are SEVEN Harry Potter titles overall (so it should be “three other Harry Potter titles”; not “The other three”), excluding the three additional volumes proceeds from which went to charities.

    posted by Terrence Lockyer on 5-29-2011 at 4:13 pm

  32. Terrence — This post is more than four years old (before Deathly Hallows). It’s probably up there by now.

    posted by Jason English on 5-29-2011 at 4:31 pm

  33. I see that I was misled by http://twitter.com/qikipedia into thinking this a recent post. My fault, of course, as I ought to have paid more attention to the date at the top of this page, and not relied on the notoriously fallible QI account. My other correction stands: “Sorcerer’s Stone” was only a US title.

    posted by Terrence Lockyer on 5-29-2011 at 4:47 pm

  34. that wiki page linked lists ‘a tale of two cities’ at 200m, and many more left off here. what’s with the discrepancies?

    posted by Allan on 5-29-2011 at 5:14 pm

  35. @Allan: The Wikipedia page has undergone major revision in the almost exactly four years since this post appeared: I suspect you, like me, followed a link from somebody who mistakenly suggested it was recent. The list above seems to have been based on the list as at the 16th May 2007: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_best-selling_books&oldid=131294107

    posted by Terrence Lockyer on 5-30-2011 at 7:47 am

  36. Personally, I think we can take these lists with a grain of salt: for very old traditional works (Bible, Quran, Mahabharata, Iliad and Odyssey), we have simply no way of remotely estimating how many copies have ever existed or how many people have possessed copies; for translations of these and for more recent works now in the public domain (Austen, Dickens), there may be so many editions (not to mention electronic texts, which present a whole new counting problem between downloads and page views) as to make counting impracticable; and even for recent publications we are at the mercy of publishers for reports of numbers of copies in print, and it may be very hard to ascertain exactly how many of those are finally sold, while figures of copies in print and sold may at times be inflated for commercial or ideological reasons.

    posted by Terrence Lockyer on 5-30-2011 at 8:08 am

  37. Completely agree with the above poster re: traditional, old works being difficult to track in terms of actual ‘sales.’ I found this list of best selling books, both fiction books and non-fiction, and found it interesting (they left out The Bible and other religious books, and again, all of these lists are totally subjective). All hail The Hobbit!

    posted by LaraP on 11-16-2011 at 5:23 pm

Comment

commenting policy