LITERATURE
Economics
Best-Selling Books Of All Time
This list features the book that have sold the most copies in history.
Books that claim to have high sales including The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, and Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en have multiple editions and therefore there is too much uncertainty regarding sales figures. Thus, these books have been omitted from the list. Furthermore, e-books have not been included in this list as out of copyright texts are often available in this format.
RANK | BOOK | AUTHOR(s) | SALES | YEAR |
1 | The Bible | Various Authors | 5 billion | c. 5th century CE |
2 | The Qur’an | Muhammad (traditionally) | 800 million | c. 610–632 CE |
3 | Book of Mormon | Joseph Smith | 200 million | 1830 |
4 | A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | 200 million | 1859 |
5 | The Little Prince | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | 200 million | 1943 |
6 | Bhagavad Gita | Vyasa | 162 million | c. 200 BCE |
7 | The Alchemist | Paulo Coelho | 150 million | 1988 |
8 | Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone | J. K. Rowling | 120 million | 1997 |
9 | And Then There Were None | Agatha Christie | 100 million | 1939 |
10 | Dream of the Red Chamber | Cao Xueqin | 100 million | 1791 |
11 | The Hobbit | J.R.R. Tolkien | 100 million | 1937 |
12 | Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll | 100 million | 1865 |
References
