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LITERATURE

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Economics

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Best-Selling Fiction Books Of All Time

This list features the fiction books 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

SALES

YEAR

1

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens

200 million

1859

2

The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

200 million

1943

3

The Alchemist

Paulo Coehlo

150 million

1988

4

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

J. K. Rowling

120 million

1997

5

And Then There Were None

Agatha Christie

100 million

1939

6

Dream of the Red Chamber

Cao Xueqin

100 million

1791

7

The Hobbit

J.R.R. Tolkien

100 million

1937

8

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll

100 million

1865

9

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

C.S. Lewis

85 million

1950

10

She: A History of Adventure

H. Rider Haggard

83 million

1887


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References

Goodreads, (n.d.). Best Selling Books of All Time. [online] Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/33934.Best_Selling_Books_of_All_Time [Accessed 1 December 2025]. The Guardian, (2012). Best-selling books of all time: Fifty Shades of Grey and more. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/aug/09/best-selling-books-all-time-fifty-shades-grey-compare[Accessed 1 December 2025]. Penguin Random House, (n.d.). The bestselling books of all time. [online] Available at: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/the-read-down/the-bestselling-books-of-all-time/ [Accessed 1 December 2025]. Clear, J., (n.d.). Best-selling books. [online] Available at: https://jamesclear.com/best-books/best-selling [Accessed 1 December 2025]. IGN, (n.d.). Best-selling books of all time. [online] Available at: https://www.ign.com/articles/best-selling-books-of-all-time [Accessed 1 December 2025]. Wikipedia contributors, (2024). List of best-selling books. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books [Accessed 1 December 2025].
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