List of best-selling books

No.	Book	Author	Original language	First published	Copies sold
1	The Bible	Israelite oral tradition, The Prophets, David, Jewish court scribes, Four Evangelists, Saint Paul, some of the Apostles, and others	Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek	written 930 BC - AD 100	~ 5 to 6,000,000,000
2	毛主席语录 (Quotations From Chairman Mao Zedong)	Mao Zedong	Chinese	1966	~1,000,000,000
3	Harry Potter (series)	J.K. Rowling	English	1997 -	~400,000,000
4	The Lord of the Rings (usually published as three volumes)	J. R. R. Tolkien	English	1954	- 100,000,000
5	The Chronicles of Narnia (series)	C. S. Lewis	English	1949 - 1954	-100,000,000
6	American Spelling Book (Webster's Dictionary)	Noah Webster	English	1783	- 100,000,000
7	Guinness Book of World Records	-	English	1955 -	- 94,000,000
8	World Almanac	-	English	1868-	- 73,500,000
9	The Da Vinci Code	Dan Brown	English	2003	- 65,000,000
10	The McGuffey Readers (series)	William Holmes McGuffey	English	1853	-60,000,000
11	The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care	Dr. Benjamin Spock	English	1946	~50,000,000
12	O Alquimista (The Alchemist)	Paulo Coelho	Portuguese	1988	~ 50,000,000
13	A Message to Garcia	Elbert Hubbard	English	1899	~ 40,000,000
14	Valley of the Dolls	Jacqueline Susann	English	1966	- 30,000,000
15	Gone With The Wind	Margaret Mitchell	English	1936	- 28,000,000

Note

This list was originally compiled in 1997, and has been updated using the sources shown. The Qur'an has been printed since the 10th century CE and the number of copies presumably numbers hundreds of millions. Six billion Bibles is also an estimate. The Guinness Book of World Records has had many editions; no single edition would likely make this list. The McGuffey Readers is a series of books, not just one. The Harry Potter books are also a series, not just one book (though any single book would most likely also make the list, just at a lower spot).

• Gone With The Wind is estimated at 28,000,000 copies sold (May 1993).
• The Little Prince is estimated at 50,000,000 copies sold.
• The Three Musketeers needs counting.
• The Truth That Leads To Eternal Life 120,000,000 copies sold (1968 to 1982, Published by Jehovah's Witnesses )
• You Can Live Forever In Paradise On Earth 105,000,000 copies sold (Published by Jehovah's Witnesses )
• The Lord of the Rings books, although regarded as one book split into multiple parts for their length, are considered to be a series because they are sold as a series. The number of the copies sold for the books listed as a series is the combined number of all the books released in those series.

Best-Selling Authors

• Agatha Christie: it is estimated that one billion copies of her novels have been sold in English, and another billion in 103 other languages. [1].
• Danielle Steel has sold more than 550 million copies of her novels.
• Enid Blyton's books have sold more than 400 million copies worldwide and been translated into at least 90 languages. More than 300 of her titles are still in print and her books continue to sell in 2 million copies every year. The Noddy books have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide, making Noddy one of the most beloved and popular fictional characters ever.
• Richard Scarry children's books (especially the "Busytown" series) have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide.

Regularly updated lists of best-selling books

• Current best-selling books (New York Times)
• Best-selling books of all time (Amazon.com)
• Current topsellers

See also

• Lists of books
• Literature
• Novel

Sources

1. The Internet Public Library
2. Russell Ash's bestseller list from 2002 (Russell Ash)
3. Ask Men's top ten bestseller list
4. How 'Harry Potter' and 'The Rings' measure up