# List of most printed 'books' ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 9, 2005, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-most-printed-books-ever/307612 "2005-06-09T17:00:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![andrewdt85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/71e660/32.png) [@andrewdt85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewdt85)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2005, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-most-printed-books-ever/307612/1 "2005-06-09T17:00:25Z")
Kind of hard to define, I know. We all know The Bible is the most printed off the press since the invention of the printing press (I know, the Chinese preceded Gutenberg 😉 ), even though it’s not a ‘book’ but a collection of 66 documents (protestant anyways; the original king james actually contained the apocrypha, good trivia) written by over 40 authors over 1500 years, etc., and about a year ago it was really cool to hear about how the Harry Potter series may outprint the protestant Bible within the decade, even though that’s a series and not one collected book like the Bible. So those two don’t count, really. :dubious: This is a tough question and prob. impossible to figure out, but is there any list out there of other books (just books, not propaganda material, newspapers, etc.) that may have been printed and distributed the most in the last 569 years? 😕 The Koran, obv., and the Vedas I would think. I did Google already. ---
**Author:** ![Perderabo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Perderabo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perderabo)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2005, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-most-printed-books-ever/307612/2 "2005-06-09T20:05:21Z")
“Pinocchio is considered among the classics of Italian literature, along with The Divine Comedy and The Decameron. The story has been adapted, rewritten, and illustrated countless times since first appearing in serialized form from 1881 to 1883 in an Italian children’s magazine. In fact, according to the Carlo Collodi National Foundation, the book lags behind only the Bible and the Koran for the greatest number of copies in print.” according to [this site](http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dartfac/coverfeature/tale.html). ---
**Author:** ![andrewdt85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/71e660/32.png) [@andrewdt85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewdt85)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-most-printed-books-ever/307612/3 "2005-06-09T20:09:33Z")
The link didn’t work for me. I believe it! If they were lying their noses would grow longer… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-most-printed-books-ever/307612/4 "2005-06-09T20:09:33Z")
The question is basically unanswerable, but [here’s an awfully good attempt](http://www.ipl.org/div/farq/bestsellerFARQ.html), based on a variety of sources. One of the sources they cite is Russell Ash’s “Best of Everything” book, and he says: 1. The Bible 2. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Little Red Book) 3. American Spelling Book by Noah Webster 4. The Guinness Book of Records 5. The McGuffey Readers by William Holmes McGuffey [The Infoplease Almanac](http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0106194.html) offers a list of the best selling Childrens books of all time (The Poky Little Puppy is #1) ---
**Author:** ![andrewdt85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/71e660/32.png) [@andrewdt85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewdt85)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2005, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-most-printed-books-ever/307612/5 "2005-06-09T20:26:54Z")
Wow! [ul] [li]According to this a 1992 estimate of the Bible had it placed at 6 billion copies in over 2,000 languages; and, as I said, the Harry Potter series is supposed to outprint the Bible sometime this decade. _6 billion_?! I should own, read, and study these books; why haven’t they been broken into chapter and verse yet? 😃 [/li][li] **The Valley of the Dolls** - “This tale of sex, violence, and drugs” outsold the Koran?! In your face, Allah! 😃 [/li][li]In His Steps: “What Would Jesus Do?” by Rev. Charles Monroe Sheldon- Jesus would get FILTHY rich off booksales, would he? Didn’t he say something about a camel and the eye of a needle? :rolleyes: [/li] At least now I know where the WWJD meme comes from. Thanks for the site. Anyone know of any other attempts?[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Perderabo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Perderabo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perderabo)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2005, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-most-printed-books-ever/307612/6 "2005-06-09T20:36:00Z")
> [@andrewdt85](#): > > The link didn’t work for me. > > I believe it! If they were lying their noses would grow longer… 😉 Another try at the link… [link 1](http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dartfac/coverfeature/tale.html) Also [link2](http://www.catholicnewworld.com/cnw/issue/091204/digest.html) says:" Speaking of “The Adventures of Pinocchio,” it ranks just behind the Bible and the Koran among books with the greatest number of copies in print." Also I found these by googling for “bible koran pinocchio”. I knew to use those three terms because I have often heard that Pinocchio is number three. So this is at least a commonly heard claim. I don’t know how you could audit it though. ---
**Author:** ![andrewdt85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/71e660/32.png) [@andrewdt85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewdt85)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-most-printed-books-ever/307612/7 "2005-06-10T01:58:00Z")
> [@Perderabo](#): > > Also I found these by googling for “bible koran pinocchio” I never would’ve imagined those three things together! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![andrewdt85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/71e660/32.png) [@andrewdt85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewdt85)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-most-printed-books-ever/307612/8 "2005-06-10T02:01:45Z")
Except that in all three, a creator makes inanimate forms ‘real boys.’ The Bible also has a talking donkey. Was Pinocchio made of gopher wood…? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-most-printed-books-ever/307612/9 "2005-06-10T05:12:27Z")
According to _The Top 10 of Everything 2005_ by Russell Ash, the following are the 10 best-selling books of all time: 1. _The Bible_ - more than 6,000,000,000 copies 2. _Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung_ by Mao Tse-Tung - 900,000,000 copies 3. _The Lord of the Rings_ by J. R. R. Tolkien - more than 100,000,000 copies 4. _American Spelling Book_ by Noah Webster - 100,000,000 copies 5. _The Guinness Book of World Records_ - more than 95,000,000 copies 6. _World Almanac_ - over 80,000,000 copies 7. _The McGuffey Readers_ by William Holmes McGuffey - 60,000,000 copies 8. _The Commonsense Book of Child Care_ by Benjamin Spock - over 50,000,000 copies 9. _A Message to Garcia_ by Elbert Hubbard - 40,000,000 copies 10. (tie) _In His Steps: “What Would Jesus Do?”_ by Charles Monroe Sheldon - over 30,000,000 copies 11. (tie) _Valley of the Dolls_ by Jacqueline Susann - over 30,000,000 copies Honorable Mentions: Both _Gone with the Wind_ by Margaret Mitchell and _To Kill a Mockingbird_ by Harper Lee have sold close to 30,000,000 copies. ---
**Author:** ![andrewdt85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/71e660/32.png) [@andrewdt85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewdt85)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-most-printed-books-ever/307612/10 "2005-06-10T08:12:22Z")
Which is the same as the older list listed above except w/ Lord of the Rings. Other books on my to read list… 😉