# Most-widely read author today **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 3, 2005, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918 "2005-07-03T15:09:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Axel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6de8d8/32.png) [@Axel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Axel)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/21 "2005-07-04T19:58:58Z")
So it is just America then? I’d still be incredibly surprised if, say, Hamlet hadn’t sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. I think you’re right about Blyton not having one book that sold in those huge numbers, but, as an aside, it turns out that she wrote over 700 books and 10,000 short stories! :eek: ---
**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:** [July 4, 2005, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/22 "2005-07-04T20:19:13Z")
No, the list in the OP (which is quoted from a post by me) is for the best-selling books of all time. All time - all languages - all countries. The book it’s from (_Top 10 of Everything 2005_ by Russell Ash) is from a British publisher, incidentally, although it also has an American edition. ---
**Author:** ![Axel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6de8d8/32.png) [@Axel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Axel)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/23 "2005-07-04T20:26:24Z")
I’ve spent twenty minutes Googling and Yahooing and Asking Jeeves, and the problem with asking about book sales is that every site wants to sell you books. I give up. But I reckon that Hamlet must have sold more books than Gone With the Wind; it’s been a big, worldwide story for 450 years is translated into pretty much every language on Earth and is a required text in many school curricula. Same goes for Romeo and Juliet. The list also misses out the Quran. Are there so few Muslims buying that book? I bet at least one of the Harry Potter books is close to if not over 30 million in sales. But all I can find is estimates about all the books, which do average out to more than 30 million per book, but prove nothing. ---
**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:** [July 4, 2005, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/24 "2005-07-04T21:11:03Z")
I think that _Hamlet_ doesn’t belong in this bestsellers list. To count as a book for the purposes of this list, the book has to be identical in all copies, except for possibly being translated into other languages. There are undoubtedly lots of books out there which include _Hamlet_, and they have lots of different titles and contents: _Great Plays by Shakespeare_, _Shakespearean Tragedies_, _The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Vol. I_, _Great English Plays_, etc. I don’t think any single one of these books has sold 30,000,000 copies. If you don’t like this definition for the purpose of this list, argue it with the author, Russell Ash, or the publisher, Dorling Kindersley, not me. The research for the list is several years old now, so I suspect that at least one of the Harry Potter books should now belong on the list. _The McGuffey Readers_, _A Message to Garcia_, and _In His Steps: “What Would Jesus Do?”_ were immense bestsellers in their time. You’ve got to remember that back then people didn’t own lots of books. Buying books was a special rare thing for most people and ordinary novels wouldn’t be bestsellers. _A Message to Garcia_ and _In His Steps_ were apparently mostly given away to people because they were considered inspirational books. ---
**Author:** ![Axel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6de8d8/32.png) [@Axel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Axel)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/25 "2005-07-04T21:44:19Z")
> [@](#): > > The research for the list is several years old now, so I suspect that at least one of the Harry Potter books should now belong on the list. Yes, that makes sense. > [@](#): > > To count as a book for the purposes of this list, the book has to be identical in all copies, except for possibly being translated into other languages. But the Bible is not identical in all versions either. The list doesn’t specify Gideon’s, or the King James version, or any other major version. Though it seems likely that both of those have sold over 30million copies. And the Quran? Less than 30million copies sold? :dubious: I was thinking of Hamlet just as an individual play, not as part of collection, which would obviously increase its sales rankings. Maybe the list just doesn’t include play texts. > [@](#): > > If you don’t like this definition for the purpose of this list, argue it with the author, Russell Ash, or the publisher, Dorling Kindersley, not me. Ah, but you’re here, and they’re not. Anway, I’m not really arguing, just wondering out ‘loud.’ The list does seem rather US-centric, regardless of the origin of its author. The most-read writer in the world is probably the guy who wrote ‘Happy Birthday.’ (If cartoons can count, then so can song lyrics!) ---
**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:** [July 4, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/26 "2005-07-04T21:51:57Z")
“Happy Birthday” was written by Mildred and Patty Hill. It’s still under copyright. When I was in grad school, in the linguistics department of the University of Texas, I knew Archibald Hill, who was then an emeritus professor there. He was the nephew of these two women and had inherited their copyrights. You’re right that the list is cheating with _The Bible_. There are Old Testaments, New Testaments, the Apocrypha, and all the combinations of these three. As I said though, it doesn’t matter that there are many translations. Only the contents of the books matters, not what language it’s translated into. It also doesn’t matter that some books have introductions that are different for different editions. I suspect that the number of books sold with just _Hamlet_ included is less than 30,000,000. ---
**Author:** ![Axel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6de8d8/32.png) [@Axel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Axel)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/27 "2005-07-04T22:00:50Z")
Hmm, yes, I guess the various versions of the Bible count as different translations, rather than different versions. That’s something that’s always bothered me when I read about the Bible being the World’s biggest-selling book. We’ll have to agree to disagree about Hamlet - unless you can find anything to state how many have been sold; I can’t find any info at all. It’s not that important anyway. Speaking of books from when there were fewer to choose from: I wonder how many of Dickens’ books were sold? They were immensely popular at the time, in America and the UK. Buggered if I can find out though. Interesting info about Happy Birthday. I knew it was still under copywright, but didn’t know two women had written it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/28 "2005-07-04T22:13:19Z")
> [@andrewdt85](#): > > It’s also worth pointing out in a discussion like this the misleading data on top-grossing films; Leonard Maltin wrote a good article on it that appears in the World Almanac 2005- he points out higher ticket prices, and one should also point out inflation- what would that film’s gross be worth today? > > Supposedly, adjusted for inflation, Gone With the Wind is the top-grossing movie of all time. But that movie, which is like 57 on the top-grossing list, was released 6 or 7 times theatrically (go head, correct me), so one should also consider that- although if a film is popular enough to do that, it deserves its rank. ET wasn’t :rolleyes: . Finding lists of all-time movie grosses adjusted for inflation is pretty easy. Here’s the one from [BoxOfficeMojo](http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm). _Gone with the Wind_ is #1, of course. ET was re-released and is #4 overall, so I don’t understand your comment. The Russell Ash list isn’t worth commenting on. It contains not just apples and oranges but horses and tape measures. Just to blast it to hell, though: The Bible, as mentioned, is not _a_ thing, but dozens, hundreds, or thousands of them. The Guinness Book of World Records and The World Almanac are annual publications and shouldn’t be lumped together. Is he saying that each of the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings has sold 100,000,000 or that the three put together have? The McGuffey Readers is a series of readers for different age groups and were changed over time. Same with Noah Webster’s spellers, I believe. Spock also put out many different editions. A Message to Garcia is an inspirational pamphlet rather than a book and had wide distribution inside companies rather than store sales. I would certainly argue, as I did in my earlier post, that if you’re going to include these, then all the editions in all languages of the most famous books of classical literature must be on this list. So would the various holy books of the many major religions. It could be an interesting game to think of other types of books that would qualify. Almost certainly classic cookbooks that have been out for decades in multiple editions - The Joy of Cooking or Fannie Farmer or Betty Crocker - have sold many tens of millions. The Left Behind series of books may be over 100,000,000 by now. What about travel guides or Michelin restaurant guides in all their annual editions? Once you start down the path of no rules whatsoever nothing has any meaning. And even if you could decide some way to narrow the subject, you couldn’t get hard numbers in the first place. No publisher ever releases sales figures. Marketing departments do, but you certainly can’t trust those to be worth the value of the paper they’re printed on. ---
**Author:** ![andrewdt85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/71e660/32.png) [@andrewdt85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewdt85)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2005, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/29 "2005-07-05T01:55:38Z")
I heard, just heard, the 200 million figure for Harry Potter series- but that could mean bupkis. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2005, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/30 "2005-08-14T13:33:55Z")
I’m currently at a conference on Tolkien in Birmingham, England. I’ve been going around asking various scholars if anyone knows how many copies of _The Lord of the Rings_ has been sold in the entire world since it was first published 50 years ago. (I hope you’re all satisfied. I just flew three and a half thousand miles to answer a question posed on the SDMB.) I mention that I’ve heard various figures between 30 and 100 million copies. (Incidentally, I make it clear that for the purposes of this discussion, a copy of _The Lord of the Rings_ is either one copy of the complete book or a set of all three of _The Fellowship of the Rings_, _The Two Towers_, and _The Return of the King_. So, no discussion as to whether this number means that each set counts as three copies. It doesn’t.) It’s clear that nobody knows an accurate figure, and it would take a major research project to figure out the exact figure. The publishers don’t like to discuss the numbers. Also, there are cases like the Russian editions, where most of the copies sold (and there have been _many_ copies sold) are unauthorized editions. The consensus opinion is that 30 million copies is very low. Some people think that it’s over 100 million copies sold. So it appears that finding out how many copies of a book that’s only 50 years old have been sold is quite difficult. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/31 "2005-08-14T13:53:57Z")
I thought I had read recently that Dan Brown’s _The Da Vinci Code_ had become the most read fiction book in history. No? ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/32 "2005-08-14T14:44:00Z")
I also daresay that the number of books sold is not terribly closely related the the number read. James Joyce’s Ulysses has probably sold a good deal more copies than have actually been read past page four. But, I would guess that damn near every copy of Harry Potter has been read (and probably loaned to another person and read). ---
**Author:** ![Beauty\_Personified](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@Beauty\_Personified](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beauty_Personified)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/33 "2005-08-14T15:44:00Z")
I have heard that the Bible is the most _stolen_ book around. (That sentence doesn’t sound right, but whatevah.) Anyhoo… ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/34 "2005-08-14T16:02:14Z")
> [@don't ask](#): > > I thought I had read recently that Dan Brown’s _The Da Vinci Code_ had become the most read fiction book in history. No? No. Again, that’s just noise coming from a publicist. I’ll bet anything that each and every Harry Potter book has a bigger readership, just for starters. Then let’s go through blockbuster popular novels books that have been around for decades and have been read by generations of readers: Gone with the Wind; Peyton Place; Jaws; The Godfather. What about Sherlock Holmes? A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887 and has been continually in print in dozens of languages ever since, along with all the rest of the Holmes books. Alice in Wonderland. Tarzan. The Wizard of Oz. Lord of the Rings has been read by many times the number of people who have read Brown. Same for Tolstoy and Twain, Shakespeare and Dante, Dickens and Dumas. Brown wouldn’t place on the top 100 all-time most read list. Not that I wouldn’t like even a fraction of his money. But it’s still piffle through and through. ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2005, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/35 "2005-08-14T22:40:22Z")
I’ve heard that the Dao De Jing (Laotsu’s text on Tao), the “Yellow Calendar” (Chinese Farmer’s Almanac, more or less), and the I Jing (telling the future via drawing lots) is also pretty high up there, at least in the Orient. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2005, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/36 "2005-08-15T00:48:07Z")
> [@don't ask](#): > > I thought I had read recently that Dan Brown’s _The Da Vinci Code_ had become the most read fiction book in history. No? You read that and decided to go on _living_? You’re stronger than I am. ---
**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:** [August 15, 2005, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/37 "2005-08-15T18:25:48Z")
More information from the Tolkien conference: I talked to a German grad student working on a doctoral thesis about the popularity of Tolkien in the U.S. in ths 1960’s. He says that he’s talked to people at Harper-Collins. They say that _The Lord of the Rings_ has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide in authorized editions. It’s harder to say how many copies it’s sold if you count unauthorized editions. Not are there all the unauthorized translations into Russian, but there have been a lot of unauthorized English-language editions printed in Asia. Their guess is there have been about 150 million copies sold, counting both authorized and unauthorized editions. ---
**Author:** ![andrewdt85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/71e660/32.png) [@andrewdt85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewdt85)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2005, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/38 "2005-10-07T10:10:18Z")
Another update (I am thorough!): \*Potter tops 300 million LONDON, England (AP) – Global sales of Harry Potter books have surpassed 300 million, the agent for author J.K. Rowling said Tuesday. Agent Christopher Little said the series reached the milestone following the publication of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth volume about the schoolboy wizard. As of September, “Half-Blood Prince” had sold 11 million copies in the United States, according to publisher Scholastic, Inc. Potter books have now been translated into 63 languages, most recently Farsi.\* Rowling is a billionaire as of last year! No surprise… ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2005, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/39 "2005-10-07T13:15:29Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > I haven’t a clue as who is the most widely read, but you have to remember that posting individual book sales is not the same thing. Stephen King, Danielle Steel, Agatha Christie, John Grisham, J. K. Rowling and many others have far surpassed 100,000,000 books sold for their total body of work. Yeah, but a paperback, or even a hardback, book isn’t as **wide** as the comics page of a newspaper. So, when you read Johnny Hart, you’re gonna be doing so more widely than if you read Stephen King or Agatha Christie. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2005, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918/40 "2005-10-07T13:48:48Z")
[QUOTE=andrewdt85] BTW, does anyone else think it’s funny that the most outspoken Christian cartoonist in the funny pages has two strips, one about CAVEMEN (whom fundies deny existed)…QUOTE] The majority of fundies don’t deny that cavemen existed – or dinosaurs, for that matter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-widely-read-author-today/310918.md?page=3)