10 Best-Selling Books Of All Time

Looking at the bestselling books of all time offers a valuable perspective on the history of literature. What moves readers on the page and what moves units off shelves don’t always overlap, but when those two things coalesce, the result is hundreds of books sold worldwide. That and a place in the literary canon no one can deny, whatever time and place they come from.

A couple notes before starting: this list restrains itself to works of fiction. So, no religious texts. No Bible. No Quran. No Bhagavad Gita. It also omits political writing. No Communist Manifesto. No Little Red Book. The other important thing to keep in mind is that all numbers here are rough. Precise figures for books that are regularly reprinted and translated are hard to pin down, but this list follows the conventional numbers associated with these titles.

The result is a mix of classics of literature and modern pop culture phenomenons. Books written centuries ago, some forgotten and some beloved, and contemporary novels that have turned into cultural juggernauts.

10

She: A History Of Adventure

Written By H. Rider Haggard; Published In 1887

She: A History of Adventure is a bit of a literary paradox. The 139-year-old adventure novel isn’t widely read these days, but its historic success still lands it in the Top 10 Bestsellers ranking. It is the most obscure English-language title on this list by 2026 standards, but it was a huge success in its own 19th-century milieu, and She was also a major influence on the development of genre fiction in the 20th century.

She is still in print today, and has sold nearly 100 million copies total since 1887. Much of that figure was frontloaded, at the height of the book’s popularity, when author H. Rider Haggard helped open up new horizons for the fantasy and speculative fiction genres.

She is about the discovery of a hidden society with a powerful female ruler. It was innovative fiction for its era, but today it is more of an artifact of its time, the same kind of historical snapshot that its own characters would be obsessed with.

9

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland

Written By Lewis Carroll; Published In 1865

Now, here’s a title that has endured in the mainstream public consciousness. And not just endured; become deeply embedded in it. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland actually predates She by more than 20 years; those decades, combined with the book’s massive popularity, has helped it sell millions more copies.

The term “rabbit hole,” for a portal that takes people away from reality to someplace strange, is just one of many things Carroll’s book contributed to culture. Wonderland was an ahead-of-its-time work of surrealist literature, a pioneering children’s novel, and a philosophical coming-of-age story, just to scratch the surface of it.

Alice has become an archetype, and entire subsequent works of literature, film, and TV have come along to interpret and reinterpret Adventures in Wonderland’s themes, and plot, and imagery. If legacy = books sold, it would have a shot at the Top 3 for this list, but as it stands, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland holds down the #9 spot.

8

Dream Of The Red Chamber

Written By Cao Xueqin; Published In 1791

Dream of the Red Chamber, also known in translation as The Story of the Stone, is one of the great works of Chinese literature. Originally published in the late 1700s, Red Chamber wasn’t fully available in English for nearly two hundred years. Still, it is considered to be the most successful Chinese novel worldwide, having been translated into dozens of languages before and after its English translation appeared.

All told, Red Chamber is estimated to have sold approximately 100 million copies. In its family saga, Western readers will recognize elements of other bestsellers and all-time great works of literature, from One Hundred Years of Solitude to The Godfather.

It also has an exhaustive and maximalist style that puts postmodernists like William Gaddis and David Foster Wallace to shame. Centuries after its publication, Dream of the Red Chamber deserves to be discovered, or rediscovered, by a new generation of readers looking to expand their cultural and literary horizons.

7

And Then There Were None

Written By Agatha Christie; Published In 1939

Agatha Christie helped create the modern crime and thriller genres. And Then There Were None is a mystery masterpiece that readers are still marveling at 87 years after it first came out. The book is a proto-slasher story, following ten people as they’re lured to an island and then picked off one-by-one. The book has been the source of multiple film adaptations, and it will inevitably lead to more.

And Then There Were None is a worldwide phenomenon; that’s true of all the books listed here, to some degree or another, but Christie’s novel is arguably the best example of an English-language novel that is more popular today in translation than with English readers. (The English-language books further down this list remain massive pop culture phenomenons in English.)

That has been crucial to helping keep And Then There Were None in the Top 10. So has the fact that the novel is a common part of middle school and high school English curriculums in the U.S., meaning schools routinely bulk buy copies. And, again, it is a must-read for anyone who takes the murder mystery genre and its history seriously.

6

Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s) Stone

Written By J.K. Rowling; Published In 1997

Of course Harry Potter was going to show up on this list. It is unavoidable. What is surprising is that only one volume of J.K. Rowling’s seven-book saga makes the Top 10, and it is the first one. (That said, if this list were a Top 20, Potter would also rank #12, #14, #15, #16, #17, and #18.)

In other words, Harry Potter is #1 when it comes to the bestselling book series of all time. Only the manga One Piece is getting close enough to possibly overtake Rowling’s series. As far as individual book sales go, Philosopher’s Stone (or Sorcerer’s Stone, primarily in the U.S.) has moved somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 million copies.

Later Harry Potter books leveled off at approximately 65 million copies per novel, meaning twice as many people have just a copy of the first Potter lying around somewhere as there are readers who have the entire series lined up on their shelves.

5

The Alchemist

Written By Paulo Coelho; Published In 1988

Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is a masterpiece, the story of a protagonist who is driven by a dream to leave home in search of treasure, only to realize the treasure was at home all along. Coelho based the kernel of his novel on an old folk tale, but it’s a pattern readers will recognize in all different kinds of stories after reading The Alchemist.

Essential to securing The Alchemist such a high spot on this list is how remarkably the book retains the linguistic beauty of its original Portuguese text even when rendered in a diverse set of different world languages. It’s a beautiful novel in any tongue, which has made it a favorite across the globe and a massive bestseller.

What is amazing about The Alchemist is that it is not yet 40 years old. Besides Harry Potter, it is the most modern work of fiction on this list by far, another testament to its must-read status.

4

The Little Prince

Written By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; Published In 1943

The Little Prince is a French-language novella written while author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was living in New York, after having escaped Nazi-occupied France during World War II. The book doesn’t have the widest reach with American audiences, but all over the world it is an enormous hit and a beloved novel for generations of readers.

The Little Prince is reportedly the most widely translated work of fiction, having been published in an astonishing 600 languages. (Including Klingon. Seriously.) In France, it is a staple of early French-language education; The Little Prince has also become a popular school book in many other countries, adding scores of copies to its sales count every year.

Saint-Exupéry’s novel is part sci-fi, part mythopoetic dream, and endlessly fascinating on every single page, in whatever language readers encounter it in. And as far as sales and reader interest go, it isn’t slowing down, suggesting a future incarnation of this list might find The Little Prince cracking the Top 3.

3

The Hobbit/The Lord Of The Rings

Written By J.R.R. Tolkien; Published In 1937, 1954, & 1955

There’s no disputing that J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the bestselling authors of all time. Nor that The Lord of the Rings is among the bestselling book series of all time. But that’s where things get tricky. All the books here have been printed, and reprinted, and translated for readers worldwide. When factoring in all those things to come up with a total sales figure, though, it is the same book being counted each time.

The Lord of the Rings is famously a trilogy that was intended as one volume. Originally chopped up into three books, it is frequently reprinted, these days, in its original form as one massive tome. But that makes sales totals harder to calculate. However, making the formula even more complicated, the Rings trilogy’s predecessor text, The Hobbit is estimated to have sold over 100 million copies all by itself.

That includes editions of The Hobbit that are combined with Lord of the Rings. If Tolkien’s epic is treated as a whole, with all books counting toward overall units (as some people tabulate it) then the saga is firmly the #3 entry on this list.

2

A Tale Of Two Cities

Written By Charles Dickens; Published In 1859

A Tale of Two Cities is generally cited as the highest-selling English-language novel in history. Charles Dickens’ pioneering work of modern historical fiction is still considered to have one of the greatest opening lines in history, starting with the famous words: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

Notably, Dickens’ masterwork was originally serialized, meaning its first readers don’t even count toward the novel’s sales total. Two Cities has been published and republished perhaps more than any other book besides the #1 ranked novel here; it has also been adapted multiple times and inspired countless more stories.

A Tale of Two Cities is estimated to have sold over 200 million copies, but like with any pre-20th century publication, those numbers are a bit wonky. Even if it is off by 25% though, Two Cities would still be high up on this list.

1

Don Quixote

Written By Miguel De Cervantes; Published In 1605

Miguel De Cervantes’ Don Quixote turns 421-years-old this year, but it lives up to its reputation as the progenital modern novel in the Western canon. One way to look at it is that there’s pre-Quixote literature and post-Quixote literature. It’s one of those kinds of books. If you’ve ever heard or used the phrases ’tilting at windmills’ or ‘the pot calling the kettle black,’ or even just used the word ‘quixotic,’ you have Cervantes to thank.

Don Quixote is a hilarious and strange journey, framed as a novel-within-a-novel. It is regarded as the pinnacle of Spanish-language literature; it is a book practically every Spanish-speaking household has at least one copy of, if not more. Combined with its many translations, that’s why a massive sales total is attributed to Quixote.

Cervantes’ novel has been sold for centuries longer than the rest of the books on this list, so even if precise data isn’t available for much of its history, a large number can be extrapolated from Quixote’s ubiquity on the shelves of generations upon generations of readers. Don Quixote is also another staple of school curriculums, particularly in Spanish-speaking countries, which pumps up its numbers even further, making the book the highest selling of all time.