You love reading books. Right? Every book conveys different messages intertwine with sentiments like love, hate, sympathy, terror, and delight. Books tell us the stories of different times, places, and accents. By reading books, we travel through space and time irrespective of the dimensions. There are millions of books in the world yet there are only a few ones who left their ineradicable marks on our memories. Well, we’ll talk about some of the rare and golden volumes that have the privilege to be the best-selling books of all time.
In this article, we have covered the top 10 best-selling books of all time. Let’s get straight into it.
1- Don Quixote
The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, with its eye-watering 500 million sales tops our list of top 10 best-selling books of all time. This Spanish novel was crafted by Miguel de Cervantes. This novel was first published in the 17th century in two parts. Don Quixote is also considered the “first modern novel” and is thought to be the most influential work in Spanish literature. Written in the early 1600s, this fictional novel focuses on parody, satire, and romance.
2- A Tale of Two Cities
Next on our list is A Tale of Two Cities. This historical novel was written by Charles Dickens in 1959. The idea behind this book was the eighteen-year imprisonment of a French doctor, Manette in Paris and his release after all. A tale of two cities is considered as one of the best pieces of art by Dickens. This historical fiction cum social criticism novel has sold over 200 million copies over time and is claimed to be one of the bestselling novels of all time.
3- The lord of rings
In the third place is The Lord of Rings and was written by J.R.R. Tolkien. The book was a sequel to the Tolkien children’s book The Hobbit. Three films were directed on the story of this high fantasy novel by Peter Jackson in the 2000s: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Till today, The Lord of Rings had sold over 150 million copies, translated into more than 35 languages. This novel was awarded many times including Britain’s best novel of all time in BBC’s The Big Read.
4- The Little Prince
The Little Prince depicts children’s literature and fantasy. It was written by the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery. This book has sold over 140 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling and most published children’s literature books. The story casts a boy who goes to different planets in space and spreads the message of love, loneliness, friendship, and loss. This story has been brought out on T.V, radio. Audio recordings, ballet, and opera.
5- Harry Potter and The Philosopher Stone
The novel that brought J. J. Rowling on the zenith of success was Harry Potter and The Philosopher Stone. The Philosopher Stone was also the debutant novel of Rowling in the Harry Potter series. The plot of this novel revolves around a young wizard, Harry Potter, who found his lost magic on his eleventh birthday when he got admission to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This debut novel has sold over 120 million copies and was translated into more than 70 languages worldwide. It was the top-list book of the New York Times best-selling fiction in 1999.
6- Dream of Red Chamber
Next on the list is Dream of Red Chamber, also called The Story of the Stone or Hongloumeng in Chinese. It was written in the mid-18th century by Cao Xueqin during the Qing dynasty. The story of this novel revolves around Xueqin family life and is considered a kind of semi-autobiography. In this book, he described the rise and fall of his family as well as the Qing dynasty. To date, this novel has sold more than 100 million copies and is appraised as one of China’s four great classical novels.
7- The Hobbit
This child fantasy novel, The Hobbit, was written by J. R. R. Tolkien. This novel was first published in 1937 only to receive wide public acclaim and praise. It was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and also was awarded a prize from New York Herald Tribune. Later on, a series of the film was also made on this novel that was one of the high grossing films of all time. The plot of this novel involves a hobbit; Bilbo Baggins who used to live in a hole comfortably. One day, his pied-a-terre was discovered by an old wizard Gandalf who set him on an adventure. This novel has sold over 100 million copies till today.
8- And Then There Were None
Coming in at number 8 of our top 10 best-selling books of all time is And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. This book has sold over 100 million copies to this day. And Then There Were None is a mystery novel and is considered as one of the world’s best-selling mystery novels. Christie’s this masterpiece was first published in Collins Crime Club in 1939 under the title of Ten Little Niggers. The concept behind this novel was ten strangers who were called to a strange island only to found that their host is nowhere there. All the guests were accused of murder and were killed one by one, leaving two people alive at the end. The story of this novel is full of suspense and mystery.
9- She: A History of Adventure
Next on the list of top 10 best-selling books of all the time is She: A History of Adventure. The novel was written by an English novelist H. Rider Haggard, that receive a lot of public praise when was published in 1887 for the first time. This novel depicts a first-person narrative that involves Horace Holly and Leo Vincey who find a lost city while traveling through Africa. Haggard wrote this novel as she was inspired by the British colonist. This novel never went out of print once it was published for the first time. She is vivid yet a remarkable example of woman empowerment and female authority.
10- The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe
Last but not least is The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe written by C.S. Lewis and was published by Geoffrey Bles in 1950. This children fantasy novel’s story comprises four children; lucy and her 3 siblings. The plot of this novel was set in Narnia that was an island of mystical creatures and talking animals under the rule of an evil White Witch. According to Lewis, he wrote this book for his goddaughter, Lucy Lewis. This novel was featured in Times Magazines along with ranked at 9th position in the BBC’s The Bog Red Poll. It has sold over 85 million copies to date.
Conclusion
According to Guinness World Records, Bible is the best-selling book of all the time with more than 5-billion copies, then comes The Quran with 800-million copies. Among other non-religious books, Mao Tse-Tung’s Xinhua Zidian tops the list of best-selling books of all time with approximately 800 million-6.5 billion sales. But we didn’t include these volumes in our list of best-selling books because of many untold and untraced prints of the books. We don’t have the exact figures for these books. Millions of editions have been distributed without any record. Nonetheless, we made the list of the top 10 best-selling books of all time, based on the exact facts and figures. We hope you liked and enjoyed this article.
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