List of best-selling books
This page provides lists of best-selling individual books and book series to date and in any language. "Best selling" refers to the estimated number of copies sold of each book, rather than the number of books printed or currently owned. Comics and textbooks are not included in this list. The books are listed according to the highest sales estimate as reported in reliable, independent sources. This list is incomplete because there are many books, such as Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, or A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, that are commonly cited as "best-selling books" yet have no reliable sales figures.
According to Guinness World Records as of 1995, the Bible is the best-selling book of all time, with an estimated 5billion copies sold and distributed. The Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, also known as the Little Red Book, has produced a wide array of sales and distribution figures — with estimates ranging from 800million to over 6.5 billion printed volumes, with some claiming the distribution ran into the "billions" and some citing "over a billion" official volumes between 1966 and 1969 alone as well as "untold numbers of unofficial local reprints and unofficial translations." Exact print figures for these and other books may also be missing or unreliable since these kinds of books may be produced by many different and unrelated publishers, in some cases over many centuries. All books of a religious, ideological, philosophical or political nature have thus been excluded from the below lists of best-selling books for these reasons.
Having sold more than 500 million copies worldwide, Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling is the best-selling book series in history. The first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, has sold in excess of 120 million copies, making it one of the best-selling books of all time. As of June 2017, the series has been translated into 80 languages, placing Harry Potter among history's most translated literary works. The last four books in the series consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books of all time, where the final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, sold roughly fifteen million copies worldwide within twenty-four hours of its release. With twelve million books printed in the first U.S. run, it also holds the record for the highest initial print run for any book in history.
Key
List of best-selling individual books
More than 100 million copies
| Book | Author | Original language | First published | Approximate sales | Genre |
| A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | English | 1859 | 200 million | Historical fiction |
| The Little Prince | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | French | 1943 | 150 million | fantasy |
| Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | J. K. Rowling | English | 1997 | 120 million | fantasy, mystery |
| The Hobbit | J. R. R. Tolkien | English | 1937 | 100+ million | fantasy |
| And Then There Were None | Agatha Christie | English | 1939 | 100 million | mystery |
| Dream of the Red Chamber | Cao Xueqin | Chinese | 1791 | 100 million | family saga |