Best selling novel of all time?

[tabby3]

I acquired my first E-reader recently. Whilst browsing a section in the Bookstore called, Classics, I came across a title that was being promoted as the best selling novel in history: Henry Rider Haggard's 1886 novel She: A History of Adventure , with sales of over 83 million.
Curious, I looked it up on Wikipedia which said: as of 1965 with over **83 million copies sold in 44 different languages,[1] one of the best-selling books of all time.
So if She is one of the best selling novels of all time what are the others?

** That's 83,000,000 almost 50 years ago and it's still in print. I bought a copy.

 

[Octopus Messiah]

My wife and I took our militant anarchist/atheist friend Moorlock out for coffee once. The cafe had a lending library.
While I was getting the coffee his eyes bugged.
"I don't think I can frequent this establishment," he said. "They're offering the bible."
Christ, I thought, can't take this guy anywhere.
Then my wife leaned in and said, "It's okay Moorlock-- it's in the fiction section."
Good coffee.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Does this friend have a sense of humour?

 

[Octopus Messiah]

He's hilarious. Sometimes even intentionally.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Thank f- for that.

 

[tabby3]

"It's okay Moorlock-- it's in the fiction section."

With sales in the billions, no doubt.

 

[David Newrick]

This is an interesting one because there is a huge difference (especially for the author or their estate) between the biggest selling and the biggest grossing novels. Dickens has huge sales and his Tale of Two Cities is claimed to be the biggest seller with over 200 million copies sold (it helps to be on school reading lists for the past 70 years of course). Second is J. R. R. Tolkien with Lord of the Rings. Now the Tolkien estate still administers the rights to his work, including recent film rights for the companion work to LOTR, The Hobbit. So in this respect Tolkien blows Dickens out of the water for income raised.

What interested me when looking into this (thanks for raising it tabby3) is that out of the top 8 best sellers of all time 1 is in Chinese, Dream of the Red Chamber, and another is in French. The Little Prince. So that will have to be another two previously unknown novels added to my reading pile - what joy!

 

[tabby3]

This is an interesting one because there is a huge difference (especially for the author or their estate) between the biggest selling and the biggest grossing novels. Dickens has huge sales and his Tale of Two Cities is claimed to be the biggest seller with over 200 million copies sold (it helps to be on school reading lists for the past 70 years of course). Second is J. R. R. Tolkien with Lord of the Rings. Now the Tolkien estate still administers the rights to his work, including recent film rights for the companion work to LOTR, The Hobbit. So in this respect Tolkien blows Dickens out of the water for income raised.

What interested me when looking into this (thanks for raising it tabby3) is that out of the top 8 best sellers of all time 1 is in Chinese, Dream of the Red Chamber, and another is in French. The Little Prince. So that will have to be another two previously unknown novels added to my reading pile - what joy!

Now that's what I call well researched!

 

[Katie-Ellen]

The Little Prince by Antoine St Exupery is a very short read. There's an animated film of it due out in 2015.

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