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What is the best selling copyrighted book of all time?

Author

Jessica Burns

Published Mar 13, 2026

What is the best selling copyrighted book of all time?

Best-selling copyright book

Excluding non-copyright works such as the Bible (with an estimated 6 billion copies sold) and the Koran, the world's all-time best-selling book is Guinness World Records (formerly The Guinness Book of Records).

Beside this, what is the best selling book of all time besides the Bible?

He found that the Bible far outsold any other book, with a whopping 3.9 billion copies sold over the last 50 years. "Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung" came in second with 820 million copies sold, and "Harry Potter" came in third with 400 million copies sold.

Subsequently, question is, is the Bible the best selling book every year? The familiar observation that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time obscures a more startling fact: the Bible is the best-selling book of the year, every year. The amount spent annually on Bibles has been put at more than half a billion dollars. In some ways, this should not be surprising.

Correspondingly, what are the top 10 most sold books of all time?

25 Best-Selling Books of All-Time

  • #1 – Don Quixote (500 million copies sold) 2 by Miguel de Cervantes.
  • #2 – A Tale of Two Cities (200 million copies sold)
  • #3 – The Lord of the Rings (150 million copies sold)
  • #4 – The Little Prince (142 million copies sold)

What is the number 1 book of all time?

Top 100 best selling books of all time

RankTitleGenre
1Da Vinci Code,TheCrime, Thriller & Adventure
2Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsChildren's Fiction
3Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneChildren's Fiction
4Harry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixChildren's Fiction

What is the greatest book ever written?

12 Novels Considered the “Greatest Book Ever Written”
  • Anna Karenina. Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina.
  • To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird.
  • The Great Gatsby. F.
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude. Gabriel García Márquez.
  • A Passage to India. E.M. Forster.
  • Invisible Man. Ralph Ellison.
  • Don Quixote. Don Quixote.
  • Beloved. Toni Morrison.
The 20 Most Popular Books on Goodreads Right Now
  • The Library Book by Susan Orlean.
  • Verity by Colleen Hoover.
  • Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan.
  • The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides.
  • Girls of Glass by Brianna Labuskes.
  • A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult.
  • Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty.
  • Underlord by Will Wight.

What is the most difficult book to read?

Please use the comments to tell us/humble brag about the hardest book you've ever read!
  • The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
  • Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu.
  • Ulysses by James Joyce.
  • Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

Why is the Bible the most stolen book?

The Bible. Apparently, thieves missed the "Thou shalt not steal" part of the Ten Commandments. According to experts, the Bible is the most commonly stolen book. The Holy Bible is available for free at many places of worship, so perhaps there's less guilt associated with pilfering a copy.

What books should I read before I die?

Here's the full, ranked list:
  • "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee.
  • "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen.
  • "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Anne Frank.
  • "1984" by George Orwell.
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling.
  • "The Lord of the Rings" (1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien.
  • "The Great Gatsby" by F.

What are the top 50 books of all time?

The Greatest Books of All Time
  1. 1 . In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust.
  2. 2 . Ulysses by James Joyce.
  3. 3 . Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.
  4. 4 . The Great Gatsby by F.
  5. 5 . One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
  6. 6 . Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
  7. 7 . War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
  8. 8 .

What is the most purchased item in the world?

Here is a list of the top ten selling products of all time.
  • Toyota Corolla.
  • Star Wars.
  • iPad.
  • iPhone.
  • Super Mario.
  • Michael Jackso's Thriller.
  • Harry Potter.
  • Rubik's Cube. Created by the professor of architecture Erno Rubik, it is the best-selling toy till date.
10 Most Popular Books of All Time
  • Don Quixote. By Miguel de Cervantes.
  • Lord of the Rings. By J.R.R. Tolkien.
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. By J.K. Rowling.
  • And Then There Were None. By Agatha Christie.
  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. By Lewis Carroll.
  • The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. By C.S. Lewis.
  • Pinocchio. By Carlo Collodi.
  • Catcher in the Rye.

What is the most sold book in the world 2020?

These are the 20 best-selling books of all time:
  • Dream of the Red Chamber.
  • And Then There Were None.
  • Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone.
  • The Little Prince.
  • The Lord of The Rings.
  • A Tale of Two Cities. Copies Sold: 200 Million.
  • Xinhua Zidian. Copies Sold: 400 Million.
  • Don Quixote. Copies Sold: 500 Million.

Who gets royalties from the Bible?

The British Crown actually owns the copyright to the King James Bible, which has been renewed upon the accession of each succeeding monarch since King James himself. So the queen, through the auspices of Cambridge University Press, was sending him a bill, according to BBC Music Magazine.
The Bible is the most popular book in the world because it is the best book in the world. It is the best book in the world because it is the only book that convincingly claims to be inspired by God.

Are books dying?

The article said that books are dying; the research said—to me, at least—that we are a nation of readers. The glass is far more than half full. Sales of physical books have increased every year since 2013, and were up 1.3% in 2018 compared to the previous year.

Is the Bible the oldest book?

Wiki Answers reports: “the oldest book in the world is the Bible” (here). And Ask.com: “The oldest book in the world is entitled 'The Instructions of Shurupak'”, which dates from 3000 BCE (here).

Has one piece outsold the Bible?

While 454 million copies and counting is a massive achievement, especially when you consider that the first issue was released on Oct. 20, 1999, no, it hasn't outsold the Bible. The Bible has moved a whopping 5 billion copies worldwide.

Did Harry Potter outsell the Bible?

Despite the furious pace of sales, Harry Potter will still have his work cut out to catch the Bible, which, according to the Guinness Book of Records, has sold 2.5bn copies since 1815, and has been translated into 2,233 languages or dialects.