The number of copies sold is a direct, clear, and easy way to understand a book’s wide reach.
The chart above ranks the best-selling individual books of all time that have sold at least 60 million copies, based on data sourced from Wikipedia.
A very striking insight from the data is that J.K. Rowling accounts for seven of the nineteen best-selling books in the Harry Potter series, with a combined total of approximately 577 million copies.
Meanwhile, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens leads all individual books with more than 200 million copies sold since 1859.
Also worth noting: Fantasy is the dominant genre, with 12 of 19 entries, while only 4 books were originally written in a language other than English.
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| wdt_ID | wdt_created_by | wdt_created_at | wdt_last_edited_by | wdt_last_edited_at | Book | Author | Language | Published | Sales | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | English | 1859 | >200 million | Historical fiction |
| 2 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | The Little Prince | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | French | 1943 | 200 million | Fantasy |
| 3 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | The Alchemist | Paulo Coelho | Portuguese | 1988 | 150 million | Fantasy |
| 4 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | J.K. Rowling | English | 1997 | 120 million | Fantasy |
| 5 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | And Then There Were None | Agatha Christie | English | 1939 | 100 million | Mystery |
| 6 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | Dream of the Red Chamber | Cao Xueqin | Chinese | 1791 | 100 million | Family saga |
| 7 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | The Hobbit | J.R.R. Tolkien | English | 1937 | 100 million | Fantasy/children's |
| 8 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll | English | 1865 | 100 million | Fantasy/absurdist |
| 9 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | She: A History of Adventure | H. Rider Haggard | English | 1887 | 83 million | Adventure |
| 10 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 31/08/2026 02:13 PM | The Da Vinci Code | Dan Brown | English | 2003 | 80 million | Mystery thriller |
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