What is the best-selling novel of all time?
There is no reliable answer, but Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes is often called the best-selling novel ever. A Tale of Two Cities and The Little Prince are also near the top of most lists.
Sales of very old books are hard to measure, because they have been printed for centuries by many publishers in many languages. Don Quixote, published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, is often estimated to have sold more than 500 million copies, though this figure is widely repeated without solid evidence. It is considered one of the first modern novels.
Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, published in 1859, is often estimated at about 200 million copies. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, from 1943, is one of the most translated books in the world, available in hundreds of languages. Its sales are also estimated at well over 100 million.
More recent best-sellers
Among modern novels with better sales data, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None have each sold more than 100 million copies.
Did You Know?
Don Quixote's phrase tilting at windmills, meaning fighting imaginary enemies, comes from a scene in which the hero attacks windmills he believes are giants.