The Must-Read Classics: The 100 Most Popular Books of All Time

Here is a list of 100 of the best-selling books of all time along with some details and estimated sales figures:

The ranking of these books is based on an estimate of the number of copies sold, but it’s important to note that this is a subjective estimation and not an exact science. There could be many factors that could impact a book’s popularity and sales, such as the time period in which it was released, the target audience, marketing and promotion efforts, and so on. So while a book may have sold more copies, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is considered a “better” or more popular book than others that may have sold fewer copies. The ranking is simply a reflection of our estimation of their relative popularity based on the available information.

1. “The Bible” – estimated to have sold over 5 billion copies
2. “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung” – estimated to have sold over 800 million copies
3. “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes – estimated to have sold over 500 million copies
4. “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens – estimated to have sold over 200 million copies
5. “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien – estimated to have sold over 150 million copies
6. Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling’s magical series estimated to have sold over 500 Million copies
7. “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – estimated to have sold over 140 million copies
8. “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien – estimated to have sold over 100 million copies
9. “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie – estimated to have sold over 100 million copies
10. “Dream of the Red Chamber” by Cao Xueqin – estimated to have sold over 100 million copies
11. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis – estimated to have sold over 85 million copies
12. “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger – estimated to have sold over 65 million copies
13. “1984” by George Orwell – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
14. “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
15. “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
16. “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown – estimated to have sold over 80 million copies
17. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
18. “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri – estimated to have sold over 100 million copies
19. “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho – estimated to have sold over 65 million copies
20. “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank – estimated to have sold over 30 million copies
21. “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein – estimated to have sold over 20 million copies
22. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams – estimated to have sold over 15 million copies
23. “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas – estimated to have sold over 20 million copies
24. “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald – estimated to have sold over 25 million copies
25. “Animal Farm” by George Orwell – estimated to have sold over 20 million copies
26. “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White – estimated to have sold over 45 million copies
27. “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck – estimated to have sold over 15 million copies
28. “The Odyssey” by Homer – estimated to have sold over 20 million copies
29. “The Iliad” by Homer – estimated to have sold over 20 million copies
30. “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde – estimated to have sold over 20 million copies
31. “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
32. “Black Beauty” by Anna Sewell – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
33. “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London – estimated to have sold over 15 million copies
34. “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown has sold over 80 million copies

33. “The Silence of the Lambs” by Thomas Harris – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
34. “The Wretched of the Earth” by Frantz Fanon – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
35. “Dune” by Frank Herbert – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
36. “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale” by Herman Melville – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
37. “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies

38. “The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
39. “The Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoevsky – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
40. “The Pearl” by John Steinbeck – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
41. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley – estimated to have sold over 20 million copies
42. “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
43. “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
44. “The Inferno” by Dante Alighieri – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
45. “The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio” by Dante Alighieri – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
46. “The Divine Comedy: Paradiso” by Dante Alighieri – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
47. “The Souls of Black Folk” by W.E.B. Du Bois – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
48. “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
49. “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath – estimated to have sold over 5 million copies
50. “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston – estimated to have sold over 5 million copies
51. “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
52. “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – estimated to have sold over 5 million copies
53. “The Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
54. “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
55. “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Ernest Hemingway – estimated to have sold over 5 million copies
56. “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
57. “The Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tzu – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
58. “The Analects of Confucius” – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
59. “The Republic” by Plato – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
60. “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
61. “The Nicomachean Ethics” by Aristotle – estimated to have sold over 5 million copies
62. “The Symposium” by Plato – estimated to have sold over 5 million copies
63. “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius – estimated to have sold over 5 million copies
64. “The Apology” by Plato – estimated to have sold over 5 million copies

65. “The Bhagavad Gita” – estimated to have sold over 5 million copies

66. “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
67. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams – estimated to have sold over 15 million copies
68. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis – estimated to have sold over 85 million copies
69. “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White – estimated to have sold over 45 million copies
70. “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
71. “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
72. “Black Beauty” by Anna Sewell – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
73. “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
74. “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
75. “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London – estimated to have sold over 15 million copies
76. “The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
77. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll – estimated to have sold over 15 million copies
78. “Winnie-the-Pooh” by A.A. Milne – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
79. “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien – estimated to have sold over 100 million copies
80. “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien – estimated to have sold over 150 million copies
81. “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee – estimated to have sold over 40 million copies
82. “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell – estimated to have sold over 30 million copies
83. “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald – estimated to have sold over 25 million copies
84. “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck – estimated to have sold over 15 million copies
85. “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger – estimated to have sold over 65 million copies
86. “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank – estimated to have sold over 30 million copies
87. “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde – estimated to have sold over 20 million copies
88. “Dracula” by Bram Stoker – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
89. “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
90. “The War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
91. “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
92. “The Invisible Man” by H.G. Wells – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
93. “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” by Arthur Conan Doyle – estimated to have sold over 50 million copies
94. “The Hound of the Baskervilles” by Arthur Conan Doyle – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
95. “The Return of Sherlock Holmes” by Arthur Conan Doyle – estimated to have sold over 10 million copies
96. “Rebecca” by Daphne du Maurier – estimated to have sold over 20 million copies
97. “Animal Farm” by George Orwell – estimated to have sold over 20 million copies
98. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley – estimated to have sold over 20 million copies.
99. “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger – estimated to have sold over 65 million copies
100. “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank – estimated to have sold over 30 million copies.