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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 62.28.213.230 (talk) at 08:35, 16 July 2023. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Missing books

Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrim's Progress are both missing from the list. And both are said to be the second best selling books after the Bible in all of human history. I don't have the precise numbers but maybe someone with more knowledge can look in to this and add them to the lost where they belong? 213.83.133.98 (talk) 07:38, 27 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This shows up on popular websites like https://www.knowledgesnacks.com/articles/the-10-best-selling-novels-of-all-time/#:~:text=The%20Pilgrim%E2%80%99s%20Progress.%20250%20million%20copies%20sold.%20Four,Altemus%20edition%20of%201890.%20%28Photo%3A%20Wikimedia%20%2FPublic%20domain%29, but I haven't run across a usable source yet. I expect it might be true, though production numbers for these are likely lower in the last few years. eleuthero (talk) 04:29, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Don Quixote with 500 million copies : no reliable, independent sources.

This statement in this article is repeated many times on the internet, but where are the sources?

The claim is supported by a single Wikipédia source, an article by FOXBusiness which states that “The Cervantes Institute, a Spanish public institution created in 1991 to support teaching Spanish and Spain's vernacular languages, have said it is the most translated book after the Bible."

But google searches likes “site:cervantes.es most translated book after the Bible” finds no results.

Extensive research on google and in particular google scholar did not allow me to find reliable sources on the hypothesis of Don Quixote as the best-selling individual book.

I think it would be wise to follow the introduction to the Wikipedia article which states "This list is incomplete because there are many books, such as The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas,[1] Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes ,[2] and The Lord of the Rings[3] [...] that lack comprehensive sales figures”.

And therefore to remove the statement of Don Quixote with 500 million approximate sales. Bernhard Brigge (talk) 15:48, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently the NYTimes stated the 500 million copies figure around 2010[1]. Fram (talk) 08:24, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well found, but where the original nytimes article? And the Nytimes sources?
Don Quixote is a 500 year old book. We can know the sales of its most recent editions, but its total sales is a incredible claim. The editorial world only allows this monitoring over the last two centuries, and even then. You might as well give a number for the Bible. Let's accept our ignorance. Bernhard Brigge (talk) 14:12, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

LOTR

The main page for LOTR states that it has sold over 150 million. If Don Quixotes estimate is included in the list of over 100 million, I don’t see why we can’t also include the LOTR estimate. 2603:6010:11F0:3C0:D80E:D3BA:EFAE:8CD1 (talk) 03:10, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's explained in the first paragraph of the lead. CodeTalker (talk) 15:23, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is a dilemma: Don Quixote is quoted in this paragraph as a book that lack comprehensive sales figures and cannot be in the list. But it is still included in the list with a unreliable source...
I decide to remove it to be consistent. Let's discuss here if that's a problem. Bernhard Brigge (talk) 12:55, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Bible

The opening correctly references that the Bible is the best-selling book of all-time, but then it is not listed in the categories of best-selling books. It should be listed. Keystone18 (talk) 23:00, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please read the last sentence of the paragraph you refer to: All books of a religious, ideological, philosophical or political nature have thus been excluded from the below lists of best-selling books for these reasons. CodeTalker (talk) 00:12, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Frank Herbert's Dune series

I am not a Wikipedia author, so I leave that to the experts. However, the Dune series should probably be included within the "book series" category. The first book in the 7 book series by Herbert is listed on the page with a sales total of 20,000,000. The others are likely less, but would definitely bump this series much higher as a whole. There have also been maybe another twenty books published within the same universe since the author's death by his son, Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson. 184.152.35.170 (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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