Talk:List of best-selling books/Archive 5

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Rick Warren The Purpose Driven Life has sold 50M copies, not 34M

See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purpose_Driven_Life#Reception

and

"Warren, 66, who has more than 11 million social media followers, has written eight books including “The Purpose Driven Life,” which has sold nearly 40 million copies in English, according to Publisher’s Weekly.

According to Zondervan, the book’s publisher, “The Purpose Driven Life” is still selling millions of copies 17 years after it was released, and it just passed 50 million sold in English."

https://www.dailynews.com/2020/04/12/saddleback-church-pastor-rick-warrens-easter-message-during-coronavirus-pandemic-on-faith-that-works-when-life-doesnt/

Publisher Simon & Schuster are also going with the 50M figure. https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Rick-Warren/39904606

Time magazine are going with the 50M as well http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1884038,00.html

50M is also the number the author is going with on his LinkedIn page, as I write: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pastorrickwarren/

Lauchlanmack (talk) 08:40, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I updated the entry to 50M and gave citations, it needs to be moved to the right section for 50M+ though. Lauchlanmack (talk) 08:36, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

ok, I moved it to the right section. Lauchlanmack (talk) 09:15, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I have reverted your recent changes. We don't accept figures from the author or the publisher, they need to come from secondary sources. And we certainly don't calculate current figures based on a combination of claims and the number of months or years that have passed since. Please stick to good quality secondary sources, just like other entries on here have (I hope, this list tends to deteriorate over time a bit). Fram (talk) 11:49, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

What secondary sources would actually know how many copies were sold?

The current citation cites Publishers Weekly to get the 33M. But the article does not specify where it got its sales numbers information for the book from. So effectively it's speculation - we're taking its word for it.

The link from the Los Angeles Daily News I gave cites a figure of 50M in sales and DOES specify where the number comes from. The publisher.

It sounds like you are saying a citation with no evidence of where the number comes from is stronger than one that does, if that information comes from the publisher.

Personally I don't know of any source that publishes accurate numbers for total books sold. But I'd prefer a source that at least tells me how it got its data over one that didn't.

In any case, couldn't you have just "fixed" the issue you were concerned with rather than rolling everything else back? The fact that you rolled back all the changes I made to the ordering of the books with 50M sales is disheartening. Often I wonder why I bother helping out on Wikipedia. Lauchlanmack (talk) 12:48, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

For example, you also rolled back the changes to How To Win Friends And Influence People (above), where I listed sources such as the New York Times and Time Magazine citing 30M in sales, not the 15M listed here. I'm not going to redo my changes, the site can keep going with the incorrect numbers you rolled back to until someone else updates it. Lauchlanmack (talk) 12:55, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Actually, for "How to Win Friends", you cited a 1986 NYTimes article[1] stating "more than 20 million", and a 2011 article[2] citing 30 million, and then calculated based on guesses what the number would be by now. That's not how these things should be done, we go with what the reliable sources say, and give the date they said it, and don't calculate what the current number then might be. Basically, "How to win" should be updated to 30 miilion with the 2011 source, unless we find a more recent reliable source. For "Purpose", you had a quote stating "Nearly 50 million people read The Purpose Driven Life", which is not usable to claim that 50 million copies had been sold. And your other source flatly contradicts your change, stating "Warren, 66, who has more than 11 million social media followers, has written eight books including “The Purpose Driven Life,” which has sold nearly 40 million copies in English, according to Publisher’s Weekly."[3]. Publisher's weekly is an independent source, the actual publisher is a biased, primary source (which doesn't mean that their figures are wrong, only that they are not acceptable for our purposes). When you have in one article, in two consecutive lines, two sources stating such different figures (40 million vs. 50 million), then we take the number from the neutral authority (publisher's weekly), not the one from the source with a financial interest in the sales. Fram (talk) 13:21, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

How To Win Friends: Exactly. The 2011 article and the Time article said 30M. I used the earlier 1986 article and the lifetime sales over period to calculate the annual sales and likely current sales. So say you disallow the calculation, that's fair enough, but you've still got a solid citation for the 30M. Why didn't you just run with that rather than downgrade it to an even more inaccurate 15M?

Purpose Driven Life: Time Magazine say 50M and give no source, as per the reference I gave. http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1884038,00.html Why would you accept the Publisher Weekly citation with no indication of where they got their data from and not accept the Time citation with no indication of where they got their data from? Both are secondary sources. Lauchlanmack (talk) 14:00, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Correction, Time cite Readers Digest a partner with Warren's publisher. So I can see why you might disallow that one also. Lauchlanmack (talk) 14:02, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Newsmax have https://www.newsmax.com/bestlists/christian-nonfiction-authors-list/2018/02/13/id/843019/ - "Rick Warren’s blockbuster book “The Purpose Driven Life” has sold more than 50 million copies, prompting TIME to name him one of “the 100 most influential people in the world.” Zondervan plans to release a “50 millionth copy edition” of the book later this year, Warren told Newsmax. Gallup and Barna Group polls found 16 percent of Americans — or 60 million people — have read it." Would Newsmax's citation that it's sold 50M copies be acceptable for Wikipedia purposes? It doesn't say they got that from the publisher (they probably did though) bu it does say Warren said the publisher is planning a 50th anniversary edition - but that part is Warren so is highly biased. It also cites a survey (which I can't find online) which puts it in that ballpark.

I find this all very blurry since ultimately the publisher is the only entity that is likely to have any real idea how many copies were sold across the years across print, kindle, audio formats and in various languages. So ultimately it would seem the total sales numbers sort of really comes down to the publisher anyway to collate and provide this information, but we are looking to someone else respectable to say the publisher's number for us, and it depends if we consider a particular publisher trustworthy or not. Lauchlanmack (talk) 14:27, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Or what do you do with something like this - https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2018/February-2018/Kay-Warren-Rick-and-I-fought-about-money-and-sex-before-Christian-counselling-saved-our-marriage - it says 50M, but offers no source, and is in the context of an article interviewing his wife. And it's not a top-tier publication, at least to the secular world. Lauchlanmack (talk) 14:39, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The number of copies is irrelevant, the book is religious and ideological which violates the article's rules for what books are included in the lists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.115.239.50 (talk) 18:25, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Disputing the validity of the best-selling book series

While it is extremely difficult to attain an accurate estimate of book sales figures, the list of best-selling book series has possibly curiously omitted the #1 entrant. It is widely believed that Agatha Christie is the best selling novelist of all time with over 2 Billion copies sold in 103 languages. She wrote 66 novels of which 33 were a series based on the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. One could extrapolate the figures based on this and assume that the Poirot Crime series far surpasses R K Rowling's Harry Potter by at least a factor of 2:1. Yet, the author made no mention of Agatha Christie anywhere in the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jatlantica (talk • contribs) 15:46, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

References

What's the sequencing principle for titles with the same volume of sales?

For books that sold over 50M copies, these are all currently listed as having sold 50M copies. This is the sequence in the list:

• You Can Heal Your Life Louise Hay English 1984 50 million[35] self-improvement
• One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) Gabriel García Márquez Spanish 1967 50 million[36][37][38] magic realism
• Lolita Vladimir Nabokov English 1955 50 million[39] general
• Heidi Johanna Spyri German 1880 50 million[40] children's fiction
• The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care Dr. Benjamin Spock English 1946 50 million[41] manual
• Anne of Green Gables Lucy Maud Montgomery English 1908 50 million[42] general
• Black Beauty Anna Sewell English 1877 50 million[43] children's literature
• The Name of the Rose (Il Nome della Rosa) Umberto Eco Italian 1980 50 million[44] historical novel, mystery
• The Eagle Has Landed Jack Higgins English 1975 50 million[45] war, thriller
• Watership Down Richard Adams English 1972 50 million[46] fantasy
• The Hite Report Shere Hite English 1976 50 million[47]
• Charlotte's Web E.B. White; illustrated by Garth Williams English 1952 50 million[48] children's fiction
• The Ginger Man J. P. Donleavy English 1955 50 million[49]

As far as I can see:

They are not ordered by number of copies sold (that's the same for all of them).

They are not ordered chronologically, ascending or descending.

They are not ordered alphabetically by title, ascending or descending.

They are not ordered alphabetically by author surname or first name, ascending or descending.

What is the sequencing principle here - just jumble them up randomly?

Lauchlanmack (talk) 13:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Generally, as it seems to be in Help:Sorting, an alphabetical sorting should be a default, but there have been localized exceptions. Some places may sort by date such as alumni lists or records (first of something happening to last). This is something that can be discussed and decided here. If there is a definitive multi-column sorting guideline then we should go by that, but really did not find one. Using the default, I'd say go with Title Case alphabetization within the same sales volume.--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 00:21, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Alphabetical listing by what? I suggest author surname ... and if there's a tie then firstname, and if there's a further tie then book title ... what do you think? Lauchlanmack (talk) 08:15, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

ok, I figured out how to do the reordering. I ordered them chronologically for the books with 50M sales, as that seemed more interesting:

• Black Beauty Anna Sewell English 1877 50 million[34] children's literature
• Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ Lew Wallace English 1880 50 million[35] historical
• Heidi Johanna Spyri German 1880 50 million[36] children's fiction
• Anne of Green Gables Lucy Maud Montgomery English 1908 50 million[37] general
• The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care Dr. Benjamin Spock English 1946 50 million[38] manual
• Charlotte's Web E.B. White; illustrated by Garth Williams English 1952 50 million[39] children's fiction
• The Ginger Man J. P. Donleavy English 1955 50 million[40]
• Lolita Vladimir Nabokov English 1955 50 million[41] general
• One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) Gabriel García Márquez Spanish 1967 50 million[42][43][44] magic realism
• Watership Down Richard Adams English 1972 50 million[45] fantasy
• The Eagle Has Landed Jack Higgins English 1975 50 million[46] war, thriller
• The Hite Report Shere Hite English 1976 50 million[47]
• The Name of the Rose (Il Nome della Rosa) Umberto Eco Italian 1980 50 million[48] historical novel, mystery
• You Can Heal Your Life Louise Hay English 1984 50 million[49] self-improvement
• The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren English 2002 50 million[50][51][52] self-improvement

Lauchlanmack (talk) 09:13, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I made the changes but it was rolled back by someone else as part of a bulk rollback of multiple changes I made. See the Rick Warren Purpose Driven Life discussion above. If someone else can be bothered to update this please go ahead and hopefully you won't get it rolled back that time. Lauchlanmack (talk) 13:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I have resorted the list into chronological publication date as that seemed the most sensible (and then discovered this discussion), I would hope that my edit is not reverted for this or the other correction I made (the title of "The Hite Report" to "The Hite Report on Female Sexuality" - there are other "The Hite Report"... at least four in fact and the sales figures are not for those and this list is for individual books anyway - I also added it under the psychology genre for want of a better idea - feel free to edit to something more accraute if you know better) and adding "The Ginger Man" as being in the general genre... difficult to work out what else to put it under. I have used Author's surname as a secondary if books were published in the same year. *<:@) - 2020/05/27 22:27.32 (JST) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.125.41.18 (talk) 13:28, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Looks like my edit might well also be reverted due to someone deciding that "The Hite Report" publishd in 1976 is an extant book (which it is not) and that the citation that refers to "The Hite Report on Female Sexuality" is a reasonable citation for that incorrect title (or, arguably, series - which should NOT be list here)... if anyone else wants to fight an edit dick then feel free but given their talk page you"re gonna have an uphill struggle... full of complaints and fights apparently due to lack of attention or knowledge on the part of the reverted, sorry, "editor" - didn't do anything constructive in my opinion so doesn't deserve the title. *<:@) 14:10, 27 May 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.125.41.18 (talk)

Yup - my stuff got reverted... all the format improvements and corrections because Playboy dubbed a book by the wrong title and some idiot made a page based on the wrong title which was then linked to the author's name anyway and isn't even a page of its own... I give up; what's the point of trying to improve this resource when your hour of work gets reverted by idiots in seconds to make things demonstrably worse... they even claims his resoning was falacious but won't do anything to fix the problems here highlighted!!! Just WOW. Oh, and they didn't read this talk page before reverting all the changes wholesale either... *<:@) 14:26, 27 May 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.125.41.18 (talk)

E-books

Should E book figures be included? As such should downloads from the Guttenberg Project or Google Books also be considered? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.34.161 (talk) 06:09, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Bible exclusion - disputed reliability of the list

Exclusion of Bible and Quran makes this list unreliable in my opinion, these are the top ranked except for the Little Red Book that all Chinese had to have (or else...). These books are the best documented throughout human history, sometimes better than the contemporary ones, as can be seen on the example of the disputed The Little Prince's figure of sold copies on its talk wiki. Thus, I would say it is recommendable in order to keep the list reliable to put the verified numbers and books on the list instead of those disputable, as The Little Prince ("selling over a million copies per year with sales in various media totaling from 140 million to 200 million copies worldwide" from Wiki talkpage of The Little Prince). Shall we bring back the old dusty book on the list? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Starasta1 (talk • contribs) 00:40, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

The Bible and Quran were forced on alot of people, and arguable most of their copies were given away for free so are they best selling? or just most widely distributed? For example niether of them sure up in this accurate list of Point of Sale data between 1998 and 2011 https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jan/01/top-100-books-of-all-time#data — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.34.161 (talk) 06:17, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Similarly this data for 2010-2019 https://www.prweb.com/releases/fifty_shades_of_grey_was_the_best_selling_book_of_the_decade_in_the_u_s_the_npd_group_says/prweb16796783.htm

Doesn't show either the Quran or Bible having sold highly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.34.161 (talk) 06:28, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Don Quixote sources

There is a concern that the sources for Don Quixote sales figures are inaccurate.

This ties into a larger issue of whether estimations, other academic reckonings, or self reporting by authors, publishers and books stores of the sales of older books are a valid source or if only accurate modern POS data should be used as a source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.34.161 (talk) 05:55, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

This is why I have undone the misleading changes based on these sources. In fact, some of the sources do not support Don Quixote's sales numbers at all, some do not have this information and some CLAIM THE OPPOSITE. The same applies to Dickens A Tale of Two Cities. Please read my comment in Pilgrims and Don Quixote talk section from 5:03 of 3rd July 2020 in which I explain why I had to undo them.Starasta1 (talk) 17:20, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Numbers

Given the issues around numbers and the fact that top selling books don't seem to agree on the numbers. I just added a telegraph source but it doesn't include harry potter which seems odd. Would it be easier to move to just listing books based on their Point of Sale records though this will only go back to the 90s it will be accurate, unlike all the preceeding records? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.34.161 (talk) 20:27, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Pilgrims Progress and Don Quixote

I have removed one and will remove the other.

We do not have reliable sources on the level of sales of these books (or Dickens' books).

Don Quixote cited a Google snippet of a children's book, almost certainly using figures copied from here.

Pilgrims Progress cites this which cites us, this film review which has no sources (probaby us again) and [ https://www.newsmax.com/bestlists/greatest-christian-books-list/2017/11/01/id/823347/ this] (sourced to "it is said") claiming 250 million copies.

It is not impossible that either of these titles have sold a very large number of copies, but we have no reliable source, partly because they have both been in print for several centuries, indeed not only are they out of copyright, but were published before copyright existed in the form we know it today.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:26, 1 September 2019 (UTC).

By that logic then any book published prior to the Book Sense and similiar point of sale recording system should be considered unreliable as the data will rely on book store self reporting and as with all retail self reporting it was notoriously unreliable.

Then, this article is absurd, because every single source on it is a pure estimación as we can ser when click — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.4.198.111 (talk) 12:24, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Items which have no reliable sources, should be removed. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:55, 14 January 2020 (UTC).

I find deeply questionable to avoid putting Don Quixote at the top of the list. The idea of "realiable" sources restricts the list basically to 20th century literature, which is deeply arbitrary. Don Quixote is top of the list in multiple lists and serious sources with an estimate of over 500 millions copies sold in four centuries, not only on a "Google snippet". The lack of the first modern novel at the top of the list, in my view, erases all credibility to the list as it currently is. Agar73 (talk) 02:59, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Agree. The whole article must be removed. The sources refered are websites with no credibility. Someone, somehow, somewhere makes an estimation and put it on a web: that's a source and we've got a reference! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.61.112.105 (talk) 23:54, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough Do remember you don't own this article, so it is not for you to arbite what is a reliable source, what is the bar for entry nor what belongs on the list in general. If an entry is cited please do not delete. Please respect that consensus appears to be repeatedly against you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.34.161 (talk • contribs) 09:05, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

The sources (How Stuff Works and Vic News) supposedly backing up Don Quixote and A Tale of Two Cities do not support the claimed sold numbers - on the contrary, they claim these numbers to very controversial. Thus, the recent changes to the list have been manually undone and reverted back to the last properly supported version of this wikipage. The mentioned sources have been incorporated in the introduction to show that the mentioned above titles have no solid researched sold copies data. The above argument between moderators had become personal. Starasta1 (talk) 12:45, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Dickens has over twelve references including from the BBC for its figure. Two of its references are also used for the Hobbit. If we are saying all of those figures are unreliable, which would appear to be original research, then what data is reliable? only sales made with modern POS systems? so since the 90s? I am not opposed to that approach necessarily but I think their needs to be consistent rigour applied to all the entries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.34.161 (talk) 05:44, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Undone misleading changes to the list and sources, performed again by one ^^ editor. Most of the sources supposedly supporting Don Quixote and A Tale of Two Cities' numbers as was mentioned before - claim these numbers to be controversial, and impossible to verify. Why is someone putting such sources up? They are not even debatable when they claim the contrary. Unfortunately, with all due respect to Miguel Cervantes, and Charles Dickens - their works are classic, nobody denies that, but this is an academic article and needs to be researched properly and all its sources verified thoroughly. I know that lots of students make use of wiki pages like this, so it's just unfair to mislead them like one person does. It seems that despite the odd behaviour the person is still allowed to moderate this international wiki page. In order to show to what extent these 'sources' are unreliable and how to tell which sources are more credible, and which aren't at all, I will present direct quotations and analysis of these links:

-https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/literature/21-best-sellers1.htm Don Quixote: "There is, of course, no way to tally sales from the 1600s, so although some sources suggest that this has sold 500 million copies, there's no way anyone could know for certain." So how come should we treat the 500 mln number as reliable? Where's the logic in it? A Tale of Two Cities: "Because this book is in the public domain and has been published in numerous editions by hundreds of publishers over the last 150 years, it's impossible to ascertain the exact number of copies sold. The number 200 million is controversial..." Besides, this is clearly an entertainment/community post rather than a serious news article, it belongs to the same category of posts as the following source:

-https://www.vicnews.com/community/don-quixote-is-the-worlds-best-selling-book/ Community post, right next to posts like: "‘Tarantula moth’ spotted in broad daylight in Victoria" How reliable do you think this is? None at all if you check the given in it sales numbers of other positions - The Little Prince, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter numbers are ALL inaccurate, according many actual sources, including the ones present at this wiki page, it's easy to check this. An honest moderator always double-checks credibility of the websites and sources he presents, not only the data pertaining to one book/serie/author. If you check the article and its sources, you will find out easily that the data from vicnews.com is cited directly from an infographic from a blog (https://geediting.com/world-reading-habits/)! Thus, this source is completely unreliable and should be treated as such.

-The same applies to another source for Don Quixote and A Tale of Two Cities: https://www.stylist.co.uk/books/the-all-time-most-popular-books-in-the-world-revealed/127306 The data is inaccurate, as you might have had expected of a copy-paste form an infographic from a blog. The article states: "You can view the original infographic by lovereading.co.uk below." Owing to such unreliable 'sources' the reader may discover what is common knowledge in literature studies,i.e. older positions, despite being great classics, like Don Quixote, or A Tale of Two Cities, lack the sales data to support their plausible sales figures and thus cannot be objectively compared to any others, unfortunately.

-Another sources, BBC Entertainment & Arts article (https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28854998) should be more credible, right? Unfortunately not so much it seems after double-checking. It does not upfront state what the previous moderator claims - it cautiously says: "A Tale of Two Cities is believed to be the best-selling novel of all time, having sold more than 200 million copies." Thus, we may see that BBC is fair here, it says they don't have the sales numbers, but this can be told only if we read carefully the piece.

-The Telegraph perhaps has it, then? Unfortunately no. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7685510/David-Mitchell-on-Historical-Fiction.html Why? Because the article is not an article: it's a literary commentary, op-ed literary biography of the author (invited guest). Therefore, it is understandable that it's not the reporter who in the name of a serious news agency like The Telegraph, is supporting the quoted sales numbers of Dickens' work.

-The following source, IBTimes (https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/international-literacy-day-2014-what-are-bestselling-books-all-time-1464474) is a tabloid web magazine known very well for clickbait content, and having very low and and mixed reviews of fact and media checkers (for ex. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/international-business-times/). One can easily tell this by reading that "50 Shades of Grey has sold 100 million copies in 2019", when other sources from 2020 claim diversely - please check the list.

-Next source claims in the title: "The Bible vs. Mao: A “Best Guess” of the Top 25 Bestselling Books of All Time" (https://publishingperspectives.com/2010/09/top-25-bestselling-books-of-all-time/) and is a blog post, thus should not be taken into account upfront, if we want this top best-selling list to stay objective and researched.

-Another one is an auction site with seller's descriptions, not a reliable source for news and sales data site at all obviously (https://biblio.co.uk/a-tale-of-two-cities-by-dickens-charles/work/64).

-On the other hand, there is no sales data given at http://thecircumlocutionoffice.com/quotations/a-tale-of-two-cities/ - according to the search engine (and even if there was, it's still a blog).

-The Guardian, the source for A Tale of Two Cities' number, again only cites a bookseller who is describing Dickens' work: this is NOT coming directly from the reporter and is marked properly as a quotation, thus should be approached with care - all literature studies students know this much.

In this manner, we have discussed all the given sources, shown their flaws and why readers might claim them to be misleading at best. There are none other given sources, if there will be - they should be double-checked. I hope this makes it clear why I have undone the previous editor's changes, as misleading and unacademic. I think that person should be restricted from editing this page. Let's keep Wikipedia academic, researched and objective - it's a great site and many people make use of it - we should never introduce changes to it only because we wish it to be so, right? Sorry for the long comment. I hope this helps, cheersStarasta1 (talk) 17:08, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

unfortunately I think its quite unhelpful. Its not really for one editor to decide what isn't or is a reliable source. Could you please stop edit warring and accusing others of bad faith? perhaps take a break from the article for a while? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.34.161 (talk) 23:44, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Inconsistency in sourcing

I am a bit surprised that a source is considered acceptable for one book but not for another, for example the source that is used for Dream of the Red Chamber also lists Tale of Two Cities as having sold more. Similarly how are their reliable figures for Alice in Wonderland but not for any books by Carroll's contemporary Dickens.

In addition many of the sources used such as those for the Hobbit also cite Tale of Two Cities having sold more for example. It would seem if they are useful for one book they are useful for all.

Bad sourcing for one book does not mean that bad sourcing is allowed for another book. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:08, 27 August 2020 (UTC).

Lord of the Rings

Howdy! The figure of 150 million sold copies (of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy) is a very old and certainly outdated data from 2007. That is 12 years ago! Before the LOTR movies (published in 2002-2003) there were 100 million copies sold worldwide. After their release in 2007 the sources used on this wikipage (List of best-selling books) claim that 50 million more copies were sold up to 2007. Check the links, it's all there. This page is waaaay outdated. Another one of the links supporting 150 million sold copies is from 2015... Obviously the author copy-pasted this figure from the 2007 article. Bear in mind that in 2012 the Jackson's second trilogy hit cinemas, the Hobbit, and final part was released in 2014, it's logically impossible for the 2007 number to stay the same. We need to find more data on the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Starasta1 (talk • contribs) 00:04, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately those numbers are tricky, as books sales figures before the 1990s are tricky as it relied on self reporting. This is compounded by the fact Lord of the Rings is a trilogy of books sometimes published as one volume, so if someone just bought Fellowship, didn't enjoy so didn't buy Towers or King does that counts as a sale or not? As one of the sources for Tale of Two Cities says it's tricky • "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien — Counting gets tricky with Tolkien's trilogy, but The Toronto Star estimated that 150 million complete sets of the trilogy — either published in three volumes or as a single book — have been sold. (Half of those sales came after the movies were released.) If you add on the roughly 140 million copies of "The Hobbit" that have sold, Tolkien's pushing 300 million books in print. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.34.161 (talk) 06:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Actually that is wrong. The Lord of the Rings is one book sometimes sold in three volumes. In the article it is listed under the series section when it was previously under single books and should remain there. It should be changed back. It is not a trilogy, but the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit should together be considered a series of two books.

Tolkien himself considered it one novel, consisting of six book sometimes published in the three volumes, and it should be treated as such as previously stated. However, when Tolkien first wrote The Hobbit, he was not really planning on writing it as the first book in a series with the second being Lord of the Rings. The publisher requested a sequel to The Hobbit following its success, and Tolkien, with a world forming in his mind, took almost 20 years to write the novel we are arguing about half a century later. The Lord of the Rings was intended it to be part a a duology consisting of itself and The Silmarillion, which did not exactly work out, with The Hobbit, later acclimated for the following works, being a prelude of sorts.

Regardless, there needs to be a standard on Wikipedia if it is one novel or not. The Lord of the Rings article for the book lists it as one the the best selling books of all time and provides a link to this article, where it is listed as a series. One of the articles needs to be changed. It seems logical that if Tolkien considered it one novel, then we should as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adonalsium82 (talk • contribs) 17:31, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

These figures seem unlikely as by 2012 it had only sold under 1 million in its home market.

Little Prince - highly disputable figure

According to the Little Prince talk page the number of verified copies sold is 140 million, not 200 million. There is no new data in the subject since 2012/2014 articles. Two of the sources are highly disputed (one giving 200 million in 2011, when all other sources give ar. 140 million in 2012 and 2014). I think that until the dispute is resolved on the wiki page of Little Prince, this bold number and position should be taken down. In its place should go either Bible number 1, Quran number 2 (skip the buy-or-die Chinese sold Little Red Book) and LOTR number 3 according to the sources given. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Starasta1 (talk • contribs) 00:48, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

So I've updated the list with the data and figures from Wiki's page, plus other, all stating numbers around 140-150 million. The two exceptions copy-pasted from one misinforming source, mentioned in the talk page of Little Prince. Check the discussion there. Since the last known information on Lord of the Rings sold copies data is still from 2007, before the release of the Hobbit trilogy, then I assume it is way over 200 million copies sold, and thus more than Little Prince (150 million as for 2014). I have skipped the Bible, Quran and two more very important positions: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens - both have no reliable sources to back up their numbers.Starasta1 (talk) 13:02, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Starasta you seem extremely keen on trying to put Lord of the Rings at the top of the list. Is there a particular reason for that? As you don't appear to voice any concern against books that would of sold less, such as Alice in Wonderland — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.34.161 (talk) 06:18, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

This source explicitly says it is based on our article. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 03:42, 11 September 2020 (UTC).

The little Prince had multiple sources, if there is a bad source remove it, but just removing any sources that you don't agree with is not acceptable.

RFC on book numbers

Should only accurate sales data (such as from PoS data collection) be used for books in this list (This only goes back to the 90s) or should estimated figures also be used?

In addition should E-book figures be included or just physical books? Old Jack Crowe (talk) 00:02, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Note: I'm here via FRS. I think either variety of source is probably fine: provided the estimated figures are provided in an otherwise reliable, WP:secondary source, they are actually the better source of WP:verification as far as an article on this project is concerned. Normally, as a WP:primary source, the point-of-sale figures would be discouraged, but this one of those circumstances where they are permitted under the relevant policies, I would argue, so I think they represent a separate and appropriate means of verification for the purposes of this skin-deep list article. I recognize that having separate streams of verification can lead to differing figures (that is of course a reality across most articles on this project after-all) and that this in turn can lead some atypical figures in the tables, but this isn't really a huge problem and I note that the current approach taken seems to evidence that the local editors here are pretty adapt and minimizing this distraction while maintaining the span of estimates: "50+ million", "5-8 million", ">30 million"", ect. One final note as to this inquiry though is that it may make sense to in some way mark the figures being listed only via raw figures in some manner, so as to recognize that this is beginning to, kinda-sorta, edge on WP:OR, insofar as "best-selling" is often a distinction marked my secondary sources (which again, are our preference on this project anyway)--but I think the RfC close should also probably leave that last point to be decided separately and later by the local editors here, as it doesn't flow as expressly from policy as the rest of the argument above, as I see it.

Similarly, I see no reason to artificially restrict the figures to physical copies, merely because the physical medium of distribution has changed. The nominal topic of this article is volume of sales, and sales merely occur in a larger variety of contexts today. More to the point in the context of this project, that seems to be how the relavant secondary sources treat the matter, so I see no reason (other than what would be an idiosyncratically dogmatic, and frankly anachronistic, mindset) to strike out on our own here. So in summary: all of the proposed sources are acceptable, and when dropping figures from primary sources (PoS included), it probably makes the most sense to aggregate the sales figures across all distribution mediums (or list both traditional and digital sales side by side, at a minimum). However, such figures should be used with clear citation, and maybe even some degree of slight in-line attribution, even if it is just shorthand notation. Props go out to Old Jack Crowe for using RfC in one of those rare (but in this case appropriate) cases where there seems to have been no previous dispute but rather just one editor who wanted some additional input before proceeding--and for formatting the RfC succinctly, directly, and neutrally. A concise and well-framed RfC prompt is rarity and a nice thing to behold. :) Snow ^{let's rap} 00:04, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, I wanted to ensure it was fair and neutral so I am glad I managed that. What are the next steps? I concur with your points I assume as this has been live for over a month this is now the consensus. Old Jack Crowe (talk) 02:42, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Uh, no, this is not the consensus. You used jargon (PoS) in the question without indicating what you mean by it, where this can be found / checked, whether this is a US thing or worldwide, and so on. First explain much more thoroughly what you actually are trying to achieve / change with this RfC, with some examples of things that would change (will this remove entries? add entries? change figures?) and which reliable sources you would use. The RfC as posted was largely unanswerable one way or another. Fram (talk) 07:25, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

We have reliable figures for the North American or US market for most of the 20th century. For other markets I imagine it will vary. We don't have a team of dedicated researchers, so it's tricky to say "these numbers don't exist", but we certainly can point to a few things.

Firstly less trustworthy publishers have deliberately exaggerated figures.

Secondly it was common for books in the early part of the twentieth century, in the UK at least, to include on the title page statements such as "Now in its twentieth thousand". We can conclude that "thousands" was a substantial print run (and indeed the majority of today's books probably don't break 1000 copies). The volume that was enabled by the explosion of disposable income in the post-war years in the US, Canada and Europe was on a scale that dwarfed sales prior to this. Even so there are very few books from the well documented US sales of the mid-twentieth century that make our list. The presumption must be that any book that sold enough copies to be on our list will have some degree of documentation to back up the sales figures, rather than some unsourced estimate.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 09:54, 15 October 2020 (UTC).

Fram isn't that all original research? The outcome agreed in the RfC sounds sensible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.123.150 (talk) 13:34, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

If you have reliable figures from before Bowker, for any market, we would be interested in them. More modern figures are probably more reliable, as they will be better audited.

It's not OR to have some understanding of the British and American book markets over the last 200 years, and to share this on the talk page, though I would not include the above conclusions in an article without an RS.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:13, 24 October 2020 (UTC).

Rich I would ask you respect the consensus and not make changes to reflect your personal believes without prior discussion. Please remember you don't own this article nor are you the arbitor of what is or is not a reliable source. Happy to discuss — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.123.150 (talk) 03:06, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Telegraph "Picture article"

Why is this not a good source? Because it is a direct copy of our top 5 the day before publication.

Therefore I am once again removing the entries based on it. Please read Peter Thoneman's article referenced at the top of this talk page to understand how this circular referencing has played out in the past.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 23:10, 24 October 2020 (UTC).

Rich, everyone appreciates your passion, however Wikipedia isn't the place for original research.

Also I would have to question your approach as you seen fixated on Dickens? You didn't remove the other novels cited from the same article Then there were none and dreams of the red chamber you didn't delete, so your claim above seems dubious at best. Also I would note you haven't deleted the likes of Jane Austen from the page. I understand that many Tolkien fans are passionate and would like him to be the best selling author of all time but this changing wikipedia to match your desired reality, isn't appropriate.

The Telegraph is a respected source so please don't delete any entries sourced from it. This isn't the appropriate avenue for your original research.

Perhaps just take a break from wikipedia or post here before making any changes. I hope you reflect on the above and consider if your behaviour is appropriate.

Happy to discuss — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.123.150 (talk) 03:02, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

The Telegraph is indeed a respected source, that doesn't mean they don't get thing wrong. The "picture article" is in effect not a piece of serious journalism, it doesn't even have a by-line, and by the URL appears to be something that appeared in a colour supplement. Moreover the TLS is a far more respected source, especially for literary matters.

If you have a problem with what is plain to most editors, that this is circular referencing, please raise it a the reliable sources noticeboard.

The Tale of Two Cities error is completely established, and the subject of at least two articles. The others you mention are also weakly sourced, and I am happy to remove them. I have not investigated Jane Austen, but will do so.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:14, 25 October 2020 (UTC).

I think most people would generally rate the Times and its supplements as less reputable than other news sources as they are part of the Murdoch family of outlets alongside the now defunct News of the World and Fox News as with those it generally should be considered with a large dose of salt.

Unless the article itself cites wikipedia there is no evidence other than your circumstantial original research to suggest circular referencing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.150.140.253 (talk) 06:17, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Religious and political books

There is an eternal dispute whether to include religious and political books. The "sale figures" for these books are debatable, since in many cases these were simply distributed (like the placement of free bibles in hotel rooms) or forced on the people (Mao, Hitler, ...). When we had these books in this list, there were constant edit wars (because "my religious book surely sold more than your religious book", and "there isn't a Bible, there are many different ones and you may not add them up", and so on).

For this reason, there used to be a separate article, which was deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of most-printed books (2nd nomination).

I would prefer to keep these out of this list, because of the endless debates and unreliability of many figures, but if there would be a consensus to include them anyway, then I would prefer to have them as a separate, fourth section. Fram (talk) 11:31, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't think you can keep them out of this list as it is the best selling books of all time, rather than novels. I think as with some novels if the facts are unclear then it can be covered in the opening. I would note that mein kampf has been in the article for sometime so that would suggest a certain bias.

This may come back to the topics discussed in the RFC on sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.83.20 (talk) 12:10, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

removing little Little Prince and Tale of Two Cities edits

In the edit summary edit Rich Frambrough mentions his rationale is on this talkpage. However It appears absent. It was previous consensus that controversial edits by Rich would be discussed here prior to being made however it seems that has been ignored.

Other that books by Tolkien editor Rich Frambrough only seems to accept hard statistics deleting any entry based on academic or journalistic sources despite the consensus in the RFC to include these. As was discussed in that RFC the approaches are we only have entries for books that have hard data, or we accept broader sources.

I have also removed Lord of the Rings as this was published in as both three books and one and there seems to be none clear way those numbers could be counted. particular as this article from the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/aug/09/best-selling-books-all-time-fifty-shades-grey-compare , suggest it has sold less tham 1 million copies in its home market.

I've found a BBC article (a gold standard in journalistic sources) on Tale of two cities it makes no reference to Wikipedia so there can't be a presumption of circular referencing.

Why did you remove Tolkien's books? Why are the Toronto Star and the Telegraph "weak sources"[4]? Moving LotR to the series section only may make sense, but removing both completely because you don't like the sourcing isn't really correct. Fram (talk) 11:36, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Hobbit, 100 million, as stated by BBC[5] and Wall Street Journal[6]. Fram (talk) 11:41, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Are you and Rich Farmbrough not the same person? They were removed for consistency, due to the citogenesis issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.83.20 (talk) 12:16, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Western/English Bias

Is there potential bias towards western authors or those publishing in English as they seem to dominate the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

Yes there is for a number of reasons:

• Editors here are English speaking, and see more information about the English Speaking world.
• We don't have great figures for the majority of the world's book markets available to us.
• The English language book market has been one of the largest, if not the largest, over the last 150 years.

Bear in mind though, the three undisputed "most copies printed" books were written in Chinese, Arabic and Greek/Hebrew.

Also many of these books are widely translated.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:28, 24 October 2020 (UTC).

Add a tag, as there is a clear Anglosphere bias, French and Chinese literature seems to have recently been targeted for removal by some editors recently.

Please provide diffs to support this. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:49, 22 November 2020 (UTC).

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Article How to Win Friends and Influence People says 30 million and this article just 15 millions. Who is right?

From memory only I believe the difference may be due to the large number of the Reader's Digest edition. If so the larger number is correct, unless there's a good reason to exclude the RD copies. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:52, 22 November 2020 (UTC).

Political Books

This is the best selling books rather than novels page. The source for Communist Manifesto states sales rather than published. I would also query why Mein Kampf has been included for sometime but books from the left of the spectrum are removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.83.20 (talk) 11:37, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

"Mein Kampf" is included because I hadn't noticed this, otherwise I would have removed it as well. The sentence indicating that such books are not included, which stood in the lead for many, many years, was recently removed without even an edit summary here. I reinstated it in my previous edit, which you reversed. Fram (talk) 11:47, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I'll remove Mein Kampf, the source states [7] "verkauft oder verschenkt", sold or given away. Politicians, parties, ... giving away their books shouldn't warrant inclusion in a list of best-selling books. Fram (talk) 11:49, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I think books that are widely distributed but not sold can be discounted, for example religious texts or the Argos catalogue.

Is there then a question of if this becomes a best selling novel article rather than book? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.83.20 (talk) 12:14, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Also what defines an ideology? Ass the top 3 non fiction currently listed all propose specific approaches to personal development, children rearing and sexuality based on the specific ideological views of the author.

Even something like Hawking's Brief History of time could be considered ideological as it was setting out his theories on the universe which at the time of writing explicitly opposed the Higgs Boson. (not to get into the wider science v religion perspective of universe creation)

Also many novels put forward ideological bents. Rand wrote her entire philosophy via novels, and Orwell set out explicit political views, as did Dickens, Tolkien and Austen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.83.20 (talk) 12:24, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Both the Narnia and the Lord of the Rings series are explicitly religious christian texts. I don't think you can remove Mein Kampf or the CM and leave Rand for example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.83.20 (talk) 12:36, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I suggest you read LOTR if you think it is an "explicitly religious Christian text".

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:43, 22 November 2020 (UTC).

Your last comment is quite rude. Also LOTR is christian it is part of the muscular christ interpretation that was popular in the early 20th century. Even if you couldn't understand from reading the text, the Author stated it explicitly, sayingThe Lord of the Rings in particular as a fundamentally religious and Catholic work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.83.20 (talk) 08:30, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

• The Narnia books have a simple allegorical interpretation, with Aslan as the Christ figure. No such interpretation can be applied to LOTR. If you extend consideration to the whole Legendarium, you can make arguments about Melkor and Satan, but as far as LOTR is concerned there is no explicit mention of a creator, no prayer, no confession, no saints, nothing associated with Christianity far less Catholicism in particular.
• This is however somewhat beside the point. The exclusion of political, philosophical and religious books, while it has been stated in the lead for a long time, is an ill-thought-out attempt to circumscribe the Bible, the Quran and the Little Red Book. The reason for excluding these is because we don't have anything like accurate figures, estimates vary by a factor of two or more - and are subject to inflation by boosterism. Essentially it's the same reason we exclude the public domain classics - not because they are public domain, but because there are simply no reliable figures. Even the figures we do have are not as reliably sourced as I would like. If you can put the effort into finding more reliable sources that would be of potentially far more value than simply making what appear to be oppositional changes to the article.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 00:29, 29 November 2020 (UTC).

Fram/Rich LOTR is very catholic there is in fact a whole trinity in its heroes. There is also an entire wikipedia article on the subject which I suspect having told you about you will go and edit to fit your world view. You are obviously very passionate about LOTR so perhaps you should step back and refrain from making any edits related to it?

If there are assumptions on the bible or Quran from reliable sources then they should be included. As there is no reliable sales data really beyond a few countries and none of that goes back past the 90s.

Again making accusations isn't in keeping with wikipedia general approach to conduct. I would however observe that the only edits you make are to remove books other than those by Tolkien particularly any book that might be placed above his work in the lists.

Also Rich/Fram I notice you are mentioned in that TLS article, as a subject linked to this article shouldn't you refrain from editing it, as is general wikipedia practice? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.83.20 (talk) 09:20, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Citogenesis warning

As a way of trying to find a workable compromise to the current debate on sources I have suggested in the teahouse that a general citogenesis health warning tag be created. Which just warns citogenesis may taken place but there is no way to know at this stage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse#Citogenesis_warning_tag

The discussion is here if anyone has views. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.13.85.156 (talk) 11:05, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Reason for removing Lord of the Rings

I understand the reason for the removal of Lord of the Rings from the listing and, while I don't agree with it, I think it makes sense. However, if you will be removing it for "lack of comprehensive sales figures due to the length of time in publication which predate modern sales data collection" then this should be applied to every book published in the 1950s or before and I've noticed there are many on the list that match this. This feels like bias specifically against Lord of the Rings. I don't understand why those books get a pass using citation from popular media firms but not Lord of the Rings. If you want to enforce this rule, make it universal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mommid (talk • contribs) 10:31, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

It already has to a degree, Alice in Wonderland, Dream of the Red Chamber, The Little Prince, Then There were None, the Bible, Quran, Don Quixote, etc have all been removed by editors who I feel are being overzealous. I personally think we should accept estimates on these books. Though there is the risk that estates and publishers seek to overinflate these numbers (the fact that an author's grandchildren can be living off the copyright, just shows how mad copyright law has gotten, but I digress). If there are other books with suspicious or unreliable numbers do feel free to be bold. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.13.85.156 (talk) 20:20, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

The Little Prince "estimates" seem unreliable because they have shot up, and are from the estate of the author, rather than a publishing house with a separate desire to be seen as reliable and trustworthy.

The figures for LoTR are largely modern, certainly after Neilson started to have comprehensive figures in the US, and W. H. Smith et al., in the UK (later other organisations). Moreover world-wide figures will have been compiled by Rayner and Unwin on the legitimate sales, as licensees will have had to report back their sales to Unwin.

Agatha Christie is one of the top selling (and for a long time, I think, the most translated) authors, however its not clear that a random comment about the number of sales of a particular volume is a good source.

The other books have all been out of copyright for a significant time, and are published in dozens or hundreds of editions (though most Quarans are the same edition), the vast majority of which are not recorded. If someone were to do the research it might be possible to put a lower bound on these books, which would be useful. There is no doubt they have all sold many copies, and in particular no doubt that the Bible, the Quran and Mao's "Little Red Book" outstrip all the books on our list. This is acknowledged in the lead, as is the question of whether the "Little Red Book" was sold.

Most of these facts you should already be aware of, but they bear repeating for other readers of this discussion.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:43, 9 December 2020 (UTC).

I should have said "most Quarans are the same text", an authorised text is the only one permitted. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:19, 16 December 2020 (UTC).

I'm not sure how you can say the LOTR figures are modern. In this Guardian data piece (which is a source that we can be clear did not have links to this article) https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/aug/09/best-selling-books-all-time-fifty-shades-grey-compare It had sold less than a million copies in the UK. Do you have these figures from Neilson etc?

Again this isn't a place for research, if sources say a thing and meet Wikis standards (so not the daily mail for example) then they should be accept. For example if the Guinness book of records meet Wiki's standards for sources then the Bible should be in the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.13.85.156 (talk) 11:02, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I am aware of and have a copy of the Guardian (strictly Nielson) figures. They only apply to the UK, and only over about 20 years, if I recall correctly, despite the "all time" title. Look at the figures for other, newer, books. The Potter books according to this have sold 4-5 million each, much less than out figures for total sales. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:30, 16 December 2020 (UTC).

Semi-protected edit request on 3 January 2021 (Tale of Tow Cities should be on the best selling list)

This list is missing Charles Dickens. According to this list, Charles Dickens "A Tale of Two Cities" is the number 1 selling book of all time. (Obviously, this list excludes the Bible, dictionaries, etc.) https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/33934.Best_Selling_Books_of_All_Time

This Wikipedia page says: "A Tale of Two Cities has been cited as one of the best-selling novels of all time by various sources including The Guardian and The Telegraph..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities 104.34.183.251 (talk) 18:57, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Your first source is citing an old version of this very Wikipedia page. See also Talk:List_of_best-selling_books/Archive_4#A_Tale_of_Two_Cities,_again and Talk:List_of_best-selling_books/Archive_3#A_Tale_Of_Two_Cities – Thjarkur (talk) 20:29, 3 January 2021 (UTC)