Reading List · Bestsellers
Best-Selling Book Series of All Time
On 21 July 2007, the seventh Harry Potter book sold around 15 million copies in 24 hours. Perry Mason needed 82 novels and forty years to reach half the series’ total. The Berenstain Bears took more than 400 titles. Below are the 25 book series that have sold the most copies, ranked by the numbers, with the figure for each and where to start.
By Lisanne Swart · 25 series · Figures checked September 2026
The shelf · 25 series, the taller the spine the more copies sold
ClickTap a spine to jump to that series below.
Quick answer
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling is the best-selling book series of all time, with more than 600 million copies sold since 1997. Goosebumps is second at around 400 million, and third place is a tie. Only two of the top ten were written for adults — the ranking below shows which two, and who shares third place.
The 25 Best-Selling Book Series at a Glance
| Series | Copies sold | Buy |
|---|---|---|
| Harry Potter J.K. Rowling, 1997 | More than 600 million | Amazon |
| Goosebumps R.L. Stine, 1992 | 400 million | Amazon |
| Perry Mason Erle Stanley Gardner, 1933 | 300 million | Amazon |
| Diary of a Wimpy Kid Jeff Kinney, 2007 | 300 million | Amazon |
| The Berenstain Bears Stan and Jan Berenstain, 1962 | 260 million | Amazon |
| Choose Your Own Adventure Edward Packard, R.A. Montgomery and others, 1979 | 250 million | Amazon |
| Mr. Men and Little Miss Roger Hargreaves and Adam Hargreaves, 1971 | 250 million | Amazon |
| Sweet Valley High Francine Pascal and ghostwriters, 1983 | 250 million | Amazon |
| Noddy Enid Blyton, 1949 | 250 million | Amazon |
| Jack Reacher Lee Child, 1997 | 200 million | Amazon |
| The Railway Series (Thomas the Tank Engine) Rev. W. Awdry and Christopher Awdry, 1945 | 200 million | Amazon |
| Nancy Drew Carolyn Keene (pseudonym), 1930 | 200 million | Amazon |
| San-Antonio Frédéric Dard, 1949 | 200 million | Amazon |
| Robert Langdon Dan Brown, 2000 | 200 million | Amazon |
| Geronimo Stilton Elisabetta Dami, 1997 | 180 million | Amazon |
| Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rick Riordan, 2005 | 180 million | Amazon |
| The Baby-Sitters Club Ann M. Martin, 1986 | 172 million | Amazon |
| American Girl Various authors, 1986 | 160 million | Amazon |
| Twilight Stephenie Meyer, 2005 | 160 million | Amazon |
| Star Wars novels Various authors, 1977 | 160 million | Amazon |
| Little Critter Mercer Mayer, 1975 | 150 million | Amazon |
| Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter, 1902 | 150 million | Amazon |
| Fifty Shades E.L. James, 2011 | 150 million | Amazon |
| Chicken Soup for the Soul Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, 1993 | 130 million | Amazon |
| Clifford the Big Red Dog Norman Bridwell, 1963 | 129 million | Amazon |
Religious and political texts excluded. Often claimed but not ranked: One Piece and The Lord of the Rings. Looking for single books? See the best-selling books of all time. Read the full list ↓
The rankings
Three ways to count the books the world bought most
If You Only Read One
Sales tell you what was bought, not what is worth your evenings. These are the two series on this page I would hand to an adult reader.
If you want a world you can stay in for seven books
Harry Potter
“The scale is almost impossible to comprehend. What makes Harry Potter interesting to me isn't just the sales; it's how completely Rowling created a world that people wanted to inhabit.”
If you want young-adult fiction that is sharper than its label
The Hunger Games
“The first book is much sharper than its young-adult label suggests. Collins uses the spectacle of the Games to explore propaganda, inequality, trauma and the way violence becomes entertainment.”
The 25 Best-Selling Book Series of All Time
Ranked by estimated copies sold across every book in the series. Series with the same estimate are listed with the older, more settled figure first.
600 million+ copies
Harry Potter
An eleven-year-old living in a cupboard under the stairs learns he is a wizard, and each of the seven books covers one year at Hogwarts. The books grow with their readers: the first is under 80,000 words, the fifth more than twice that. The last four each set a record as the fastest-selling book of all time, and the final one sold around 15 million copies in its first 24 hours.
The scale is almost impossible to comprehend. What makes Harry Potter interesting to me isn't just the sales; it's how completely Rowling created a world that people wanted to inhabit.
— Lisanne→ The first book alone: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on the best-selling books list
400 million copies
Goosebumps
The original run was 62 short, stand-alone books between 1992 and 1997: ventriloquist dummies that come alive, a camera that photographs the future, a mask that will not come off. Nearly every chapter ends on a cliffhanger. Spin-off series such as Give Yourself Goosebumps and Goosebumps HorrorLand kept the brand going after the original run ended.
Goosebumps is a reminder that accessibility is an enormous part of publishing success. The books were scary without being too scary, and simple without being boring.
— Lisanne300 million copies
Perry Mason
Starting with The Case of the Velvet Claws in 1933, Gardner wrote 82 novels about a Los Angeles defence lawyer who wins almost every case, usually by unmasking the real killer in open court. Gardner was a practising lawyer himself and dictated his books at speed. The series is the only one in this top three written for adults, and the 1957–1966 television show with Raymond Burr made the name famous far beyond the books.
Why read itFor the endings: almost every book builds to a cross-examination, and the first one, The Case of the Velvet Claws, shows the formula already complete in 1933.
300 million copies
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Greg Heffley's middle-school journal, hand-lettered and full of stick-figure cartoons, began online in 2004 before the first book appeared in 2007. Twenty main books later, Greg is still in middle school. The format — part diary, part comic — became the model for a whole shelf of illustrated novels for eight- to twelve-year-olds.
The genius of Diary of a Wimpy Kid is that it understands exactly how embarrassing childhood can feel. Greg is selfish, insecure and often ridiculous — which is precisely why readers recognise themselves in him.
— Lisanne260 million copies
The Berenstain Bears
A family of bears in a treehouse in Bear Country, each book built around one lesson: too much TV, too much junk food, the messy room, the first trip to the dentist. The first, The Big Honey Hunt, appeared in 1962. Their son Mike Berenstain has continued the series, which now runs past 400 titles.
Why read itAs a read-aloud with small children: each book is built around one everyday problem, which makes it an easy way into a conversation about it.
250 million copies
Choose Your Own Adventure
Written in the second person, every few pages the book asks you to decide — open the door, turn to page 42; run, turn to page 57 — and most titles have dozens of endings, many of them fatal. Bantam launched the series in 1979 with Edward Packard's The Cave of Time. It is still in print under Chooseco.
Why read itFor a reluctant reader: the choices turn reading into something you do rather than something you sit through, and one book can be read a dozen times.
250 million copies
Mr. Men and Little Miss
Mr. Tickle came first, in 1971, after Roger Hargreaves's son Adam asked him what a tickle looked like. Every character is one round shape, one colour and one trait. The Little Miss books followed from 1981, and Adam Hargreaves has written the series since his father's death in 1988.
Why read itFor very young readers: one character, one trait, one small story, in a book sized for small hands.
250 million copies
Sweet Valley High
Identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield — one scheming, one sensible — at a sunny Californian high school. Francine Pascal created the characters and the storylines; a team of ghostwriters wrote the books. With its spin-offs, Sweet Valley ran to around 400 titles before the main series ended in 2003.
Why read itAs a piece of publishing history: a series created by one person, written by a team, and read by a generation of teenagers in the 1980s.
250 million copies
Noddy
A small wooden boy with a bell on his hat drives a red-and-yellow taxi around Toyland. Blyton wrote 24 Noddy books between 1949 and 1963, and the pictures that defined him were drawn by the Dutch illustrator Harmsen van der Beek. New Noddy books and television series have followed ever since.
Why read itTo see where it started: the original Blyton books are short, and the pictures by the Dutch illustrator Harmsen van der Beek are the reason Noddy looks the way he does.
200 million copies
Jack Reacher
A former US military policeman with no address, no car and a folding toothbrush drifts into small towns where something is wrong. Killing Floor started the series in 1997; Lee Child now co-writes it with his brother Andrew Child.
Why read itFor a thriller you can finish on a flight: short chapters, a hero who never explains himself, and each book stands alone, so you can start anywhere.
200 million copies
The Railway Series (Thomas the Tank Engine)
A clergyman's bedtime stories for his son, about engines with faces on the Island of Sodor. The Three Railway Engines appeared in 1945 and Thomas got his own book a year later. Wilbert Awdry wrote 26 books; his son Christopher added 16 more, and the Thomas & Friends television series took the engines worldwide.
Why read itFor the original books rather than the television show: the Rev. Awdry based many of his stories on real railway incidents.
200 million copies
Nancy Drew
An eighteen-year-old amateur detective with a blue roadster, created in 1930 by Edward Stratemeyer's book-packaging syndicate. "Carolyn Keene" never existed: the early books were written by ghostwriters, above all Mildred Wirt Benson, starting with The Secret of the Old Clock. Nancy Drew has been in print for close to a century.
Why read itFor the early mysteries: a teenage girl solving cases on her own in 1930, decades before that was ordinary in fiction.
200 million copies
San-Antonio
The best-selling series here that most English-language readers have never heard of. Commissaire San-Antonio narrates his own cases in a torrent of slang, puns and invented words, which made the books a phenomenon in France and hard to translate anywhere else. Dard wrote 173 of them between 1949 and 2001.
Why read itIf you read French: the wordplay that made the series famous barely survives translation.
200 million copies
Robert Langdon
A Harvard professor of symbology decodes his way through a conspiracy in each book, usually against a deadline and across a European city. Angels & Demons came first in 2000, but The Da Vinci Code (2003), with around 80 million copies on its own, made the series. The sixth book appeared in 2025.
Why read itFor pace: short chapters that end on a question, set in real churches, museums and libraries you can visit afterwards.
→ The Da Vinci Code on its own: number 10 of the best-selling books
180 million copies
Geronimo Stilton
A nervous mouse who edits a newspaper in New Mouse City keeps getting dragged into adventures. The Italian series is known for its typography: key words are printed in colour and in different fonts, so a page reads almost like a picture. Translated into dozens of languages, it is the only non-English children's series in this top 25.
Why read itFor children between picture books and chapter books: the coloured, oversized words make a long page feel manageable.
180 million copies
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
A twelve-year-old with dyslexia and ADHD discovers he is the son of Poseidon, and Greek myth turns out to be running underneath modern America. Riordan invented Percy for his own son. The Lightning Thief (2005) opened a sequence of series that now also covers Roman, Egyptian and Norse myth; the sales figure counts the wider Percy Jackson world.
Why read itFor readers who loved Harry Potter and want the next series: the Greek myths are woven in accurately enough to teach them along the way.
172 million copies
The Baby-Sitters Club
Four friends in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, turn babysitting into a business with a club phone line and meetings three times a week. Kristy's Great Idea launched it in 1986. Graphic-novel adaptations, the first ones by Raina Telgemeier, brought the series to a new generation.
Why read itFor the graphic-novel editions, which brought a 1980s series to a new generation of readers.
160 million copies
American Girl
Each character is a girl from a moment in American history, with a set of books and a matching doll. Kirsten, Samantha and Molly came first in 1986. For many readers these were a first historical novel.
Why read itAs a first historical novel: each character's books are set in a real moment of American history.
160 million copies
Twilight
Bella Swan moves to rainy Forks, Washington, and falls in love with Edward Cullen, a vampire who has been seventeen for a century. Four novels ran from 2005 to 2008; Midnight Sun (2020) retells the first book from Edward's side.
The writing isn't what made Twilight a phenomenon. The emotional fantasy did. Meyer understood the particular appeal of being chosen, desired and protected — and millions of readers responded.
— Lisanne160 million copies
Star Wars novels
Novels set in the Star Wars universe, starting with the novelisation of the first film. Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, beginning with Heir to the Empire in 1991, proved there was an audience for stories the films never told and opened the way for hundreds more.
Why read itStart with Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire (1991), the novel that showed the story could continue beyond the films.
150 million copies
Little Critter
A small, well-meaning creature narrates his own everyday disasters — helping Mom, a new baby, the first day of school — while the pictures show what really happened. The gap between the words and the pictures is the joke.
Why read itFor the joke in the pictures: the words tell one story and the illustrations show what really happened.
150 million copies
Peter Rabbit
Peter squeezes under Mr. McGregor's gate and loses his jacket and shoes. Potter first printed The Tale of Peter Rabbit herself before Frederick Warne published it in 1902, in a small format made for children's hands. More than a century on, the books have never been out of print.
Why read itAloud: the sentences are short and exact, and the watercolours are Potter's own.
150 million copies
Fifty Shades
The trilogy began as fan fiction based on Twilight — which sits a few places higher on this list. Fifty Shades of Grey was the best-selling book of the 2010s in the United States, and James later retold the story from Christian Grey's side.
Why read itTo understand a publishing phenomenon: it was the best-selling book of the 2010s in the United States.
130 million copies
Chicken Soup for the Soul
Short true stories sent in by readers, collected into themed volumes: for the mother's soul, the teenage soul, the dog lover's soul. It is the only non-fiction series in this top 25.
Why read itIn small doses: each story is a few pages long, which is how most readers use the books.
129 million copies
Clifford the Big Red Dog
Emily Elizabeth's puppy never stops growing, until he is bigger than the house. Bridwell wrote and illustrated the books from 1963 until his death in 2014. The dog was nearly called Tiny; Clifford was the name of his wife's childhood imaginary friend.
Why read itFor early readers: short sentences, one big idea, and a dog who is always trying to help.
Often Claimed, Not Ranked
These turn up at the top of many lists of best-selling series. They are left out here because the figures count something other than books in a series sold.
- One Piece by Eiichiro Oda (1997–present) — more than 600 million copies in circulation by March 2026, level with Harry Potter. It is a manga of more than 110 volumes, and circulation counts printed copies rather than copies sold, so comics are ranked separately.
- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954–55) — the Tolkien estate has claimed more than 150 million copies, but the book has been sold as one volume, as three and as six, so nobody can say what is being counted.
- Perry Rhodan (1961–present) — the German science-fiction series claims more than a billion copies, but most of those were weekly booklets sold like magazines.
- The Hobbit and And Then There Were None — around 100 million copies each, but both are single novels. The Hobbit and And Then There Were None are ranked on the best-selling books list; for the rest of Christie, see every Agatha Christie book, in order →
Just Outside the Top 25
Several series people expect to find in a top 25 have sold fewer copies than the picture books above them.
- The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis — about 120 million copies. Seven books, four children and a wardrobe; the next fantasy series after Percy Jackson.
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins — about 100 million copies. Five books since 2008, including the prequels The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020) and Sunrise on the Reaping (2025). Why I would read it ↑
- James Bond by Ian Fleming — about 100 million copies. Fourteen books by Fleming between 1953 and 1966, long before the films.
- Millennium by Stieg Larsson and David Lagercrantz — about 100 million copies. Lisbeth Salander and the Swedish crime wave that followed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
- A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin — about 90 million copies. Five of a planned seven novels, and still waiting for the sixth.
What About Single Books?
Single novels are counted separately, because a book that sold 200 million copies on its own is a different achievement from seven books that sold 600 million together. The best-selling single novel is A Tale of Two Cities, with more than 200 million copies; the first Harry Potter book alone ranks fourth, at 120 million.
→ The full ranking of the best-selling books of all time
Why Children’s Series Dominate the Top Ten
Eight of the top ten were written for children or teenagers. The reason is arithmetic more than taste: Goosebumps ran to 62 books in five years, the Berenstain Bears to more than 400 titles, Sweet Valley High to around 400 with its spin-offs. A child who likes one book reads the next thirty, and every one of them counts.
Perry Mason and Jack Reacher are the only adult series in the top ten, and both got there the same way: a new book almost every year, for decades.
How This List Was Made
Every figure is the estimate for the whole series — all books, all languages, all editions — as given in Wikipedia’s list of best-selling books, which only includes estimates from reliable, independent sources. For older series these are publisher or estate figures rather than audited counts, so treat anything below 300 million as a band rather than an exact place.
Three rules shape the ranking. Comics and manga are left out, because they count volumes and printed copies differently. Single novels are left out, because they are not series; they have their own list of best-selling books. And religious and political texts are left out, because most copies are distributed rather than sold; nonfiction series such as Chicken Soup for the Soul do count, and the single nonfiction titles are on the list of best-selling nonfiction books.
Frequently asked questions about the best-selling book series
What is the best-selling book series of all time?
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling is the best-selling book series of all time, with more than 600 million copies sold across seven books since 1997. Goosebumps by R.L. Stine is second with around 400 million copies.
What are the top 10 best-selling book series of all time?
Ranked by estimated copies sold, the top ten are Harry Potter (600 million), Goosebumps (400 million), Perry Mason (300 million), Diary of a Wimpy Kid (300 million), The Berenstain Bears (260 million), Choose Your Own Adventure (250 million), Mr. Men and Little Miss (250 million), Sweet Valley High (250 million), Noddy (250 million) and Jack Reacher (200 million).
What is the third best-selling book series?
Third place is a tie at around 300 million copies between Perry Mason, Erle Stanley Gardner's courtroom series of 82 novels, and Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid. This page lists Perry Mason first because its figure is the older and more settled of the two estimates.
Is Harry Potter the most successful book series ever?
By copies sold, yes: no other novel series has passed 600 million. The manga One Piece reported more than 600 million copies in circulation in March 2026, but that counts printed copies of more than 110 comic volumes rather than copies sold, so it is not ranked alongside novels here.
What is the highest-grossing book series?
Publishers do not release lifetime revenue for book series, so there is no reliable ranking of the highest-grossing book series. Copies sold is the figure that does get reported, and by that measure Harry Potter leads. Highest-grossing rankings usually refer to the film franchises based on the books.
What is the best-selling book series for adults?
Perry Mason is the best-selling series written for adults, at around 300 million copies. Three adult series follow at around 200 million each: Jack Reacher, Robert Langdon and the French San-Antonio novels. Fifty Shades comes next at around 150 million.
What is the best-selling fantasy book series?
Harry Potter, at more than 600 million copies. Percy Jackson and the Olympians (180 million) is the next fantasy series on this list, followed by The Chronicles of Narnia at around 120 million. The Lord of the Rings is often quoted at 150 million, but that figure comes from Tolkien's estate and mixes one-volume, three-volume and six-volume editions, so it is not ranked here.
What is a series of seven books called?
A series of seven books is called a heptalogy. Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia are both heptalogies. A series of three books is a trilogy, four a tetralogy and five a pentalogy.
Why are the Bible and other religious texts not included?
Religious and political books are left out because many copies are distributed free or printed by unrelated publishers over centuries, so their numbers cannot be compared with retail sales. Guinness World Records estimates the Bible at 5 to 7 billion copies.
Footnotes
- List of best-selling books, book series table — Wikipedia
- Scholastic marks 25 years of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone — Scholastic (2023)
- J.K. Rowling — Forbes (2008), on Deathly Hallows’ first 24 hours
- One Piece — Wikipedia
- The top 100 bestselling books of all time — The Guardian datablog (2012)
Every figure on this page is checked against the sources above rather than assumed from memory. Figures last checked 30 September 2026. The earlier version of this page mixed two single novels and a manga into the ranking; they now sit under “Often Claimed, Not Ranked”.
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were— Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.”
— Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902)
If this list interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
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