What is the most famous novel of all-time (worldwide)?

Answer 1

Well, since you're asking about novels, "The Bible" is excluded b/c it doesn't fall under that category. Perhaps the one novel that scholars and critics alike agree as the best (although I don't agree) is James Joyce's "Ulysses". The New York Times also rated it # 1 on it's list of the top 100 books.

PS: Romeo and Juliet is a play, not a novel, but that was a good guess...

Answer 2

Famous or best selling ? May not be the same ..
1 Various The Holy Bible c. 1451-55 More than 6 Billion
2 Mao Tse-Tung Quotations from Chairman Mao 1966 900,000,000
3 Noah Webster The American Spelling Book 1783 Up to 100,000,000
4 Mark C. Young Guiness Book of World Records 1955 More than 90,000,000
5 World Almanac Editors World Almanac 1868 73,500,000
6 William Holmes McGuffey The McGuffey Readers 1836 60,000,000
7 Benjamin Spock The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care 1946 More than 50,000,000
8 Elbert Hubbard A Message to Garcia 1899 More than 40,000,000
9 Charles Monroe Sheldon In His Steps, What Would Jesus Do? 1896 More than 30.000,000
10 Jacqueline Susann Valley of the Dolls 1966 More than 30,000,000

Answer 3

If by "worldwide" you mean Europe and the Americas, as we too often do, War and Peace or perhaps Don Quixote would probably be the best answer.

But if by "worldwide" you mean ALL the world and if by "famous" you mean the MOST readers, the Chinese legend usually translated as The Monkey King is probably a better answer. For a bit more information, see

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art30352.asp

Answer 4

good answers! The difficulty of answering this question comes down to defining the term 'famous'. Is this simply sales, or is based on popularity, or on name-recognition? Your question says 'worldwide' and since china and india comprise almost 1/4 of the world's population we'd have to find out what novels are widely read/popular in those countries. I doubt they read war and peace, but I might be totally wrong!

Answer 5

Other than the Harry Potter series of books, which isn't "one" book, the consensus seems to be that the best selling novel of all time up to this point is "The DaVinci Code". Most famous though??? Hard to tell that.

Answer 6

I do not think that the Bible counts, it is not a novel. War and Peace is a good guess, maybe Les Miserables, or a famous children's book like Cat in the Hat or Grimm's Fairy Tale, or Mother Goose.

Answer 7

War and Peace. most people have never read it but almost everyone knows there is a novel that is famous called War and Peace.

Answer 8

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.




{{{ --- Ok, I'm cheeting a bit ... I've read the other answers, and since we're including Asia ... well the most popular book is probably , "Making Nuclear Weapons and long range missles for Dummies" by Einstein. --- OK, maybe not so funny, but I couldn't resist!!! --- }}}

Answer 9

So far the best selling novel of all time is the Da Vinci Code

Answer 10

Don Quixote