Which authors have written the most words?

[montecristo]

I can't find a list of the authors that have written the most words - let's say 5M+. There are only selective lists of long books.

• Agatha Christie wrote 75 novels and a lot of other stuff, maybe 10M words.
• Brandon Sanderson must be heading for 10M words ( Reddit).
• Song of Ice and Fire is only ~2M.
• Jeffrey Archer has dozens of books, maybe 3M+ words.
• Stephen King has 5M+.
• Asimov wrote ~10M.
• R L Stine (the Goosebumps children's books) maybe 10M.
• Simenon, possibly Dumas, maybe L Ron Hubbard.

But these are nothing compared to the real big hitters. Enid Blyton wrote maybe 800 novels, but they're shortish, let's say 40M words. Barbara Cartland likewise. Others I'd never heard of, with hundreds of novels: Corin Tellado, Charles Hamilton/Frank Richards, Ryoki Inoue, Lauran Bosworth Paine, Kathleen Lindsay, Ursula Bloom, Jon Creasey, Mary Faulkner, Prentiss Ingraham, Leonard Meares.

The Harry Potter series isn't that long. Tolstoy, Tolkien, Dickens, Rowling, Galsworthy, Trollope, Proust likely all wrote 1M+ but that's not noteworthy for such a list.

Any other contenders?

Edited by montecristo on Wednesday 8th March 12:56

[droopsnoot]

Surely someone like James Patterson must be on the list somewhere, though a lot of his stuff is co-authored so maybe that doesn't count. He seems to churn books out every few minutes.

[Super Sonic]

Isaac Asimov was quite prolific.

[glazbagun]

Don't know if keeping a diary counts, but Robert Shields kept what must be an excruciating read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Shields_(diar...

"I've written 1200 poems and at least five of 'em are good."

[Digger]

There is one absentee from your list . . .


Eric Mc

[SpeckledJim]

montecristo said:

I can't find a list of the authors that have written the most words - let's say 5M+. There are only selective lists of long books.

• Agatha Christie wrote 75 novels and a lot of other stuff, maybe 10M words.
• Brandon Sanderson must be heading for 10M words ( Reddit).
• Song of Ice and Fire is only ~2M.
• Jeffrey Archer has dozens of books, maybe 3M+ words.
• Stephen King has 5M+.
• Asimov wrote ~10M.
• R L Stine (the Goosebumps children's books) maybe 10M.
• Simenon, possibly Dumas, maybe L Ron Hubbard.

But these are nothing compared to the real big hitters. Enid Blyton wrote maybe 800 novels, but they're shortish, let's say 40M words. Barbara Cartland likewise. Others I'd never heard of, with hundreds of novels: Corin Tellado, Charles Hamilton/Frank Richards, Ryoki Inoue, Lauran Bosworth Paine, Kathleen Lindsay, Ursula Bloom, Jon Creasey, Mary Faulkner, Prentiss Ingraham, Leonard Meares.

The Harry Potter series isn't that long. Tolstoy, Tolkien, Dickens, Rowling, Galsworthy, Trollope, Proust likely all wrote 1M+ but that's not noteworthy for such a list.

Any other contenders?

Edited by montecristo on Wednesday 8th March 12:56

Are these all your guesses?

[paua]

SpeckledJim said:

montecristo said:

I can't find a list of the authors that have written the most words - let's say 5M+. There are only selective lists of long books.

• Agatha Christie wrote 75 novels and a lot of other stuff, maybe 10M words.
• Brandon Sanderson must be heading for 10M words ( Reddit).
• Song of Ice and Fire is only ~2M.
• Jeffrey Archer has dozens of books, maybe 3M+ words.
• Stephen King has 5M+.
• Asimov wrote ~10M.
• R L Stine (the Goosebumps children's books) maybe 10M.
• Simenon, possibly Dumas, maybe L Ron Hubbard.

But these are nothing compared to the real big hitters. Enid Blyton wrote maybe 800 novels, but they're shortish, let's say 40M words. Barbara Cartland likewise. Others I'd never heard of, with hundreds of novels: Corin Tellado, Charles Hamilton/Frank Richards, Ryoki Inoue, Lauran Bosworth Paine, Kathleen Lindsay, Ursula Bloom, Jon Creasey, Mary Faulkner, Prentiss Ingraham, Leonard Meares.

The Harry Potter series isn't that long. Tolstoy, Tolkien, Dickens, Rowling, Galsworthy, Trollope, Proust likely all wrote 1M+ but that's not noteworthy for such a list.

Any other contenders?

Edited by montecristo on Wednesday 8th March 12:56

Are these all your guesses?

Indeed, how about showing some workings behind the numbers claimed.

A quick google suggests a novel has around 300 words/ page. James Michener wrote more than 40 books - many of them long ( Texas has 1076 pages, so maybe 322,800 words.
Fag packet calc: assume his ave book had 200000 (not all were Texas big) words x (more than ) 40 books = 8m words +

Wilbur Smith was quite prolific. Plenty more authors to choose from.

[realjv]

How about 100m words under ~25 different pen names - Charles Hamilton, take a bow.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20171010-the-g...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hamilton_(wr...

[paulrockliffe]

paua said:

Wilbur Smith was quite prolific.

Listened to the entire Courtney series one after the other on Audible in 2021, took me pretty much the whole year to get through 400 years of African History!

[anonymous-user]

I’d guess it’s someone like Nora Roberts, Sue Grafton et al, not particularly challenging to write or read but Roberts appears to have just churned them out five to six times a year for a decade or two

[Roofless Toothless]

Since this is a guessing game, I think you are seriously underestimating Dickens. As well as the established canon of novels, he also wrote no end of short stories, novellas, journalism and letters, all of which put together I would estimate easily equal the word count of his novels. This material was all published, much after his lifetime admittedly, but i have it all on my bookshelves, and what's more I have read it!

[V8RAW]

1. L. Ron Hubbard: With over 1,000 published works and an estimated 200 million words written.
2. Isaac Asimov: known for his science fiction works, but he also wrote extensively on a wide range of topics, including history, astronomy, and mathematics. He published more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards, which adds up to millions of words.
3. Barbara Cartland: who published over 700 books. She reportedly wrote 23 novels in one year alone, and her books have been translated into 38 languages.
4. William Shakespeare: In total, his works are estimated to contain around 884,000 words.


+ many more authors out there with big word counts.

[Lo-Fi]

I imagine Dean Koontz would appear high up on this list. Even he has forgotten just how many pseudonyms he's used.

[DodgyGeezer]

V8RAW said:

1. L. Ron Hubbard: With over 1,000 published works and an estimated 200 million words written.
2. Isaac Asimov: known for his science fiction works, but he also wrote extensively on a wide range of topics, including history, astronomy, and mathematics. He published more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards, which adds up to millions of words.
3. Barbara Cartland: who published over 700 books. She reportedly wrote 23 novels in one year alone, and her books have been translated into 38 languages.
4. William Shakespeare: In total, his works are estimated to contain around 884,000 words.


+ many more authors out there with big word counts.

Babs Cartland would have been one of my guesses - probably THE guess.

In terms of most successful character I suspect you'd have to go some to beat Perry Rhodan - though written by many different authors