The Bible – The Best Selling Book

1900

In this year of census taking it is natural that statistics of all kinds should possess a peculiar interest. Among other things, people are always desirous of knowing what books are meeting with the greatest sales at any given time. There are always half a dozen, more or less, popular books which for the time being are most prominent in the public eye. It is not surprising to have one of these run into editions of hundreds of thousands.

Inquiry in the book department of one of the biggest retail stores, however, reveals a somewhat surprising condition, for while there have been 6,000 copies of a popular work of fiction sold within a given time there had been between 16,000 and 18,000 Bibles disposed of during the same period. According to the manager of this department the case is by no means exceptional. In fact if statistics were to be gathered later in the season a disparity in the favor of the Bible and religious books would be much larger.

There are other books which bear reprint year after year, notably those of Dickens, Scott, Shakespeare and other immortal authors, but no book has ever been written which bears constant reprinting in so many forms and during so many seasons as the Word of God, which today probably possesses a stronger hold upon the human race than it has ever had before.

—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 6.