You’re going to love this. Once upon a time, in the far reaches of the 20th century (well, it was actually 1984), one of my clients assigned me a fundraising letter that Isaac Asimov had agreed to sign. I approached the task with some trepidation, both because I knew of asimov’s reputation as a prolific author and because I had actually met him once and knew how prickly he was (but that’s another story).
finally, i managed to get the letter written and, as instructed, i sent it to asimov’s apartment in new york via fedex. I called two days later hoping the famous man had had a chance to read my immortal prose. his wife replied. When I asked to speak to him, she said, “Oh no, he’s too busy to talk. he is writing. (well, of course! what else was the man doing?) she added that she was sure he would get back in touch with me.
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You are reading: Who has written the most books
This post was updated on February 3, 2021.
a strange experience with isaac asimov
Sure enough, the following day I received a FedEx package from Asimov. Fearfully, I extracted the draft copy—and was flabbergasted to note a signed permission slip and, miraculously, what appeared to be absolutely no changes in the text. However, when I examined the text more carefully, I noted one alteration in tiny handwritten script.
had written “as the author of more than 300 books. . .”
asimov changed that to read “as the author of over 310 books. . .”
Finally, the famous author of popular science and science fiction books wrote a total of more than 400 volumes. Is he the most prolific author, dead or alive?
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not much less.
who has written more books. . . seriously?
A widely circulated internet publication attributes that dubious honor to a certain South African writer named Mary Faulkner, who died in 1973 at the age of 70. The Guinness Book of World Records reportedly ranks her as “the most prolific novelist in history, [who] wrote under six pseudonyms.” Faulkner wrote a total of 904 books.
Writers far better known than Faulkner, including Georges Simenon, John Creasey, Barbara Cartland, and Alexandre Dumas, as well as others much more obscure, are listed below her, each credited with writing between 258 and 850 books. And the list doesn’t even include the two authors I know personally, each of whom has written more than 400 books. I’m sure there are many, many more.
but wait. even 904 novels aren’t enough.
it’s not who you think it is
Deeper investigation reveals a report that “in 2006, the guinness world records declared l. Ron Hubbard is the world’s most published and most translated author, with 1,084 works of fiction and non-fiction translated into 71 languages.”
Don’t you recognize the name of this illustrious wordsmith? he is the paranoid schizophrenic, pathological liar and fugitive from justice who founded Scientology. he died in 1986 at the age of 75 with a fortune equivalent to nearly a billion dollars today. (Hubbard is the man who famously said, “If you want to get really rich, start a new religion.” Ahem!)
a million books. . . really?
but hold your horses. Isaac Asimov, Mary Faulkner, and L. Combined Ron Hubbard doesn’t even register in the same octave as the prodigious Philip M. parker this superhuman individual, a 54-year-old professor of management sciences at insead, a premier global business school based in france, claims to have written more than a million books. (my source is that this is improbable: cheese string theory, magnetic chickens, and other wtf research, by marc abrahams).
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You read correctly. a million books, and he’s only been writing them since 2008. (however, amazon listed only 133,501 when I first checked, and a smaller number now).
professor parker’s immortal titles
here are some of professor parker’s immortal titles:
- outlook 2007-2012 for toilet brushes and toilet brush holders in the united states
- worldwide outlook 2007-2012 for rotary pumps with designed pressure of 100 psi. or less and designed capacity of 10 g.p.m. or Less
- Avocados: Medical Dictionary, Bibliography, and Annotated Research Guide
- Webster’s English to Romanian Crossword Puzzles: Level 2
- 2007-2012 outlook for golf bags in india
- the 2007 report on seats wooden toilet seat: world market segmentation by city
- 2007-2012 outlook for frozen asparagus in india
It just makes you want to run out and get a handful of these gems, doesn’t it?
well, maybe not. And especially when you learn that Professor Parker doesn’t actually write any of these books. this obviously clever man has instead written a lot of computer algorithms that do the writing for him, producing, say, at least six books on the prospects for toilet brushes.
so who is this guy?
Bianca Bosker, writing for the huffington post, reports that “Parker began by generating market reports sold to banks, consulting firms, and government trade agencies interested in sales prospects for, say, rubber or corrugated cardboard Now, he hopes to use the algorithms to help with language learning and education in developing countries Thanks to Parker’s automated radio transmissions, people in parts of Malawi are listening to weather forecasts on the local language for the first time, and as a result, they are already changing their farming patterns.” I guess maybe we can forgive the man for having polluted the literary world with all those meaningless titles.
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