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The Book List's Top Authors
Based on The 1,276 Best Books of All-Time
The Book List includes 1,276 books by 879 authors. Below is a brief analysis of the best of those
authors, ranked by both breadth and depth of their respective canons...
Most Aggregate Points
Most Total Books
Best Quality per Book
One-Hit Wonders
Top Authors by Aggregate Points
Rank | Picture | Author | Aggregate Points |
1 |  | J.R.R. Tolkien | 1043 |
2 |  | William Shakespeare | 743 |
3 |  | George Orwell | 619 |
4 |  | Harper Lee | 611 |
5 |  | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | 552 |
6 |  | John Steinbeck | 478 |
7 |  | Kurt Vonnegut | 469 |
8 |  | Charles Dickens | 436 |
9 |  | F. Scott Fitzgerald | 415 |
10 |  | J.D. Salinger | 404 |
Top Authors by Total Number of Books
Rank | Picture | Author | Total Books |
1 |  | William Shakespeare | 14 |
2 |  | C.S. Lewis | 13 |
3 |  | Kurt Vonnegut | 12 |
4 |  | Stephen King | 12 |
5 |  | Stephen R. Donaldson | 9 |
6 |  | Ray Bradbury | 7 |
7 |  | Isaac Asimov | 7 |
8 |  | Tom Robbins | 7 |
9 |  | Nine Authors Tied | 6 |
Tie broken by number of aggregate points on List
Top Authors by Highest Quality per Book
(Requires at least two books on List)
Rank | Picture | Author | Points per Book |
1 |  | George Orwell | 309.50 |
2 |  | J.R.R. Tolkien | 208.60 |
3 |  | J.D. Salinger | 134.67 |
4 |  | Vladimir Nabokov | 125.67 |
5 |  | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | 110.40 |
6 |  | F. Scott Fitzgerald | 103.75 |
7 |  | Homer | 102.00 |
8 |  | Leo Tolstoy | 101.00 |
9 |  | Ken Kesey | 91.00 |
10 |  | James Joyce | 89.25 |
Top "One-Hit Wonder" Authors
(Most points per book - requires exactly one book on List)
Rank | Picture | Author | Points per Book | Book |
1 |  | Harper Lee | 611 | To Kill a Mockingbird |
2 |  | Joseph Heller | 295 | Catch-22 |
3 |  | Herman Melville | 230 | Moby-Dick |
4 |  | Charlotte Bronte | 219 | Jane Eyre |
5 |  | Elie Wiesel | 218 | Night |
6 |  | Emily Bronte | 196 | Wuthering Heights |
7 |  | Richard Adams | 174 | Watership Down |
8 |  | Miguel de Cervantes | 165 | Don Quixote |
9 |  | Nathaniel Hawthorne | 149 | The Scarlet Letter |
10 |  | William Golding | 144 | Lord of the Flies |
Author images courtesy of Wikipedia.