---

The Book List's Top Authors
Based on The 1,159 Best Books of All-Time

The Book List includes 1,159 books by 795 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	951
2		William Shakespeare	718
3		George Orwell	561
4		Gabriel Garcia Marquez	507
5		Harper Lee	494
6		Kurt Vonnegut	469
7		John Steinbeck	396
8		Vladimir Nabokov	377
9		F. Scott Fitzgerald	356
10		J.D. Salinger	356

Tie broken by number of total books on List



Top Authors by Total Number of Books

Rank	Picture	Author	Total Books
1		William Shakespeare	13
2		C.S. Lewis	13
3		Kurt Vonnegut	12
4		Stephen King	12
5		Stephen R. Donaldson	9
6		Ray Bradbury	7
7		Tom Robbins	7
8		Ten Authors Tied	6

Ties (aside from that at 8th) 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	280.50
2		J.R.R. Tolkien	190.20
3		Vladimir Nabokov	125.67
4		J.D. Salinger	118.67
5		Gabriel Garcia Marquez	101.40
6		F. Scott Fitzgerald	89.00
7		Margaret Atwood	84.50
8		Leo Tolstoy	84.50
9		Ken Kesey	79.00
10		James Joyce	77.50

Tie broken by highest-ranking single book on List



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	494	To Kill a Mockingbird
2		Joseph Heller	272	Catch-22
3		Elie Wiesel	185	Night
4		Herman Melville	184	Moby-Dick
5		Charlotte Bronte	173	Jane Eyre
6		Douglas Adams	135	The Hithchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
7		Richard Adams	130	Watership Down
8		Miguel de Cervantes	125	Don Quixote
9		William Golding	120	Lord of the Flies
10		Nathaniel Hawthorne	113	The Scarlet Letter

Author images courtesy of Wikipedia.